Easy changes to upgrade your blog! | NEW BLOG LAYOUT!

We were in Ohio last weekend and on the drive back I listened to Michael Hyatt's podcast entitled "10 Ways to Generate More Blog Traffic."  And it INSPIRED ME!

Following some of his tips from his podcast I've redone the layout of the blog.  

RIGHT COLUMN

I've added a right column to the layout which I did not have before.  

In the right column I have added...

- a search bar

- two ways to subscribe

- I moved our twitter updates to the right column from the bottom 

- And added popular posts (does anyone know how i can make those thumbnails not distorted?) 

COMMENTS 

I've switched the comments to using DISQUS.  Which Michael Hyatt recommended.  

Commenting using bloggers native commenting was a pain in the butt.  I like DISQUS better already, and it easily imported all of my old comments from blogger.  

I added LINK WITHIN at the bottom of every post.  This along with the POPULAR POSTS widget on the right column should keep people exploring the blog more than usual.  

I added an ADD THIS widget which will allow people to share each post easier.  

I made the blog home page display 5 posts instead of just 1 like before.  And I added a new header image and made the background match the header image.  

I'm sure there will be some more changes coming as well.  But thats enough for today.  

Leave a COMMENT for me to test out DISQUS and let me know what you think of the changes!  Are you happy with your current blog layout?  What changes would you like to make to yours?  What blogs have you seen that have the best navigable layout?  

jim baker

02.09.10 - another early morning and some side notes

saw this in a gift store, shot with my iphone

After talking to some people back here, I'm not convinced that I really had malaria... I've heard that there is an incubation period and the doctor there diagnosed me with malaria only after being in Africa for a few days. I do know however I felt like I was the sickest I've ever been, I think it was just the food.

fried tilapia - taken with iphone

While I was in Kenya my facebook got hacked. Someone logged in as me and used chat to tell people I had been mugged in London and needed money transfered immediately. The sad thing is that it seemed a bit more believable because I had just been through the London Heathrow Airport to get to Nairobi. I've heard from a few people that were contacted by this hacker and luckily they realized it wasn't me and didn't wire him the $1,500 he was asking for.

So facebook deactivated my account and I'm now in the process of starting a new one. I've got about a tenth of my friends back. It stinks to be starting over from scratch but whatever. If you've got facebook and we're not friends I THINK this link should take you to my profile.

You can read more about this scam here. I'm still trying to figure out how I got hacked or phished or whatever it's called. I haven't figured it out. I am however glad that my password for the e-mail account I use with facebook is different than my password for facebook otherwise the cyber criminal could have taken over my e-mail account as well.

In other news... Robert Park has been released... you can read that article here.

Anyway... no one ever told me if you like the changes that I made to the blog layout... Are you enjoying the twitter feed on the blog? Is it okay to only see the most recent post and have to navigate from there? Leave me comments and let me know what you think.

Sorry if you were waiting for a more detailed Africa post... patience :)

JIM baker

12.31.09 - how to change your blog layout

A screen shot of what the old layout looked like...
(yes its off center, thats what happenes when the picture is to big for your layout)

A few people have asked how I changed my layout so here's what I did.

Pranne Loffer gave me this link this past summer after I asked her the same question.

For the new layout I'm using 900px as my outer wrapper and 900px as my main wrapper with no sidebar. Just mess with all of those numbers and see what each one does and see what you like.

Hope that helps? If not feel free to ask more questions and I will do what I can.

I changed the comment section so everyone should be able to comment now too. (you should try it out!)

Happy New Year!
JIM baker