UrbanUpdate

During the hiatus on e[lust], I revamped the site a little – new header, new sidebar buttons can be had, and a (very irritating) new theme that allowed for better/easier navigation menus up top. I’m hoping this allows people to find information easier on there.

Another thing I added in was the Blogger Education pages I’d talked about previously. The first one that’s up is the topic I always had people emailing me about, Paid Advertising. Basically this page tells you how your rate might be figured out; what sort of things to avoid that advertisers try to offer newbies with in hopes that they don’t know any better; basic tips on making the most of it.

The next one I’ve decided to work on is going to be about how to create a blog that people will take seriously. Many of you are bloggers just to have a place to kvetch and gather with your blogmates, and so can summarily ignore most of that page. Well, some will be of use because it doesn’t matter if you’re updating your friends everyday about your cat, your blog shouldn’t be an eyesore. Some things I’ve noticed recently that I want to write about:

Header images – what to avoidFonts – displaying a dozen font colors and types on the same page doesn’t help youLanguage – again, not applicable to every blog really but if you write toy reviews, erotica, OpEd pieces….anything other than chitchat about your day for the love of pete don’t use text speak! Write out the full words, please. Please! Sidebars – buttons and text and clutter, oh my! Littering posts with photos that aren’t your own –  a few are fine. Go for it! But more than a couple is just overkill and makes you look like Myspace

I will do my best to explain all these offenses without showing screencaps of the offending blogs I’ve spottted :)

What have been your blog pet peeves that you wish people would stop doing?

Speaking of changes to e[lust] – FYI – I had to disable the Feedburner email subscription. Randomly it was sending out emails for old posts, and everytime that happened I’d lose a few subscribers. I was looking into Feedblitz, but they charge you for it based on the number of email subscribers – at 250, I’d be in the $10/month range. I’m still looking for another option that would quietly take the reigns from Feedburner without subscribers having to do a thing to change over.

The Blogger Education primary page lists some of my upcoming ideas – but I don’t have to be the one to write them! I’m looking for input from others, too. Maybe a few veteran toy reviewers can write up a few paragraphs on how to get started with sex toy reviewing? That way the page will give a few different viewpoints.