WordPress Howto Spotter » Web Design

How Much Should You Pay For Web Design?

Alex Sysoef — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:14:02 +0000

Web design is free.

Really! Just head over to WordPress.org, install the content management system in your domain, and upload a free theme. Done.

But will that free theme really give you the aesthetic appeal you were going for? Can you really tweak the code so that everything looks just right? So that your design doesn’t look like anybody else’s? Probably not.

If you want a great-looking site, you’ll probably have to pay for it. And while the prospect of paying for custom Web design strikes fear in the heart of many a small business owner, paying a premium for a site that helps grow your business could be one of the best investments you ever make.

Consider your audience.

When it comes to Web design, your target audience is your primary focus.

Who are they? What message are you trying to send them? What do you want them to think about your business? How should they feel when they arrive at your site?

Remember: These are the people who you ultimately hope will buy from you, hire you, or somehow or another become a customer or client. If you think a free template is enough to demonstrate your professionalism to this valuable cohort, fine.

But if you think they deserve better, it may be time to go the extra mile to distinguish yourself from the competition.

After all, the appearance of your Website is a reflection of your business. It represents you to your target audience.

And do you really want to look… cheap?

Create a budget.

When you’ve decided your future customers deserve to see something better than what you’re showing them now, determine how much you can reasonably spend on Web design.

For independent consultants and freelancers, several professional-looking WordPress themes are available for less than $100. The premium theme marketplace offers a great way for small, cash-strapped operations to get a great-looking blog at a bargain price. Sure, there will be others out there with the same theme, but the robust customization options offered by premium themes will help you make the design your own.

On the other hand, many small businesses have large budgets. If you find that you have the means to accommodate a custom design, the price you ought to pay has everything to do with how you feel your business ought to appear to the world.

Don’t skimp.

Do you want a beautiful Website that wows everyone who sees it? That’s simple to navigate? That’s an absolute joy to experience? If you have the budget for a site like that, don’t wait around – hire a designer.

Otherwise, you’ll be just another company that’s too cheap to invest in a better site. And everyone will know it.

Web design, of course, isn’t an expense. It’s an investment in your business. It’s an insurance policy against poor first impressions. It’s how you make your brand shine before the world.

It’s how you turn Web traffic into dollars.

So, how much should you pay for Web design? A better question, perhaps, is how little money shouldn’t you pay.

After all, Web designers whose work brings you great results are worth their weight in gold.

About the Author:

Adam Green writes about e-commerce, online business, and fraud detection. He believes a good Web designer is invaluable.

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Top 13 Reasons Why An Artist Should Blog…!

Alex Sysoef — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:06:58 +0000

Blogging today has become a major tool for communication to the world via internet. Blogging plays major role in developing ones skills and connecting an individual to the world. This new communication weapon helps now to judge the demand of the market. The creativity of an artist is an absolute soul of its work and inner self.

This necessitates the concern of blogging for an artist. Blogging can help an artist meet other artist and share new ideas and challenges in field they share. This can develop solid character and understanding over issues. More to it following are some concrete steps as to why an artist needs to blog.

1. Blog gives you a professional and accessible presence on web

The blogs created by artist are not regular blogs, but are a presentation of their work. It’s a truth that google and other search engines today love blogs. A blog made by an artist is modified by him himself in the way he loves things to be putted there. Blog actually is used to portrait one’s professional skills and the creativity of an individual’s within. The blog can be used by artist to sell his works and can even establish an online shop. The users can easily access the artist and it can provide a communication medium for the two.

2. Blogs help you build connection and relation

With such development of internet, blogging today helps artist connect with people and put forward himself and his works. For every artist, meeting new people, creating new ideas is all what matters. Thus blogging helps them connect with buyers.

3. It measure of development over a course of time

An important aspect of blogging – An Artist blog can judge his professional development and the popularity he gained within a limited period of time. Starting a blog doesn’t mean that you are very good at it. It develops over a period of time and finally you end up being a professional. Sometimes it gets interesting for an artist to go through his old memories through his blog posts and compare the situation then and now. Blog works as a scrapbook that includes all his works and interesting script he wrote.

4. Blog can be used to explain your art

The blog can be used to explain the quality of your work and kind of art you make. This can help an artist building up market for his work and as well as interacting with fans. The artist has an option of explaining the arts in most creative manner he can.

