Three column Templates, and scrolling Marquees

I'm just learning a bunch of new html codes to hack and customize the Minima Template, I've also learned how to do scrolling Marquees and add three columns to the blogs. If you would like your blog customized let me know and I will work on it for you to give me more practice and to better explain how it's done...I can change templates without losing widgets.

It's all about Presentation

They say you only get one chance to make a first impression. I think this hold true to blogs and websites alike. I read a lot of blogs and visit a lot of websites that deal with preparedness and survival. Not only survival blogs but other blogs in other genres. The blogs that are most popular bring something to the table others don't. We're in competition with other survival blogs for readers. As a moderator you have to provide the reader with a reason to visit your blog, and not only that but return to it for more content. This is where your first impression comes into play.

You're content and appearance go hand in hand. Ultimately the content is most important, but appearance is more important in the beginning. A visually appealing blog will give readers the impression that you're professional, and serious about the site or organization (APN). This is where you hook the reader. Keep the reader coming back with desirable content. Make your blog flashy also. People love pictures, lists, diagrams, and colors. Look at Kellene Bishop's blog Preparedness Pro. She has a great looking site and always puts images in her posts. Her site is very popular and I'm sure gets a lot more hits than we do.

When I say we're in competition I don't mean that in a sense what we're out to steal others traffic. We're all working together with a common goal, but in reality we are in a race to get the traffic to us. To do that we must provide visually appealing blogs with daily (at least 1 good post per day) content that is going to benefit people. Most of us follow other blogs. Look at the popular ones, take notes on what they do, and apply that (with your own style) to your network.

Site Colors

Do you like the site colors?

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Color Tips for your background and Text

Tip From WVSanta

We need to take into consideration people with light sensitive eyes. I for one have this problem. The first thing I do when I get to a site with real bright color combinations is close the site. I can not read what is there so there is no sense in getting a head ache or having my eyes burning. We all need to consider this when choosing our colors. Remember what looks good to you may really hurt someone else’s eyes.

I have found that what works best for me is a light shade but pale background with either very dark color matching text or black text. I am not saying everyone needs to go to the same colors but the background needs to be light not bright and the text needs to be either black or color coordinated and dark. I personally find bright green or bright yellow to really bother me.

We need to tr y to appeal to everyone with our sites not just ourselves. I spent many hours playing with the colors at the radio site and I still need to change some of the combinations there. I have left the background alone for some time now but Bob can tell you I drove him nuts as he had to keep changing the Masthead (or banner logo) background color to match what I did. I found that the Light, Pale, Blue back ground worked the best. Another color combination that works well with my eyes is a very light tan or gray background with dark text.

A dark background and light text to me causes the illusion of the page constantly moving. What happens on some sites if I do try to read is first I get a sever headache and shortly after that my eyes start to burn. All joking aside I have actually used sun glasses to view some pages when my kids were not around to read the post to me. I would be interested to hear from other people on this as I do want any site to be able to find a happy compromise of what looks good to you yet allows someone with light sensitive eyes to read in comfort.

Santa

Comments and Tagline Tip

Here's a little known tip that will go a long way to help you promote your prepper network. Leave good comments on peoples blogs, even blogs that you've never visited before. The more blogs you read and the more often you leave good comments the more of a good rapport you start to build. This is Networking with like minded people. If you do this often, people will get to know you and visit your site. Having a link to your site in your tagline makes it easy for them to link through to your site without having to look up your profile. When you do this, use the following code in your tagline:

<a href="http://www.americanpreppersnetwork.com">American Preppers Network</a>


Replace the red text with your preppers network domain name for the URL and the text in Blue with the Title of your Prepper Network.

The end result will look like this:

American Preppers Network

I will leave a few comments to this post as an example, then you do the same for practice.

Tip: Remember to read peoples articles and leave relevant comments to their posts....If your comments aren't relevant, then people may consider your taglines as Spam....

Tip: Remember to leave good comments, don't attack and curse people, especially if you are using your tagline...we are trying to build a good image of the prepper networks

Welcome Everyone

Over the course of the next few weeks I will be posting everything I know about SEO. I'm no expert either but I do know a lot more than the average person. I will also be posting everything I know about how to drive traffic to your sites....Little tips and tricks that I've been learning that will go a long way to helping everyone get more traffic...Stuff here is semi-confidential and not available to the general public, so please keep this information to ourselves and to others in the prepper networks. I'm not a marketing professional either, but I know some things will go a long way to retain your readers...one example is dark backgrounds with bright text will hurt many peoples eyes. It's much better to use lighter backgrounds with darker texts. Try doing some polls to get peoples ideas on the layouts of your templates. I can also help each of you to set up 3 column templates. I'll get into that in a later post...But for now,
Thank you for joining this "secret page"...lol

Welcome Mods!

Welcome to Prepper Network training. This is Matt from Kentucky Preppers Network. I will be attempting to guide all the state and province moderators in setting up their network for maximum exposure. There are a lot of very active prepper networks out there that are releasing some great content. The reader base is out there, we just need to reach them. The message of the prepper networks is universal and IS catching on. I think with a little polishing on the networks we can further expand our operation.

For all the mods here, please follow us through blogger, subscribe to the feed via email or RSS, or check back regularly for updates. I will be helping all the mods with their blogs, and anyone needing one on one assistance feel free to contact me and I can help answer your questions. We will be covering blogger templates, layouts, posting, grammar, punctuation, social networking and anything else we can think of. I am by no means an "expert" at this I just read a lot of blogs and spend a lot of time on Kentucky Preppers Network in an attempt to make it the best I can make it. I do know a lot about HTML coding which does help when modifying the templates. If any other mods have any tips, comments, or suggestions please let me know. We can get some of the other mods as authors to share their own tips along with mine.