Welcome To The New Look Blogtrepreneur
Hey Guys. Well yesterday I didn’t manage to get online as it was firstly my 17th Birthday, secondly it was the Big Match between Chelsea and Liverpool (which we (Chelski) unfortunately lost to on a penalty shootout 
) and finally because it was the first time I was able to drive under my new insurance, so I went out with my Dad for a little practice.
Anyway, I want to welcome you all to the new Blogtrepreneur Theme designed by Connor Wilson. For all RSS Readers, click here to marvel in the Cutline beauty! As of writing, there are still quite a few changes to be made, but unfortunately with the time difference between Connor and myself, we’re finding it hard to talk to each other on Instant Messenger.
Anyhoo, the site is a lot different from the original, and I’ll give you a rundown of all the new stuff, and the stuff that’s yet to come:
1. Brand new logo - yep the one I had before was too generic and not clean. Connor designed this new one to incorporate a cogged wheel (I’m still not sure what it symbolises). It’s nice and clean and the “B” can be used for avatars in forums and for MyBlogLog.
2. New engine - as mentioned, this time I’m using Chris Pearson’s Tubetorial. Apparently, the coding is much more SEO friendly and as a result, I’m expecting more organic traffic from the search engines.
3. Little AJAX used - I did tell a few people (and had some preliminary designs) which showed slidy sidebars and a lot of AJAX features. However, in order to do this effectively, I would have had to use the K2 theme which isn’t very SEO optimized, and which may put a lot of pressure on my server. And with a blog, I value traffic and subscribers over fancy coding a lot more anyway.
4. Recent Comments section - this was put in using the Get Recent Comments plugin. It allows new visitors to clearly see what’s going on and what discussion is happening by whom and where. Much more community friendly!
5. Top Commentors - this is something that I’m very proud of and a bit sorry that I havn’t implemented earlier. The Show Top Commentors plugin was used, so that whenever you comment, you are ranked upon how many you add (but no silly Spamming ones please). All commentors on the leaderboard (which gets reset every month) will have a nice PR5 backlink pointing to their site as the NoFollow tag has been turned off!
6. New Advertising Options - this is something which you will see more of and which I will talk more about, but as you can see, the Adsense and Adbrite ads are gone! Yep I’ve completely removed them as I feel they don’t add that much benefit to the reader, and they clutter up my design and don’t make me very much money.
Text Link Sponsors are something that I’ll focus more upon, and as you can see in the “Sponsors” section down the right sidebar, NationalPayDay.com with their cash advances are my first paying sponsors - but they’ll get a proper welcome post!
3 image ad spaces will als be added below the logo, and these will be premium ads above the fold, so I hope I can sell a few of those - prices will come soon.
7. Sidebar links have icons - as a finishing touch, each sidebar uses related icons to portray what they mean. For example, the Featured section has little money icons - representing their TLA nature. The use of the “li” tag helped in this.
8. Comments bubble next to Post Title - this little bubble will help people see more quickly what discussion is going on, and shows very nicely the great community I have here to attract new visitors and subscribers.
9. Time Capsule - this hasn’t been implemented yet, but will appear below the logo to show 2 or 3 posts from the past. A new Archives page is also available but this will be more fun and a quick way to show other Popular Posts that I’ve written.
10. Resources Page - this will be the hub of my design and will be in the works up to the release. I hope that this will bring back visitors repeatedly and will contain loads of interesting info for you entrepreneurial bloggers.
Anyway, take a look and give me some feedback - please bear in mind that there are still some changes that need to be made. Unfortunately the CSS Reboot wasn’t too popular due to the poorly formatted Digg style voting that didn’t put the stories with loads of votes onto the front page (like mine). But hopefully this template will be recognised elsewhere!
I really like the new layout. Very clean. Also very easy to find my way around the site. I think we’ve got a winner here!
WOW!
Nice job
I love this one compared to your old one
Nice job to you and Connor
Really nice site layout, like it a lot!
I like the new design, especially the new logo. This design seems cleaner and less cluttered. Of course I liked the old design, but it didn’t scale well with your blog. Good job!!!
You guys should see my to do list for this place… It will definitely be improving 100% over the next day or two!
Looks good Adnan and Connor. Can’t wait to see how it progresses.
Very nice
Like the new look!
seeing both your site and connor’s… it’s quite a visible visual resemblance between the 2.
maybe you’ll tell us how this all goes for you.
i’m mainly interested how your new advertising choices work out.
thanks,
webee
[is a design blog]
Wonderful design! Super clean and very user friendly. I like the 3 colors as well, they draw your attention to the important stuff.
