My last post referred to making new buttons for some blogs that I noticed that had gotten facelifts. Makeovers. New ‘do’s. However you want to say it.
One of those blogs belongs to PixelRN. A web designer in her previous life, she did a great job redesigning her blog. She explains how she did it in this post. She should put out a shingle, maybe redesign the sites for a few other bloggers, don’t you think? (hint/wink/hint) :)
Another post she did was about RSS feeds, and it is also very well done. If you are a blogger, you really really really need to know about RSS. For me personally, it doesn’t matter how good your blog is… If I can’t subscribe to your blog to read in Google Reader, I’m probably not going to read it. There’s another side to that. You can choose how much of your post shows up in a reader. Some bloggers make their entire posts available to be read, and some only allow a few sentences to show, thereby requiring the reader to click on “read more of this post” in order to read the rest of it. This also drives me nuts. I realize that we all like to have our stat counts be nice and high, but I almost never click through unless the first few sentences really grab my attention. That is not always easy to do!
(Addendum: Although Rebirth only provides partial feeds in Google Reader, I always faithfully click and read her entire posts. Because she rocks. And I don’t want her to stop blogging, as she has recently threatened to do.)




Comments
I am so with you on the “partial feed” thing. I almost never click through to read the whole post. People need to rethink the whole stats issue. Think “subscribers” not “stats.”
Maybe i will give you a makeover (not that you need one) It would be fun! We can do before and after pics.
And THANKS for the new button – looks great!
added by Beth on 01.08.08 2:21 pm | Permalink
Hi, Geena. I was originally inspired to learn buttons from you. Your blog is like the Taj Mahal of blogs to me. Last year I saw Annika Tiede’s web insurance policy and therein were instructions on how to link a button. Very cool. I just read your post last night and took your advice, I signed up for feedburner. I hope I did it right, and I hope it didn’t mess up anybody who might have already been receiving a feed from atom. I don’t know what Atom is, but feedburner was pretty self explanatory. Last year I had never read a blog before, and found Beth’s linked to Moreena’s and the post “liver land” gave me the idea to create a blog wherein to vent, and remove my liver from the dinner table discussion and into a place I could escape it or wallow in it. Thanks for everything. You are a good teacher. And your boy is growing like a weed.
added by Bobby on 01.13.08 3:01 pm | Permalink
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