A (Slightly) New Look

After adding my Entrecard widget and my new Adgitize ads, I decided the Ultimate Blogging Toolkit needed a bit of a layout clean-up.  Taking a queue from a blog I recently began following, Cromely has shaken up his design and it has inspired me to do the same.

With ads in one panel and support tools in the other, it should make it easy to find what you need and not be distracted.  Does it work for you?  If so, please share why.  Even more important, if it doesn’t, please share that perspective!

In spite of the site not being overly crowded, it was important to me to keep a simple, orderly design.  I’ve seen too many blogs that have so many toys, gadgets and widgets that I’m erring on the side of conservatism.  Many of these sites have so many “do dads” to load, the page bogs down and I close the tab – and bypass the Entrecard drop and the experience that may have been.  There’s not enough hours in a day.

Many of the excessive “noise” on overly widgetized pages are simply annoying.  Scrolling ad boxes, in-line links that pop up an ad box when you inadvertently move your mouse across them, interstitial pages that come up when the page loads – requiring you to close it before proceeding… ENOUGH!

Sorry for shouting, but you get the point.

What about you?  What are the most annoying irritants that you see on blogs?  Which ones should we stay away from to keep our valued visitors coming back?

On the other hand, which one’s can’t you live without?  Which ones draw traffic to your site?  Which ones actually further your traffic and monetization goals?  In two words, “what works?”

Share your ideas – we’ll all benefit.

Thanks,

Dave