5. Expressing oneself through blog

The blog can be used by artist to express himself on issues that world is facing other than his artwork. The artist can have full freedom on what he writes and can express his disagreement and agreement over issues. It even allows him to comment over things that surround or which he feels is not being done correctly. Even more this will allow him to keep his point and clear any doubt in clients mind.

6. Educating through blogs

The artist can use blogs as a medium for teaching people. This can help in development of society and improvement of social strata. The person who wants to teach can teach people about different aspects and make them understand the art. There are people who want to study different aspect of art and don’t find a right teacher for it. This is where a blog can help. For the beginners, an artist blog has modern way to get their lessons done.

7. Develops character

Strong character is something that all artists want. A blog build up a platform that plays a major role in development of an artist from amateur to professional. An artist blog basically makes an artist more mature and changes his character, as he gets the feedback of his followers who make him realize, what they think of him and his performances. Patience in an artist is a part that is indispensable. It builds up solid character and helps in understanding the real life situations (success and downfalls of an artist) in a better way. This is what is responsible for development over a period of time and enhances ones growth. It even helps building up a platform to fight inner self and rise to the occasion.

8. Develops your endurance level

Creating a blog is not everybody’s cup of tea. It demands proper understanding of how it is to be done and experience to take it forward. This helps an artist build up his endurance level and patience.

9. Critics and cyber journalist attacks

The blogs let you enter a world that is full of cyber journalist who strongly criticizes all the new development in the cyber world. This allows you to face the new generation their demands and their understanding of things. Even when a blog criticized it gives a chance to understand what went wrong and where and help you improve things that can help in his development process.

10. Publicity of the artist

Blogging provides a publicity that is in no means less than what you get while you to advertising companies for getting yourself publicized. The blog is something that an artist can cherish all his life, till the time he decides to take care of it. Thus a blog can play an integral part in such process. The work can easily be publicized on the blog, where it can be viewed by users and become a part of google searches. For publicity it is very important for a blogger to maintain and update his blog, as this attracts users, for they come to know every current happening of your life. If you are updating your blog time to time, this shows more aspect of your personality, Responsibility towards your users, meaning ultimately a publicity aspect.

11. Good for business purpose

Every person that works wants to earn to sustain himself and his family. An artist biggest earning comes from the auction of his works. This is beneficial from business point of view. The artist can even entertain advertisement on his blog that can fetch him some money.

12. Builds help self confidence

When the blog built up by an artist is completed, it gives him a lot amount of self confidence and allows him to have a firm believe that what he created is a wonderful creation. This helps him realize his true potential and removes his misconception about his talent. This gives him confidence that he is one of the best in his field and this is enough for his development process. This built up of self confidence help the artist to attain maturity in his work and responsibility toward things which are of great value.

13. Motivates and inspiring

This attribute of blogging is very important as it can play a role that no other things can play. This acts like an inspiration for an artist to take a new start with his work. Users consider an artist as an icon for them and hence his work acts as an inspiration for them. This can motivate him work regularly and with more enthusiasm. This creates a word of good in artist mind that his work is being appreciated. Users positive feedbacks sometimes are inspirational for an artist

The above stated are various practical reasons that justifies the need for an artist to use blog for portraying their works and it can act as a medium for interaction to a new world. Fame is the food for an artist and in this digital phase, this food has a new supplier aka blog.

About the author: Claudia is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology and luxury. Beside this she is fond of gadgets. Recently an article on hybrid cars attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on lotus evora.

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Is Your Website Really A Useable one..! Learn Some Tips To Make It Now

Alex Sysoef — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:07:57 +0000

If you really want to excel in the world of the web then you need to create something outstanding. Being an owner of a website makes sure that, your website is reader friendly. Above all, two important things that you should remember are usability and experience of the web. You should endeavor to create something mind blowing that would make you stand above the crowd. Always try to keep the site as simple as possible so that people need not to strive a lot after your site. You should curate your website in various possible ways. In order to make your website the coolest one try out several web design tools present out in the net. At length when you come across those tools you might be flustered to select the best one.

Here are some best web usability tools and try them out for sure.

