Have you seen that I've started handing out gold stars? This blog series I'm calling "Craig's Clicks". If you want to go back and see previous posts, that link will list them for you. I'm featuring blogs three at a time in these different categories: blog theme, blog profile, and blog signature.
The purpose of the series is to find good examples that inspire us for ideas on our own blogs. I'm clicking around ActiveRain as much as I have time to and if I see something that I like, I'll mark the click with a gold star in my book. Once I've gathered three, I'll post the features.
I'm looking at the presentation of you in the virtual world. If your presentation is attractive to the eye, engaging, tells a concise story about you to someone who has never met or seen you before then you will get my attention too.
These next three stars are also going out based on the blog theme (appearance). I'm looking specifically at blog banner and background image or color.
(These settings, by the way, are editable if you go to My Home > Activerain - Customize) I will soon be writing how-to articles on the topic, but for now we are looking for inspiration based on a job well done (and that we can learn from) The next three stars go to...
Charita Cadenhead
Charita has an interesting banner. Besides her portrait and her company
name, she has all of her own contact information. Want to contact Charita?
It is easy to find how. The background of the banner is also well done in
the dynamic radial lines coming from the company name. She also uses an
illustration of a house and not a photo - different and interesting. The
background color of the page is complementary to the theme. Notice also that
the top menu bar has a different from standard color and matches her theme.
This also is controllable by you when you setup your blog page theme. Good
job Charita! (wow gold stars and winning iPads all in one week, must be
nice!)
Sam DeBord
Sam's banner image serves as a nice foundation to the "what" question about
him. What is one thing he specializes in... waterfront. The text in the
banner also lists his specialties. It shows his name and number and also his
website reference. Good combination of not too much information but just the
right amount. Also what caught my eye is his background. Notice the darker
shade of blue AND on the left side is a subtle watermarked kind of image.
Notice subtle is key. It doesn't repeat over and over and over like you see
on some blogs. Remember the background is not the focus for the reader the
content of the blog IS. (PS - in order to not have the repeat, repeat,
repeat tiled image effect you need to choose a background image that has
sufficient width and height in pixels so that it covers the complete
"canvas" of the page - I'll try and blog about that in more detail soon)
update: you'll notice that Sam's menu bar is black and the menu text is black. The result is that the menu functions become invisible. I suppose it could be argued that this keeps a consumer (who found you on AR via google) on your specific pages. Whether or not Sam intended that we might have to see if he wants to comment on that or not. I have mixed opinions about doing that by intention and I would weight towards always being able to read the menu.
Mike Leibel
Mike has similar good points as Sam does above. He uses a wide enough
background image that does not cause the dizzying repeat pattern. His banner
graphic is a good balance of not too much text and not too little text (some
banners I see have NO text). He shows his phone number and website, his
tagline and his company graphic on top of a very nice panoramic shot of his
city.
Well there you have my next three "Craig's Clicks" gold stars in featuring blog themes.
Stay tuned for future posts where I will teach you how to do some of the things that we see here.
PS - meanwhile you may want to check out www.bannerfans.com -- Joel Kruse on AR wrote this post on how to use it. Keep in mind that you will want a custom sized banner of 960x130.
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