Very Nice Free Blogger and Wordpress Template
Barring my problems with transferring this domain to a new registrar, the Third World Geek still managed to come across some templates that are worthy of a second look.
1. Genesis Theme for Blogger and Wordpress - I like this theme for its simplicity and its balance. If you’re into Google adsense as well, you can easily put in your ads for your blogs. Don’t be put off by the screenshot here. I suggest you visit the demo blog and see how nice it looks. I am even using this for one of my free blogger blogs and I have to say it looks so damn fine. Have a gander at my site here ==> The Puncher’s Chance.
As I mentioned this theme is available for both Blogger and Wordpress users. If you’re into blogger, this is definitely worth a try. For my cyberfriends who still insist on using either Blogger’s classic templates or those two-column ones, maybe it’s time to shift to a three-column format. You know there was a time when three-column templates were once referred to as the holy grail of templates. Sure you don’t want to experience this? You know who you are guys. C’mon, give in to the 3-column side. lol.
Free Blogger/Wordpress Template
*demo WPsite
*demo BloggerSite
** download - Blogger
** download - Wordpress
2. Evolution WP Theme - This is a wordpress theme that looks oh so clean. If you’re into simplicity and all that two-column funtionality, then this is the template that you have been waiting for. Just check out the sidebar with its functional RecentPost/Categories/Archives sections and you’ll see how function has been seamlessly merged with its utter simplicity. I also like the footer where you can put in your choice WP plugins/widgets. The font used is awesome as well, very easy in the eyes and yet very elegant.
Don’t just look at the screenshot though, visit the demo page and take it for a spin. You might like what you discover.
Free Wordpress Template
*demo site
**download template
Don’t Lose Your Blog’s Competitive Traffic Advantage
I am feeling Google’s wrath. My posts are getting harder to get indexed these days. Even those articles where I should have the number 1 page ranking are getting too slow to be recognized. Those sites that have included my posts in their daily aggregations are getting the benefit. How do I feel so smug that I should get the page 1 ranking for my selected keywords you say? Well, it’s all thanks to Market Samurai. But that’s another story for another entry.
I’ve noticed recently that my page rank has gone down to 2 from a lofty high of 3 a few weeks back. Good think I didn’t go into sponsored posts and all that, otherwise I’d be looking at a fat zero right now. My particular sin was not updating my blog as often as I should. Blame it on human frailty or lack of inspiration, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that when Google’s spiders came crawling again and again to this site, the lack of new material apparently created a huge impression. So after a while, they stopped coming regularly. I still have to check the regularity in which they index my blog this days but I’m almost positive that it can’t be more than once every two weeks. I think there’s a wordpress plugin somewhere that I can use to remedy this somehow but I still have to search for it.
What I’ve done, is a violation of a blog’s purpose. A blog is supposed to have regular updates otherwise it won’t be any different from any other plain vanilla website on the internet. Come to think of it, why are blogs so popular with search engines? There are a lot of reasons really, but the most glaring are these:
1. Agility - because blogs are relatively small websites, we are able to move as quickly as we want. And usually that’s what search engines like about blogs. We are able to churn out fresh content regularly. And you know how search engines love content. This, sadly, was my mortal sin. I got bitten by the real life bug, and that kept me away from this blog for an inordinate amount of time. You see for blogs, search engines are like jealous lovers, you ignore them for some time, and they ignore you back in return. I wasn’t updating as much as I should have and this was contrary to what being a blogger is all about– fresh content served regularly.
2. Flexibility - unless you’re maintaining a tight niche, bloggers can post whatever they want on their site. Notice how esoteric some popular blog’s contents are? Ideally they should be writing about things that are central to their blog’s existence. But they’re not. A lot of them engage in what they call keyword hijacking. You research a few popular keywords and hope to find a jewel that isn’t so competitive and then focus your energy on creating a few pages around that keyword. Some would engage in trend wars (you find an event that’s gonna be really popular in a given period and write the hell out of those events). This is no wonder why folks(myself included) would suddenly be writing about board exam results and some popular celebrities. For these trendy posts a very helpful indicator is Google Trends.
3. Maneuverability - Blogs, being what they are can easily be retooled or refashioned to suit the blogger’s moods. I think I’ve changed templates more than you can shake a stick at. With the blog platforms that we currently have, as long as you know your way around these platforms, changing your blog’s look is a walk in the park and something that can be done as often as you want. It keeps things fresh and your readers interested.
4. Interactivity - A blog that’s not interactive is no blog at all. This is one of blogging’s greatest strength. With good, regular content, a community of followers and readers is born. The important thing is not to be lazy and just wait on your fat ass for these readers to come. Go to other blogs, forums, social media.. Put your blog out there and comment to your heart’s content. And your community will come, and if they like what they see, they will come back for more. Not everyone will feel the need to comment right away though, but if your content is engaging enough, people will reciprocate. A lot of widgets have been created because of this sense of community. There’s Disqus, Sezwho, etc.. A blog’s interactivity breeds a community. Never lose sight of this advantage.
5. Constantly Evolving - compared to a static site, blogs are constantly evolving. Thanks to the legions of widget/plugin makers and theme designers, blogging is more dynamic than ever. The usually clunky websites recognize this and thus they have come up with pages of their sites dedicated to blogging.
Blogging makes sense in a lot of areas- keeping the customers abreast of what’s happening, pleasing the search engines, adding that youthful touch—but the thing is, if we start losing sight of our blog’s purpose and why it’s there and we start procrastinating or taking a lot of time off between posts, our blogs lose their competitive advantage. It becomes a static site that spiders will try and avoid.
The thing to do so you avoid the pitfall of procrastination and ensure that your blog doesn’t die of neglect is to make a realistic goal for posting. You could start with a goal to always update your blog every week. This is very attainable I think, and this is why I’m taking my own advice.
How about you? What is your goal?
Free Adsense Optimized Blogger | Wordpress Template
Brian Gardner’s Revolution Theme is absolutely amazing. I’ve been using this template for a couple of months now and there’s nothing about it that I can complain about.
Sooner or later a blogger will want to think of ways to make money off his blog and usually the most logical step to make is to start introducing Google’s Adsense. The only problem is that there is such a few number of free blogger templates out there that can successfully integrate adsense into the template. Alright so there may be a few but then again something always comes up that you end up tearing your hair in frustration.
Usually it’s all about the design. You look at a particular template and instantly get infatuated with it. You like it’s form, how it incorporate the latest design trends and how widgetized it is. You can even put in adsense. The problem however is that when you view your blog/site using a different browser, it breaks! And this usually happens after introducing a lot of your own modifications. I’ve fallen prey to this a lot of times.
Usually the site breaker is Internet Explorer. Although Mozilla Firefox is the bomb, a lot of folks are too set in their ways to really leave Internet Explorer behind. And if we’d like to increase our reach, we have to think about the IE users as well. And this is precisely why I like the Revolution Theme. You can view this blog using Firefox, Safari, or IE and you will see the same thing. Not for Flock though, something’s off with that browser.
Revolution is completely widgetized, has a very nice color combination which is perfect for Google Adsense. And, it’s also available for Blogger/Blogspot users. So you have Brian Gardner’s Revolution Theme for Wordpress, and somebody was kind enough to port the same theme for Blogger.
You can download Revolution Theme for Blogger | Wordpress below.
Wordpress - This is just the landing page where you can select whether to download the 2 or 3 column template.
Enjoy!
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