Intuition HQ: It is really the best one it makes you to program certain tasks and inserts different types of screenshots. You can also use various ways to design your page in via Heatmap. Moreover; it enriches the information content of your website. Undoubtedly, this is the cheapest and fastest tool ever launched in the market.
Go to meeting: It is same as that of the skype and is well reputed for its user-friendly approach. It has an awesome capability to provide faster communication without any intervention.
Ethnio: It enables you to reciprocate with the viewers who are visiting your websites frequently. It is an excellent opportunity for you to mail or call your users at ease. Really, this unparallel creative tool has made a benchmark in the web industry.
Feedback army: If you are an owner of a website then make sure to get some feedbacks regarding your site. Try to check out the feedback army for sure. This would definitely give rocking results. It enables to post questions regarding your website and get responses from the critics.
Loop 11: One of the newest technologies that enable you to create tasks. It also represents the result of the report. You would be more delighted to get these in the form of annual license.
Usabilla: This is one of the best tools, which permit you to curate tasks and publish it to the user for feedback. In fact, it also enables the user to post comments on the screenshots. In the meantime, you can also participate in the process.
Navflow: It enables you to upload some screenshots consecutively .You can also get good feedbacks as soon as they are published.
Userlytics: It mainly keeps track of the participants. It records the videos of the users in a timely fashion and tracks everything whatever they are doing on the site.
Openhighway: It is again one of the rocking one that keeps track whatever the user is doing on your site. They are cool enough to upload your video online.

Well guys you should check out these designer tools for sure to get some cool results. The tools are really user friendly and funky type. They would definitely make your site probably the most searchable one among the pan users. While sauntering down the sites people would definitely rank yours as the best one.

About the author: Claudia is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on luxury and technology. She recently read an article on iPhone accessories that attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on fender guitar.

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15 Ways To Improve Your Website In 15 Minutes

dimchik — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 13:02:02 +0000

Does your website need a makeover? These tips can help you get it in optimal working order in no time.

Organize Navigation

If visitors don’t have a quick, easy way to find what they’re looking for when they come to your site, they’re not going to stick around. Make sure they can navigate with a minimum of hassle.

Fix Your Links

Good navigation is useless if the links don’t lead where they’re supposed to. Every time you update or add a link, test it to make sure it behaves the way it should.

Fix or Add Page Titles

Website pages have content, so make sure the heading in the browser title bar reflects that. Don’t leave your homepage titled simply “Hompage;” put your site or business name there instead.

Clean Up the Header

A cluttered or jumbled header can turn visitors off before they even glance at the rest of the site. Streamline your header text and images in order to make the best first impression possible.

Cut Down on Graphics

The days of using animated GIFs to catch people’s attention are over. Simplify your site by removing unnecessary graphics and images. This will give the site a cleaner look and allow for faster loading on slower connections.

Consolidate Information

People who browse the Internet tend to skim rather than read. Organizing your site’s information into shorter paragraphs and bulleted lists under bold headers assures that visitors won’t miss something important.

Consider Columns

Many sites now use column layouts to divide site content and navigation links. These layouts look cleaner and are easier to browse than straight pages of text.

Switch to Style Sheets

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) offer much more in the way of style customization than HTML. With CSS you can make small tweaks or site-wide style changes from one place rather than having to individually update each page.

Add a Bio

First-time visitors may not know who you are or what your site is about, especially if they navigated in from a search engine. Having a prominent “About Us” page gives them a quick way to find out if your site has what they’re looking for.

Add a Contact Form

Providing only your e-mail address is an invitation for spam. A formal contact form gives visitors an easy way to get in touch with you. Your web hosting service may offer a form building tool to make this easier.

Add an FAQ

To make sure visitors don’t inundate your e-mail with common questions, add a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section to address the most likely concerns that may pop up while browsing your site.

Update Your Blog

New blog posts are the fastest way to add dynamic content to your site, which in turn can signal search engine robots to crawl it. This works to improve visibility and draw new people to your site.

Assure Security

When selling merchandise or offering any kind of members-only services, make sure that your security certificate is up-to-date. An expired certificate can turn away potential customers.

Check Your Work

After making any changes, it’s important to do a test view of your site in common browsers and at common screen resolutions, since these can affect how your site displays to visitors. Free web developer tools are available to help with this step.

Assure Hosting Reliability

In order for people to see your site, it needs to be up and running as much as possible. Make sure you have reliable web hosting with enough bandwidth to support maximum uptime for the size and type of site that you run. Check out some web hosting comparison to be sure that you are getting quality service.

Author’s bio:

Rebecca Wright has a knack for details on web hosting and anything about it. She works full time for one of the country’s provider of best web hosting for small business.