Hello,
I like it, nice and clean, I have just checked it in IE and it breaks quite badly. Get this checked out, I had to with mine and I still need to fix some glitches with the CSS in IE.
Thanks,
Adie.
Hey Guys.
Thanks so much for all your comments and praise.
As Connor said there’s still a LOAD of stuff yet to do, so he’ll be completing that ASAP, so don’t forget to come back and check up every now and then for template updates.
As for the IE breaks, I’ll tell Connor immediately, so thanks for pointing that out adie.
Thanks again for dropping in everyone,
Adnan
very nice indeed adnan,
definitely much better than the previous. However I still think it lacks something..but not sure what it is
anyhow, like you said, it is not finalize yet. can’t wait
keep it up..
regards,
KeVin
Nice new look!
Love the comment bubble. I need to add one of those to my site…
Keep up the great posting and post collaboration, it’s a great place to swing by.
Aloha,
Erik
I like the comment bubble too, by the way, but I wonder why there isn’t a “leave a comment” link at the bottom of each post … I hate reading a post then having to scroll back to the top if I want to leave a comment.
Th eIE issue is aword to the wise. Many bloggers are FireFox enthusiasts … I certainly am … but, depending on your audience, way more than 3/4 of your readers may be uisning MSIE. I keep MSIE open all day long to test every blog post … you’d be surprised how many need tweaking. You have to go with what your audience is using.
Adn my last blast of curmudgeonry
People leave comments to blog posts … or, we blogger shope they do. This activity makes htem “commenters” on the blog. “Commentators (by definition) are media (TV,radio,etc.) professionals whose job is to read the enws, sports, etc. and add commentary. (or n the case of Katie Couric, to flash glimpses of her thighs). Don’t fall into the John Chow trap of trying to make everything bigger than it really is.
Kevin, Erik and Dave thanks for dropping in guys and contributing to the talk. KeVin, yeah most of the To-Do list still hasn’t been done yet, so the site should be looking a lot better with the errors cleaned up.
Dave - about the comment problem, thats in my To-Do list, just waiting for Connor to add it at the end of each post in the green section. The IE issue is also on the list and being worked on. Lol, I actually didn’t know what the word was. I’ve been saying commentors with an “o”, but I’ve probably spelt it wrong. I’ll make sure I spell it right in the future.
Thanks again!
Definitely like the new look. The top commentors plugin sounds cool. Does it auto reset each month or can you just leave it to accumulate over time? Also will it update from all comments before installation? Would be cool to simply have the top commentors of all time.
Nice work on the design. Much less busy than the old one
Hey Sarah - the Top Commentors plugin for me resets every month, but you can set it to reset every hour, day, month or year - you choose! For that reason, only the comments from the month show up at the moment. I think an “all time best commentor” showing would be cool, but it doesn’t really encourage people to get started on the discussion, because they see “Joe Bloggs - 97 comments” and know they’ll never be able to get up on the board.
At least at the moment there’s a double incentive, getting on the board and joining the discussion!
Thanks for your kind words, the design isn’t even finished yet!
Good point about discouraging other visitors. I guess perhaps using it twice would be good. The top 3 all time commentors and the top 3 for the month or something like that. Will have a play
Hey Adnan, I had no idea you were so young - you seem older, FWIW.
Fantastic new design - very clean, and not cluttered at all.
@ ==>> Leroy Brown .. are you “bad, bad, Leror Brown ……”? Oops, showing my age, that song’s about 40 years old now.
Your comment on Adnan’s age points up one of the things I love about the “Net … there are no real age limits. I see many young guys (and gals) who give themselves an artificial hurdle by starting out every venture or blog post with a line like, “well I’m really young and so I’m sure you won’t listen ….” Online, you’ll be judged by the sense that you make and the value of your contribution … just write (and ac)t the age you want to be.
An old song for sure, but a good one nonetheless!
Yea I’m very impressed that Adnan is 17 - I was sure early-mid twenties. He’s well on his way to a successful life already.
i’ve hust discovered you don’t have a search form.
don’t you want it?
i think it is usefull though…
webee
[is a design blog]
Thanks for posting the info on the plugins - I was looking for something like that for my site!
Nice theme, I love the colors!
You’ve got a nice Blog.
Firstly, happy bday! I like the way your blog looks. Good job!