Hey guys, sorry I haven't posted in ages, but I've been busy with school. This will be my last year of university... thank god. I hate assignments, I hate early morning classes, and I hate not getting paid! Anyway, on top of keeping up with my boring school work I have managed to work on a few online projects.
I have been working on CrowdedCollege.com for a while now and it's finally ready for the public. It's still a work in progress but I figure I'll deal with the issues when they arise. Once again I am not a formally trained web designer/programmer. I'm just very inquisitive and there's lots of info out there on the web!
CrowdedCollege.com was created to fulfill the need for user generated information that's short, succinct, and simple. It asks the question, "What did you learn today?" Abstracts are written by the community and they must be less than 100 words. Users are ranked based on the popularity of their abstract and additional points are gained through site activity, i.e. making comments, adding friends, etc. Each month, the most popular user will be given a scholarship which is a portion of the site's advertising revenue. The more money the site generates, i.e. through advertising, alumni donations, etc., the more scholarships available! So check it out... let me know what you think.
Adam
So I've taken on some of my own advice and added a post rating widget to my blogger posts. I'm actually liking how it looks with the rest of the site. The widget that I went with was developed by Outbrain. They have some really cool stuff that you can add to your blogger blogs. Anyway, if you go to Outbrain - Get a free related links widget and follow the steps that they outlined, everything is done automatically. You don't even need to go into your theme and edit anything... well unless you want to move the widget elsewhere besides the end of your post or put it in some other weird places on your site.
What I Drink at Work is a site about... well what the author drinks at work... or drinks in general. Just a tip, you may also want to rehydrate with water in between your sugar highs. OK I actually really like the content of this site and yes we are following the trend of food and beverages today.
This site has a focus. It's simple yet offers the readers quite a bit of information on drinks that I have never even heard of before like... Donkey Spitz, Koala Jin, and Maba Yaba... OK I just made that up but seriously there are some interesting drinks the author has covered. Personally, I'm not brave enough to ingest some of that stuff.
This site is good BUT.....
Here's what I would like changed:
1. The layout is a bit boring. C'mon man spice it up a little - add some colour - inject it with horse manure! Do something!
2. You need to social network. If you want more readers or even just visitors, you might want to try and contact other blogs that are similar to yours. It doesn't matter how good your content is, if you don't have visitors, you're not going to make any money!
3. As with the previous review, sites like these need a rating system. I am also partial to 3 column layouts... but that's just my preference.
Well there's my opinion... even if you didn't ask for it. Seriously, what is Jerky Perky? Go to What I drink at work to find out.
Fuss Free Cooking is another one of those food blogs. It does have some good simple food ideas, but sometimes the food doesn't appear to be overly simple. However, the site does have some really good food pictures and the design layout is nice and clean.
BUT....
This is what I would like changed:
1. Move the sidebar to the right of the content. People read left to right and if you put your sidebar on the left then it just gets ignored thereby losing opportunity for making money online with advertisement. Afterall, isn't that the whole goal of blogging these days?
2. Add "star rating" or any kind of post rating system to your layout. People love to vote, especially when you have a blog about things that people can vote on, i.e. this food is good vs. this food is crap... you get the idea. Which reminds me... I need to add that to this blog.
3. Focus your content. Yes I know that this is a "food blog" but you need to make it stand out from the rest. This can be achieved by using a unique writing style, or focus on one category of food, i.e. muffins or donkey platters... I don't know... you figure it out.
OK there are a lot more things I can point out about this blog but I'll just keep to my 3 timbits review for now. In the meantime, check out Fuss free cooking and let me know what else you find.
Hey Everybody, thanks for visiting K2 Modify! When I first started this site I didn't know where it was going to go but in the end I'm glad I was able to help those people with their Blogger templates! Special thanks to those who have added themselves to the "follow list." You guys are hot and I will be featuring some of you guys in my upcoming posts! If you haven't already added yourself to the "follow list" the button is just off to the right! In addition to featuring lots of cool people's sites on K2 Modify I will be adding some brand new templates and blogger hacks for you guys to test out! Check back soon, Adam!
Hexadecimal is a new 3 column blogger template that I have developed. It contains my two favourite hacks: SEO blog title and Comment Form Below Post so that you don't have to add them in yourself! Visit Hexadecimal for more details!
One of the simplest ways to search engine optimize your blogger or blogspot template is to play around with your blog titles. If you're using a blogger hosted blog then you will notice that on your individual pages the homepage blogger title is displayed first and your individual post title is displayed second. This is particularly bad for SEO purposes because the homepage title of your blog will always appear before your individual page title in the results.
If you're using a K2 Modify blogger template then here's how you SEO your blog title:
Go to 'layout' > 'edit html > search for this set of codes
FIND:
REPLACE WITH:
Now your blog will show "Title of Your Page: Title of Your Blog" instead of "Title of Your Blog: Title of Your Page."
It's a simple modification but a very powerful one. Test it out and tell me what you think!