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9 Essential Principles of Blog Design

Alex Sysoef — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 21:57:41 +0000

In recent years, blogs have become a popular way for people to share their interests and lives with others; whether they feel like sharing what they had for lunch or reviewing a movie they just watched, there is sure to be an audience who reads it. But a blog is more than just words. In order to truly be successful, the blog should also practice good design.

Consistency
Consistency is something that cannot be dismissed. If the blogger has chosen to go with a certain font for the text, then they should not change it from entry to entry. Not only does this appear unattractive, but should the blog be for a company, it can show lack of professionalism.

Good Navigation
It should be easy for any visitor to navigate their way through the blog. Although dipping into one’s creativity and imagination is never a bad thing, if nobody can figure out where the links are that spells trouble. Everything should be clear and obvious about their location.

Space
There is little reason to be afraid of white space; this refers to the extra space that is not being used in some way by the blog. It does not need to be filled up with content. In fact, too much content can overwhelm a person, no matter who they are. With pictures and text all over the place, the eye will not know where to go. Keeping everything in one area, while leaving the extra space alone, conveys style, thoughtfulness and professionalism.

Functionality
A blog should be more than something that is pretty to look at. No matter what layout one may go with, it is important to think about why somebody would go there; and with that in mind, it should be easy for them to find what they want. Keeping in mind the previous principle of keeping the blog navigation friendly, it is also essential to understand the habits of the visitors. Where would they want to go first? What might they be looking for? Adding a search engine, if possible, is one solution for the idea.

Avoid Noise
Music should never begin to play as soon as people click on the link to the blog. Not only does it prove to be distracting, but some people visit these sites in public places, and may not appreciate the sudden noise. If music is an absolute must, the blogger should make it so that the blog guest can activate it themselves.

Accessibility
Nobody should be forced to read a message or watch a video before they can truly access the front page of the blog. Unless for an emergency that one does not want people to miss, this is seen as obnoxious and a waste of time for many. If this is done, people will quickly grow impatient and choose to spend their time online somewhere else.

Avoid Distracting Images
Animated images are not something that should be included in the layout of the blog; whether wishing to use one or a dozen, whether they are big or small, these can prove to be distracting and thus are not encouraged.

Interaction
Anyone who comes by should be allowed to comment on blog entries. This may seem like something that should be standard, but some blog owners opt to keep people from sharing their opinions. If one wants to maintain attractive blog design and help others feel included, comment enabling is something to consider.

Reliable Hosting
Finally, a web hosting site that will provide reliable hosting for the blog should be chosen. There are many cheap web hosting sites out there to fit any budget, and there will be little need to worry that the blog will experience a lot of down time.

Author’s Bio:
Rebecca Wright has a knack for details on website hosting and anything about it. She works full time as a Senior Web Copywriter for one of the country’s leading provider of web hosting reviews.

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Keep Your Blog in Tip Top Shape

Alex Sysoef — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:15:49 +0000

This post brought to you by the letter “D” and the number “7″. D is for Dan who’s an almost thirty web developer and blogger hailing from the Great North and 7 for the number of paragraphs you will be subjected you to.

Let’s face it… all the stuff you heard about setting up your own website being difficult was not true. Most blog owners are not tech-savvy people and everyone including your grandmother has a website now. My websites have evolved over time and transitioned through various blogging platforms giving me a taste of what options everyone has when they choose to put up a site. One of the things I’ve learned is that while it’s nice to have all the newest and coolest widgets, plugins and advertisements on your website you have to keep in mind that the more fancy things you add the more that has to load for every viewer who comes to visit. The key thing to having a website is to keep it running smoothly and provide readers with a pleasant experience.

For every widget that you add to your website you are adding one more call to an external website every time your page loads. You must also remember that if one of these external websites is experiencing problems it will directly affect the loading time of your own website. A perfect example of this would be any blogger who uses a twitter plugin to display their tweets or whatever they’re called (I do not use twitter). I do know however that the twitter website experiences above average downtime.

I placed twitter on a client’s website and he then asked why his website would no longer load and sure enough the broken website corresponded with a twitter “maintenance” message on their website. Removing the plugin brought back the website. Now

if you have 15 plugins on your website all relying on similar connections it can drastically slow down your website.

A great tool for evaluating your website’s loading speed is gomez. Gomez will measure the number of connections your website makes and using a bar graph it will show you how long each connection lasted. If you are experiencing weird load times or partial loads drop your URL into the form and choose a city to run the test from and let it do its magic.

