Here's my blog. What do you think?

[deronsizemore]

This is my third site online. First site was when I was in 1997 at the age of 15. Second site was a personal portfolio site when I was about to graduate college and though I wanted to be a freelance web designer (that didn't last long). Now I enjoy designing and publishing my own website ideas. Here's my first real site.

http://www.randomjabber.com

PS: I'm really stumped on what to put in the empty space in the lower right part of my footer. If anyone has any ideas, please share, I'm out of ideas.

[rodaniel]

Deron, this is purely a matter of personal taste, but I think you could stand to shift to a 2-column design so your main column - the articles themselves - would have a little more breathing room. That might help to ensure that your well-crafted posts are the focal point of the page rather than the much less important sidebar stuff. And really, you've got the "About" link in the header area, so it isn't that vital to have the shorter versioon in the 3rd column...

[deronsizemore]

Hey Rob, you make a valid point and it's one that I've actually thought about. Here's how I came to a three column layout for my design (it originally was a two column the first month after launch)

In making it a three column, I was trying to foresee the future, if you will. With the two column design, I had limited space and if, by chance my site became popular and I became in a position to offer advertising spots, I was very limited with the two column design. With the third column (although I have a 'sponsors' section their now, they are not really sponsors) will essentially be reserved for sponsors, if/when that time comes.

Don't know if that's the right way to go about it, but that's how I came to a three column layout.

Thoughts?

[smittenbite]

i like the look of your over all design. i think it looks good 3 column but at the same time the content area does look a little bit squished. maybe you can try decreasing the widths of the sidebars?

i also think you should get rid of the last sidebar to make more room, but honestly i dont think the overall look was be as good =|

if you want to take off the last sidebar sometime though you could always move the important stuff to the beginning of the content area or the top above the navigation (like the rss subscribe)

nice post about social networking :-)

[rodaniel]

I'm not opposed to monetizing, but I sure hate to see really nice blogs with very good quality content become visually overwhelmed by ads & widgets. Remember that overquoted line, "Content is king."

But bear in mind that I come from this at a different angle - I've never intented to monetize 2Dolphins (http://www.2dolphins.com/) so I don't have to factor in having space for future ads. So, mine is a single column - yup, just one lonely column - design except for a small section at the bottom (just above the footer) that's divvied up into 3 very short columns. This way, I'm certain that - for better or worse - the content is the focal point.

[deronsizemore]

i like the look of your over all design. i think it looks good 3 column but at the same time the content area does look a little bit squished. maybe you can try decreasing the widths of the sidebars?

i also think you should get rid of the last sidebar to make more room, but honestly i dont think the overall look was be as good =|

if you want to take off the last sidebar sometime though you could always move the important stuff to the beginning of the content area or the top above the navigation (like the rss subscribe)

nice post about social networking :-)

Hey, thanks for the thoughts. Everything I've read suggests that the main content area of your site should be somewhere around 450px - 500px for optimum readability. Right now it's sitting at 470px. I'm not opposed to making the main content area wider, but with that comes problems. I (as you said) would have to make the other sidebars narrower and that would cause a problem with the text being to squished, especially in the middle content area. With the "recent articles" section, some of the titles are already two and three lines long, so with a narrow area, they would then be 4 and 5 or even 6 lines long and I think that would be way to cluttered?

Thanks for the complimenton the social networking post. It's just my experience with them, but from the comments I've received, it doesn't seem like my theory is off base.


I'm not opposed to monetizing, but I sure hate to see really nice blogs with very good quality content become visually overwhelmed by ads & widgets. Remember that overquoted line, "Content is king."

But bear in mind that I come from this at a different angle - I've never intented to monetize 2Dolphins (http://www.2dolphins.com/) so I don't have to factor in having space for future ads. So, mine is a single column - yup, just one lonely column - design except for a small section at the bottom (just above the footer) that's divvied up into 3 very short columns. This way, I'm certain that - for better or worse - the content is the focal point.


Yeah I definitely agree that content is king (did I just say that?) lol

My main goal is to produce content that I like and hopefully everyone else reading will like, but as the site grows, I'm not opposed to selling some private advertising space on the site and that's kind of what I'm allowing for with the extra column. I'm not a huge fan of the whole adsense, ypn, adbrite, etc crazy that's sweeping the internet (although, like I've said before, not totally opposed to it either if it's done right), but I do like how a lot of sites are using space for private advertising.

Here's an example of a site that makes use of some private ad space very well. Just sitting there on the right side not harming anyone :-): www.copyblogger.com

Thanks for your thoughts, I really appreciate them. I'll have to think about where the site is heading and if I do in fact need that third column.

[Jelena]

I actually like your layout very much and I'm not bothered with 3 columns. It's clean and appealing.

The only thing I would do is somehow split posts little bit more. One gray dotted line would be just fine. Right now, I have hard time to quickly determine where the next blog post starts. Yeah, where the title is, but with those images, it's not that easy to tell.

Other than that, everything is great! Keep up the good work :)

[dojo]

I like it too. The use of images in posts make them nicer, the layout is pleasant and clean, you removed the nofollow tag in the script .. I really like the blog and am a bit envious on you ;)

Congratulations

[deronsizemore]

I actually like your layout very much and I'm not bothered with 3 columns. It's clean and appealing.

The only thing I would do is somehow split posts little bit more. One gray dotted line would be just fine. Right now, I have hard time to quickly determine where the next blog post starts. Yeah, where the title is, but with those images, it's not that easy to tell.

Other than that, everything is great! Keep up the good work :)

Thanks for your thoughts! I tried adding a divider like you said (similar to what you're using on your site) but I just couldn't get it to look right. It looks fine on your site, but for some reason it seemed to stand out like a sore thumb on mine and looked weird. I tried simply spacing them out more and I think it looks okay. I haven't implemented it yet, but will in a day or so. Still have a couple bugs to fix.

I like it too. The use of images in posts make them nicer, the layout is pleasant and clean, you removed the nofollow tag in the script .. I really like the blog and am a bit envious on you ;)

Congratulations

Yeah, the no follow has been removed. I think it's really enticed visitors to comment, but don't know. Thanks for the thoughts.