New Blogs (and Blog Types)

I am sure the readers of DavePCGuy have been wondering about this very long absence of articles. Well, the story is long and tedious but basically, all summed up, it’s because I have had TOO much to do. I’ve come up with an SEO system for my blogs so they get noticed as much as possible (ie. the use of proper plugins, ad placement, stuff like that). I’ve launched some of them but with minimal content.

I’ll be writing an SEO article on my finds later on this week, which will include the proper set up as well as use of those plugins. I’ll also get into editing WordPress themes to suit your needs. Here are a few types of blog themes most people are not aware of.

The Blog “types”

the tweak

Well, last week, I launched a new blog. Check it out.

As you can see, there is a twitter and subscribe button on the top right. Well, the twitter button was not there. I added it manually, it may not seem like much, but these little additions here and there will change the look of the WHOLE theme. Little changes such as:

• custom footers
• extra buttons (like the twitter button)
• font color tweaks
• background tweaks
• adding CSS3

And other, will improve the over-all appearance in ways you can’t imagine. It’s really nice when you know how to tweak the files right. I’ll show you the method in an upcoming article!

light weight

Another thing I want to talk about is the use of graphics in websites. I’ve always been all about light-weight coding and minimal graphics. Well, I’m saying, screw that. Here is an example of a light-weight blog theme:

This blog contains only four different graphics. One is a pile of cash, the next one is the header, another is the background book shelves (a single one repeated, naturally), and the last one is a hover image for the header, and one more is on the bottom. The rest is CSS3. As you can see, I went all out with CSS3, trying out all the different effects in very different ways. My favorite so far is the content area where the blue lines seem to tighten around a certain area. I absolutely love it. I’ll talk about creating this effect in an upcoming post as well.

graphic-heavy

I was talking about the graphics, wasn’t I?

Well, here is an example of a graphic “heavy” blog theme:

I say “heavy” in quotations because it is not as heavy as it may look. This blog theme is naturally meant for iPad-related content. It is made up of a repeating wood texture, the main iPad (the black part as well as the silver-ish border), the dock (just the grey part), the content background (ie. the apple), and the home button on the buttom and its hover. That may seem like a lot, but when you load the page, you’ll notice that it loads fairly quickly. The button on the bottom can be done entirely with CSS as can most of the shadows in the theme. The button actually uses a gradient background but that’s only because of the problems with internet explorer.

Again, the little things like the search bar on the bottom right ADDS a lot to the whole feel of the site. It’s actually my favorite part, and the easiest to code.

the average blog

The last type of a blog that I launched (just out of curiosity), is the average-looking blog. It’s not graphic-heavy nor is it very light-weight. I constructed it from the ground up so there is none exactly like it.

As you can see, it’s simple, it’s nice. And it’s meant for READING! It’s not cluttered. This blog is just…perfect for every day writing. Just like Dave PC Guy, it looks fancy enough but the most important part of this blog is the CONTENT.

There are many more blog types out there including those for magazines and such, but these are the most prominent among regular bloggers.

I’ll post on how to create these blog themes and such so enjoy!