If you are a blogger then you most likely surf social networks and read other blogs. Put yourself in a reader’s perspective when looking at your own website. Think about the things that bother you when you read other sites and see if you can spot them on your own. I’m sure you’ve all come across sites that partially load, or crawl to the screen in bits and pieces. In most cases you’ve either finished the article before the site finishes loading or move on to the next because it took too long.

Keeping your readers on your site is important and with the speed of the internet you only have a few seconds to make that impression so keep your content free from clutter. The first thing people see when they arrive on your page is your site and its content. Advertisements should blend in with their surroundings. Avoid tricking your readers into clicking ads. It is sneaky and only interferes with a nice seamless browsing experience.

In my opinion the last thing you should keep in mind is to be personal. I know for me at least as a blogger and reader, sites that give off a feeling that somebody is behind the wheel makes me feel more comfortable. Too many people put their sites on auto-pilot. If you are going to take the time to read someone’s blog the least they can do is acknowledge and reply. Make sure you install subscribe-to-comments which enables yor readers to be notified after they’ve left their opinion and gone home. With so many sites out there its hard to keep track of everything you comment on and having a reminder emailed is a great touch in retaining your readers.

Return to the sites you’ve visited and continue to comment. It is the bain of your existence as a web surfer and will keep people coming back for more. Refer to Alex’s Commentluv post for a great tutorial on commenting techniques.

Serial-Box has been Dan’s stomping ground and online home for nearly two years. It began with his obsession for true crime and grew into something more. Some of the notable topics discussed are the wrongful convictions of innocent people, men and women who’ve been sentenced to life imprisonment or death for crimes they didn’t commit. He is a web developer located in Toronto, Canada and spends his free time glued to his laptop and always learning new things. He won’t stop until he hits the end of the internet.

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Blog Templates For WordPress Review

Alex Sysoef — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:09:13 +0000

Web design for WordPress always comes down to evaluating which Blog Templates (or what is commonly knows WordPress Themes) fit your needs the most! This review of available options for choosing best blog template for your WordPress will concentrate not only on their visual appeal (web design factor) but also functionality!

WordPress is a dynamic by nature and any web designer failing to also properly integrate functionality – falling short of the target and minimizes benefits of the platform. Web design for WordPress blog is quite a bit different from creating template for static site and how well designers understand it will impact the overall performance of your blog.

In my previous post 10 Best Web 2.0 WordPress Themes I have talked about using free blog templates and choosing which is fit best your own needs. But as your progress and grow your blog you will find that free templates simply don’t cut it. You will need to find a way to separate your blog from multitude of others and choosing a custom WordPress theme is simplest way to do it.

Unfortunately – it is not the cheapest! Custom blog design can run you into a few hundred dollars quite easily and unless you have that money might be a bit too expensive option. Luckily for your there are Premium WP Themes that allow you to achieve similar separation at a lot lower budget.

Here is My Pick of Best Premium Blog Themes

In many cases a web designer providing premium blog templates also provides you with multitude of options and instead of evaluating one single option – I will share details on what is currently available from him.

Brian Gardner – Premium StudioPress WordPress Themes

Brian is one of my favorite wp themes designers due to a very high quality of the coding behind the themes he releases and very appealing look. He is also one of the most productive web designers when it comes to premium blog themes.

Just have a look at the beauty he unleashed to the public:

… and don’t forget the other themes available from him:

Simply click the images above to navigate to his site and see what he has available. He takes an approach with his blog templates that functionality determines the look and his themes are targeting a specific way to publish your content.

StudioPress Themes priced to provide you with maximum flexibility and choice:

Developer Package – $2499.95.95, gives you an option to develop sites using his templates as many times as you wish.
Single-Use Package – $79.95, this package is for the person who intends on using this theme on a single website.

Choose what fits your needs! Demo and Purchase

Michael Pollock from Solostream Studios

Michael is another web designer who produced multiple high quality blog templates, some as premium and some are free. But since we are talking about Premium WordPress Themes to give you the custom look you need – here are some of my favorites from him:

…and as I have already mentioned he has a few more to choose from once you get to his page. Here are some of my personal favorites

Solostream Premium WP Themes priced very competitive:

Basic (Single Use License $49.00)
Premium (Multiple Use License $79.00)
Developer ($179.00)

Choose your options! Demo and Purchase Here

iThemes Premium WordPress Themes

Superb web design of WordPress blog templates with a different look. While they provide you with quite a choice, including standard these days magazine layout themes – I personally Love the Design of Essence WordPress Themes series.

