However, I noted that the css for the affiliate banner looked skewed on Mozilla Firefox. That gave the impression that the affiliate programme was quite new and unprofessional.

I then thought about the afilliate banner. In fact they were cleverly getting html links with desired anchor text within it. Therefore the affiliate programme could just be a clever way to get lots of free inbound links to their site.

Therefore, I added rel=”nofollow” to all the links. This way I can test the affiliate programme without having to worry about displeasing the mighty Google for accepting paid links. (I know they are not paying for links, but, I don’t trust Google to differentiate – it can’t be easy)

• Top Tip – Always test your website in other browsers. I have been caught out myself  by shockers on Internet Explorer (I mostly use a mac and Firefox )
• If their banners had not been buggy in Firefox I may not have got worried and added the ‘nofollow’ tag to all the affiliate links. The presentation of your site DOES matter. Bugs and errors say you are either 1) incompetent 2) don’t care or 3) Can’t afford to pay a proper css designer.

As a blog owner you want to try and make the experience for web users as easy as possible. Your website should be easy to navigate, it should be obvious what the blog is about. It may be obvious to you, but don’t forget you built it. If you really want to test how simple your blog is, ask your mother to look at the blog and look in exasperation as she struggles to do anything.

Never assume that web users know anything. It is worth bearing in mind how popular searches like “what is a blog?” are.

Here are some simple tips to to increase usability on your blog

1. Don’t offer too many choices.

If you present too many options, people may not actually choose anything. – It is too much effort to read through all the options for them. Make it obvious for readers. Offer 1 choice and you can send them exactly where you want to go.

2. Highlight your best posts.

Make sure you have a best of your blog. This makes sure your best articles are not lost in the archives. Even better consider having popular posts in the sidebar for easy clicking. (see most popular posts plugin)

3. Minimise clutter.

This is difficult if you want to have lots of advertising. But, remember the maxim – sometimes less is more. Reducing the number of google ads, not only makes it a more attractive visitor experience; but, many bloggers have the experience that reducing the number of ads can keep the revenue the same.

Good example: Skelliewag.org 

4. Make it easy to know who the blogger is.

Add an about page with contact details.

5. Make Sure Articles Are Easily Scannable
Lists and headings make articles easy to read. Lists and bullet points may not be Shakespeare, but then, do people go on Internet to read the Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
6. Don’t Write More Than Necessary

7. Make pictures clickable

Don’t just offer a link in text. If the image is related to link, make sure you make it clickable. Many users will click on pictures expecting it to be a link.

If you would like to get a distinctive custom design I can recommend, Pure Web Designs,  run by a friend, Sumangali Morhall.

Pure Web Designs, offer custom templates, design and general advice about building websites and Blogs.

 An Example from Pure Web Designs:

Pure Web designs is run by Sumangali Morhall, who has her own blog

Somehow it creates a more relaxed viewing experience.

Most importantly it makes text easily scannable. The importance of this can never be underestimated. – some short tips on making content easily scannable

Having said that I have a complaint about WordPress, or in particular the text editor.

Pressing return often fails to create the desired whitespace. Even adding code in the html gets stripped away. I wanted to show the code that gets stripped away, but of course it gets stripped away. There must be a way to show code somehow.

WordPress also seems to be inconsistent between adding a p tag and a br break tag, quite frustrating.

To create more whitespace I can add bigger margins to css code like li and ol
but I wonder whether there is a plugin / hack to be able to add whitespace?The frustrations of text editors, can sometimes leave you desiring to use non html based restructured text.

If anyone knows of improvements to the wordpress text editor I would be interest to know. I think in this regard I have to say the Blogger text editor is much better. Why? because you can easily switch from edit html to text editor and it doesn’t strip away your html additions. see: WordPress vs Blogger

Nevertheless, a few tweaks to your design can make a big difference to the uniqueness of your sites.

Here are some useful CSS tips. If you would like to add any other CSS resources, please add as a comment.

• 53 CSS Techniques that you couldn’t live without

I particularly like:

1. Pull Quote -

the good thing about the pull quote is people read it

2. Ways to Style a link

3. Rounded Corners

• CSS Basics
  
• 20 CSS Tips
• CSS Beginner Tutorial
• 3 Column layout with CSS

I discovered on my Economics Blog that somebody wanted to link to a post but couldn’t find the Permanent link, therefore, they linked to the category, even though it wasn’t the best choice.

This made me realise that on the standard blogger design, the permanent link is hard to find. It is actually the small time, – not obvious to the average reader. for example see: poetseers.org blogspot (a blog that got retired)
It is unsuprising that people can’t find the permanent link. But, it means that if they can’t find it, then you will be losing out on potential links.

See: Economics Blog for a more obivous design. – The re-design uses principles of “Don’t Make me think”. This is a design concept I will go into more detail later.