- What is your blog about?
- Who are you?
- Why should we trust you?
These are 3 questions your blog should answer within the first 5 seconds of a visitor’s arrival by its design and content.
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16 Comments
Thanks for your videocast. I guess I need to check design of my blogs.
Great video, I assume that you prepare in advance, personally I would appreciate a transcript if possible.
Greg, I did prepare in advance: I wrote the 3 questions down! That’s it.
I hadn’t considered transcripts. I don’t think I want to put that much work into it after already doing the video! Remember one of the concerns of a business blogger is return on time invested. I’ve got to get a post done and move on. I think there is good value in providing more thorough notes to accompany the video without taking too long on a single post, but not a transcript.
Wow, pretty cool, you da’man. Thinking on your feet like that. Color me impressed.
I understand the need to control the time invested, just thought I would ask. Man you do that without notes?! Good on you!
Thanks, that’s what seven years of teaching corporate computer classes will do for you!
Even with the editing time, you can see why I prefer video for some topics. Writing (especially writing well) takes too long for something I can just riff on for 8 or 9 minutes.
One thing I want to start doing is providing audio versions of some posts. I’m aiming for freelancers and solo entrepreneurs, mostly, but business people tend to multitask even if they don’t have a commute, so I think audio would be nice.
I vote for an audio option. I listen to podcasts daily.
Greg, vote tallied and noted!
Michael - Awesome video! Now I am wondering if my blog header color/font/images is conveying what I wanted it to convey. Slap me on the head I don’t have a contact page. Each post has all my contact information in it but it really wouldn’t hurt me to put up a contact me page. Sometimes we overlook the obvious. - Ashley
@Ashley: You definitely want a contact page! I see a couple potential improvements in your header. The intense red color causes people to miss the navigation bar beneath it. Get a nice photo collage up there, not as tall, put real text in it (for SEO purposes, at h1), and make your navigation bar red with white text. The font in your header doesn’t make you look as professional as you might like.
Michael - All very good points! I know not one person has hit my search from my blog. They do hit the links in the posts and go to my main site to search but I was wondering why no one was doing it from the blog.
I like the red background though. I have thought about making the nav bar black as I have on my main site and use white fonts. I think that would show up more what do you think?
The size of the banner, I agree!!! I have always thought it to be too large. I just created it to “fit” into the existing theme banner spot. When I did it I had no idea how to change the basic theme. So that is something I need to go back and work on.
My H1 tag is “Albuquerque NM Real Estate”. I am using “text-indent: -500em” so it doesn’t overlay on the banner.
The font has been a source of serious internal debate. My thought was something fun and retro to balance the uptightness of 15 market reports a month. I don’t know that it is doing what I want. At this point I don’t have a thought on what to do with it.
Of course the contact page. I don’t know how I missed such a basic element. My bad!
Ashley
Making the navbar black would help if you want to keep the background red. Good job with the off-page h1, that’s a good compromise. Your blog doesn’t seem uptight to me at all, but it has to do with your content more than the header font.
Michael - It is always good to hear how my blog is being perceived by someone who isn’t close to it like I am. I need a new font now and I don’t care to admit how long I spent picking the current one
- Ashley
That’s great to hear, Ashely, I’m sure you will be glad afterwards. Make sure you try a couple different ideas and run them by a few people who have better-than-average design sense to get their reactions.
Thanks for stating these questions. I see my blog doesn’t answer any of them well. I haven’t even decided what my blog is about.. Now this is just a personal blog but I see now I’ll have to decide anyway.
Hi Michael, wanted to let you know something — true confessions time. I never listen to your podcasts or watch your videos. I’m sure I’m missing out on some fab. information.
If you had transcripts of them, I would read them.
Just a heads up from one of your readers. Perhaps I’m unusual?
@Elaine - You’re unusual. Now you know.
I’m kidding, of course. But I think addressing the reasons for using multimedia even when not everyone will like it is a good idea for a post.
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