Available in several colors: Blue, Dark, Golden, Silver and Red these blog template is great choice for blogs looking to take advantage of using WordPress as CMS through heavy usage of Pages.

And here are some other choices provided by same developer:

iThemes takes aggressive approach in pricing and unlike others have multiple options:

Single Use - this license ranges from $29.99 to $79 and depends on which theme you will choose.
Multiple Use – license that permits you to use theme on more then one blog and begins with $29. Once again will depend on which theme you will choose.
Developer License – competitively priced with my favorite Essence series priced at $199.95 it goves you options you need. Although if you are series about using these themes I recommend you have a look at 10-in-one developer package. Best value as you get all 10 themes for $399.95

Make your choice! Demo and Purchase here

WordPress Dream Theme by Ben Cope

A swiss-army knife of the web design for WordPress this theme is one of a kind and created to allow you easily separate yourself from competition. Following popular magazine layout design it comes with everything one might expect and need from blog template in functionality!

But perhaps one of the most important aspects of the theme is that it comes with services by the Ben, who designed it, if you choose it! Flexible pricing provides you with an opportunity to purchase Not Only the blog template, which is great but also a service level that you need:

Self Service – $97 will provide you besides the complete blog template with FREE E-mail Support, WordPress University, FREE Upgrades – 1 yr.
Limited Service at $167 gives you access to all the features above plus Custom Header Image, Plugins Installed For You, FREE Phone Support
Full Service at $247 gives you everything you need for a custom look. All the features available to previous levels plus FREE Setup, FREE Installation, 1 Hour Customization, Use on Multiple Sites.

Choosing what you personally need is the only predicament you have now! Demo and Purchase Here

Omni WordPress Theme

Another nice looking wp theme with a magazine design that gives your blog stylish look and feel. Very Web 2.0 Designed it has a nice light appeal and yet full functionality one would expect from a premium theme:

With several colors to choose from it gives you the flexibility to pick one that is most appropriate for your blog:

Omni Theme pricing is similar to others and gives you range of options to choose from:

Single Use license at $79.99
Developer License for single theme – $199.99
4 in one Developers Pack license if you need all 4 – $299.99

Choose wisely but don’t forget to evaluate it! Demo and Purchase Here

Woo Premium Themes

And last but by no means least I want to to present set of themes by “Woo Themes” group of developers. WooThemes is a project started by four respected designers – Adii, Magnus Jepson, Mark Forrester and Elliot Jay Stocks – whom all share one thing: their passion for WordPress. All of the themes available on WooThemes are 100% unique and you won’t find similar CMS solutions elsewhere for any other platform.

Just have a look at what they have available:

And here are a few more from same guys:

Woo Web Design group provides you with a similar pricing structure as other guys but with one twist:

Single Use license at $70 gives you just that – single use of the theme you purchase
Developer Licenses at $150
Woo Themes Club at $150 for 3 month will give subscribers access to all of our unique themes

One again – you have to see it for yourself to make any decisions! Demo and Purchase Here

Web Design for WordPress continues to grow in popularity and more and more lucrative wp themes become available but when you are evaluating – be sure to know what blog templates most appropriate for your blog!

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8 Ways To Spruce Up Your Blog

Monika Mundell — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:45:22 +0000

This article was written by Monika Mundell

If you blog for fun and don’t want anything to do with an online business, you might not need to read this post. If however you do run a business online, regardless of creed listen up as the tips below can present your blog in a more powerful way.

Blogging is fun, I’m sure you agree with this, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. In general bloggers start out because of two reasons:

They heard it is cool to start blogging and did so
They purposely started a blog to get more exposure for their business

Do you fall into one of those two categories, or did I miss an obvious reason here?

So we start out, hoping to attract a flood of traffic and repeat visitors while posting our thoughts, experiences, tips, tutorials and gossip. For some this dream will become reality, while most others will eventually disappear.

In the time I have been online I would have probably seen half of the initial crowd get lost along the way. They stopped blogging eventually and that was the end of their journey online.

While some do come back with another blog, business idea or else, most will never make it because life gets in the way.

To have better chances at being noticed means we have to make sure that our blog looks its part. Since most of you can’t afford a professional blog theme, you have to make do with changing a free theme into something more special.

