Some of you may have noticed I’ve been doing more guest blogging as of late. If you’re a new reader, there’s a good chance you found me through the link in my byline on one of those articles.
Today I’d like to write about the importance of guest blogging, and how it has impacted my freelance business.
Traffic: Quality, not Quantity
The first obvious impact of having a guest article published on a large blog is an increase in traffic back to your site and an increase in RSS and Twitter followers. The day I had my first article on Mashable published, I gained 100+ quality Twitter followers, had a huge traffic spike on all three of my websites, sold a few extra themes than usual, and significantly raised my online profile. But it’s not just about the numbers. The quality of those new followers is the real benefit.
Readers who are engaged enough to read your guest article, then click through your byline, and follow your feed (that’s 3-4 actions) are highly interested in your content. Much more-so than random google searchers or clicks from sites like Digg and other social bookmarking sites. There’s a good chance these readers are here to stay, spread your content, and potentially hire you or purchase your products. Read More
I’m working on an application of sorts to make the process creating/presenting proposals easier and more effective.
I’d appreciate it if anyone can share some info on how they create and present proposals. Here are a few questions:
1) What format do you use? (PDF sent as an attachment, web-based, print and present in person, etc.)
2) What do your proposals consist of?
3) In terms of winning projects, any ideas on what works, what doesn’t?
I’d really appreciate any and all feedback – either as a reply on FreelanceSwitch or in the comments of this blog post. It would also be great to see sample proposals from anyone willing to share.
Don’t worry, I’ll fill you in soon regarding this “application of sorts”
Last week on Twitter I engaged in a brief debate with @bradleypotter and @DavidVII about the role of theme options pages in WordPress themes. The conversation was provoked by me with these two tweets:
I’m not usually one to criticize, but if WP theme options pages simply mimic CSS styles, what’s the point? – Link
font size, padding, link decoration, font-weight… these are basic CSS styles. They belong in a stylesheet, not a web form. – Link
Let me expand on what I was trying to say…
I believe theme options do play an important role in a WordPress theme, especially themes of “premium quality”. But they only prove useful/necessary to a certain extent, and should not be over-used for things that can easily be controlled elsewhere, like a CSS stylesheet.
As you can see, I have launched yet another redesign of this blog. It seems I get the redesign itch about every six months. I find it to be a fun exercise and a great way to push forward my skills as a designer.
Here is a rundown of the objectives I set out to achieve in the redesign of May 2010:
Improve legibility, make articles more “inviting”
The previous design was an exploration of a dark approach. This time, I returned to a light background with a high-contrast color scheme. This, along with improved typography (thanks to Typekit) makes for a more comfortable reading experience.
I’m experimenting with a unique approach to links and hover states. As you hover over a group of links (a series of articles, categories list, footer links) the group dims as the individual hovered link color stays intact. The idea is to encourage movement throughout the site and assist the user in zeroing in on a path.
Get Even More Personalized
After all, it is my personal blog. So I’ve gone back to having my photo included on the site, this time blending it in with the background / texture of the site.
Here I sit on my couch, watching the Mets game and tapping away on my 1 week old iPad. That’s right. I’m typing this iPad review on my iPad using the WordPress app.
There have been a ton of blog posts about it already so I’m going to keep this brief and touch on just a few notable observations. Let’s get right to it.
Performance
I’m quite pleased with the overall speed of the iPad. Apps launch almost instantly. Multitasking hasn’t arrived yet, but closing and launching apps happens so fast that it almost achieves the same effect. Plus, most apps remember the screen you were looking at when you last closed.
Browsing the web could be the single best aspect of the iPad. It’s a truly beautiful web experience. Zooming in with a small pinch of the screen happens so fast with virtually no delay in rendering (as you frequently see on the iPhone). this helps when you want to quickly tap a very small link. Pages load extremely fast (which could be partly attributed to my fast wifi connection).
My shipment of my shiny new 64 Gig 3G model iPad finally arrived this weekend. It’s awesome. Like, really awesome. But I’ll get to my in-depth review in a later post. Today, I’d like to share the back-story of how I won this beautiful device for free : )
A very special thank you goes out to Mojo Themes. They are a new themes and templates marketplace where designers/developers can upload and sell their digital products. Mojo launched around the same time that I launched ThemeJam. As part of their launch, they held the March Padness contest, where they gave away iPads to 3 designers who uploaded the most products to their new marketplace.
You may (or may not) remember that when I first launched ThemeJam, I wasn’t selling only WordPress themes. I was also offering matching HTML and Email templates as lower priced or packaged alternatives. While offering “themes across multiple platforms” helped to create a unique selling point for ThemeJam, these byproducts weren’t selling nearly as much as the WordPress themes. To a certain extent, I expected this would be the case. Read More
My shipment of my shiny new 64 Gig 3G model iPad finally arrived this weekend. It’s awesome. Like, really awesome. But I’ll get to my in-depth review in a later post. Today, I’d like to share the back-story of how I won this beautiful device for free : )