This is easy enough for those who are versed in coding, but for the rest of us it is pure annoyance and frustration.

I must admit that personally I’m fascinated with the language of coding and try to advance my knowledge all the time, but when things don’t go as I want them to, gee can I get impatient and upset. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about here too.

Don’t worry though as there is hope. Try to implement some or all of my suggestions and see whether this doesn’t help you to spruce up your blog.

Upload a different header logo to your site. Even if you are not well versed with code you should be able to pick out where the code is actually located and then change it via the stylesheet or create a new image to override the existing one. This will help you in branding your blog to stand apart from all the others who use the same theme template
Sort out your navigation. Clutter can really deter from staying on a blogsite for too long and might lose you repeat visitors. The worst kind are those blogs who have a billion flashing adverts that distract from the actual content. I normally just click away.
Make it easy for your readers to find things. Use Plugins to showcase certain parts of your blog like podcasts, contact form, about me widget, latest comments, sitemap, etc. You’ll want to avoid losing visitors because they can’t find things.
Enable comments. You would be surprised how many bloggers don’t do this. It beats me, since a blog’s purpose is to do well in the search engine, especially for business owners, but they fail to enable comments. For those of you who don’t know this, commenting on your blog actually helps to get spidered more often which is great for SEO. Especially if the post’s keyword is repeated in the comments.
Stay away from loud colors. Unless of course you are simply blogging for fun, then everything is allowed. If you blog for business purposes, either to attract more buyers, service your customers or else, stick with a simple color scheme for an optimum effect.
Don’t play music clips on your blog. Hey, if your name is Mick Jagger, then I accept that the sound of “I can’t get no – satisfaction” screams at me when I load the page. But for everybody else, don’t bother.
Show your readers that you are having fun with your blog. Even a boring old business blog can be very attractive if the blogger has an unique voice. Nothing attracts more than seeing a blogger have tons of fun. It makes you want to be part of it and take some of that fun home with you.
Last but not least apply the KISS principle.

Keep
it
simple
stupid

It really works a treat. Please feel free to add your tips to the conversation. As you know by know, the spiders will like this very much. Anything you feel has helped you to make your blog more attractive would be great.

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Free Tool To Help You

Alex Sysoef — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:54:13 +0000

This is a very short post (been a bit sick last few days) and the main reason behind it is to give you a free tool I have just created – WordPress Web 2.0 Guide Toolbar. It designed to solve one BIG problem – convenient access to all relevant information to help you build, maintain, promote and earn from your blog.

I have realized that my collection of Personal Bookmarks, tutorials and howto guides can be a great resource for many other bloggers and created toolbar to share it. While it is still in process of been built – it will contain a one click access to what I personally use on daily bases and something that helps me in daily blogging.

toolbar powered by Conduit

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How To Safely Redesign Your Blog

Alex Sysoef — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:37:35 +0000

With abundant choice of freely available themes for WordPress every blogger gets tempted to test a new look every once in while. I know I get the urge often enough so I decided to discuss the subject of how you can safely test new look and see if the theme you liked will fit your blog vision.

Well, we are in luck!

Apparently this urge infects enough bloggers that someone has came up with great idea – create a plugin that will allow you to test new theme and see how it impacts your blog overall appeal without anyone but you knowing about it!

Theme Test Drive plugin was released on December 5th and looks like a winner in terms of functionality that allows you to do just what you desire – test new theme safely.

Perhaps the best part of this plugin is that new theme is only visible to you as admin while your visitors still see the old layout. One thing to keep in mind is to Not Change your widgets while testing new theme and if you have Super-Cache plugin, disable it.

And now since I have just discussed how you can safely test new theme I wanted to give you something to test With popularity of Magazine style themes ever increasing (thanks to Revolution theme by Brian Gardner) I have found a theme developer that creates a free alternative that similar in functionality to Brian’s work.

Structure theme by Justing Tadlock can satisfy your desire to get a more hip look and functionality.

What I also like is that this theme comes in 2 versions: one your typical Magazine layout and second that is adopted for a more standard blog look.

He also provides with some great instructions on what you need to to make this theme work for your blog. It does rely on optional excerpts for your posts to display the list of posts so if you you have quite a few posts on your blog without them – you might not be able to use it without modifying the code in the theme.

Either way I think that theme will work quite nicely for testing the new plugin I have shared with you above. Enjoy…

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