The Emperor’s Tighty Whiteys And My New Theme
I just can’t do it anymore. I’ve had enough of pretending I like the emperor’s new boring white “clothes” (er.. website actually). I imagine that to any creative person like me, having a plain white business blog ( like the friends who encouraged and persuaded me into doing this said was the best thing to do ) is like letting my website sit around it it’s “tighty whiteys”.
I can’t take it anymore. The designer in me is crying for freedom and my business instinct tells me that this whole “plainer than plain” idea is just put out there to stop the sort of thing that was common in the early days of the Internet; websites that were styled not by any sort of common standards like we have today and sometimes looked like a kaleidoscope of colors and backgrounds and fonts that were hard to read through all the “creativity”.
But… I have a decent eye for design and I know enough to leave the main text alone, leave it black on white, and just style the rest as subtly as I can. Why can’t I have some style then, instead of some plain-ass boring whiter than white tighty whitey website? Why not?
Because the readily available testing results say so? I don’t buy it. They probably tested crappy graphics against no graphics. Anyway, I’ll test it myself and that’s the position I’d recommend to everyone. Don’t listen to the gurus. Try things for yourself. I’ve always known that and I’m ashamed to have forgotten it temporarily or for having gone against my instincts again, just to be polite.
Now that I think about it… I’d bet money on decent graphics over none any day.
The only person I ever heard of that actually tested professional graphics against no graphics was Marlon Sanders and you just have to check out a few of his sales pages to see what must work the best: Graphics.
I don’t know why I ever started out with that plain white theme… Oh wait, it was to make the friends who pushed me into finally blogging that suggested it. (They’re all in some kind of cult with one of these latest gurus.) I was trying to be respectful to some of my friends and students who said that it’s the best way to start a business blog.
But, I can’t do it, sorry. I need to take my own path, especially since I think the guru y’all bend over to is a total jerk and I know for a fact he outright stole the idea for his best product from a guy that was offering him a joint venture. The worst part is he gets all righteous on his blog, telling people how to live their lives and whatnot. What a hypocrite.
I’ve seen these guys come and go for years now and it’s nothing new. Once they’ve sufficiently impressed their girlfriends or made whatever fast cash they came for they usually go out like the paper tigers they always were.
Hopefully, I can begin to set it straight as my blog develops. I plan on taking the strangest possible path to making money in this “making money” niche. I’m not going to hustle you, or tell you how to live your life, or fill your head with so much information I cause the dreaded overload. What I will do is, I’ll tell you what works. I’ll make you software that makes your life easier. And, maybe I’ll someday find my teaching voice and do a decent job of explaining this whole Internet business mess.
One thing I’ve never been and I’ll never be is one who follows the herd. To my early readers, I’m sorry I let you down; I was blinded by a friendship and the spirit of being respectful to those bloggers that came before. That won’t happen again.
I’m the captain of this ship and from here on out I’m setting a new course.
“Put ‘er into the wind and head on straight until sunrise, captain (that’s me)! …I see adventure on the horizon.”
April 26th, 2008 11:22
Hello Mark:
I don’t know if this is still your old or if it is your new design. Looks fine to me. I don’t have to be “in love” with the appearance of a site as long as I can READ it. Dark text on white/light background. AND PRINTER FRIENDLY in Firefox as well as Microsucks IE. And don’t need FLASH. (Look up dangers of Flash malware just by GOING to a page with Flash if you have Flash installed.) Nyself, I get confused by all those graphics intense sites. They make me want to go have a beer instead of reading more. I myself like plain site designs - but fancy women.
How would you test site graphics against plain, and what would be a/the decision criteria to go one way or the other?
BTW, Does the “righteous” guru you mention have initials JB?
BTW2, How do you “monetize” this site?
Regards,
David Bean
April 28th, 2008 15:09
Thanks for the compliment, David. It looks fine to me too, so far. Although, I’ve been so busy lately it will have to be a work in progress for now. I haven’t had much time for graphic design lately because I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my new software.
I’ll probably change the theme here several times before I really like it myself and then I’ll most likely keep on trying new things, but that’s just me. At least my website no longer looks like it’s sitting around in it’s underwear, or blasts the reader with a full page of retina searing solid white making finding navigation confusing and overloading the user with what looks like a sea of jumbled text.
In my view, it’s hardly better than the crazy old days when people made those billboard type sites with a million banners.
Of course ease of navigation and readability are the most important things, but getting blasted with a totally white screen is not something I particularly enjoy and in my view it detracts from both readability and usability for the user.
After I had the rare pleasure of enjoying some time to reflect on the whole thing recently, I realized that, personally, I just don’t like those plain white text sites very much, for all the reasons I’ve mentioned, and I was being incredibly silly doing it myself… The truth is probably closer to that I was just being lazy, or perhaps overworked, and it was easy to listen to friends who say things like, “just slap it up with some plain theme and forget about it”.
But, this isn’t just some affiliate site or even one of my sales sites. This is my personal blog. So, I’m just going to have fun with it, even if I’m already strapped for time.
Dave asked: “How would you test site graphics against plain, and what would be a/the decision criteria to go one way or the other?”
Answer: The subject of testing and tracking is too large to answer just off the cuff, unless I was selling some solution for it. For sales pages, I recommend using some sort of testing and tracking software or service. But, for my personal blog here… I’ll probably just do what I like and if I ever care, I’ll poll my readers about it. That’s 1 vote for yes on the new theme so far. And, I didn’t’ even ask for it! Cool. Thanks David. I had a hunch y’all would like it better. I know I do, even if it’s not quite finished yet.
Dave asks: “BTW, Does the “righteous” guru you mention have initials JB?”
Answer: Nice try, but sorry no dice. I don’t plan on ever mentioning that name here if I can help it. The last thing I need is to start a flame war with someone I already know is ruthless and underhanded. The guy actually has some decent software, I just don’t care for what I see as his snobby rhetoric, outright hypocrisy and “cult like” ideas. ‘Nuff said.
Dave asks: “BTW2, How do you “monetize” this site?”
Answer: Great question. The short answer is I don’t yet. This site is so new, there’s hardly anything here yet and I haven’t had the time to give it my full attention. Besides, it’s not meant to be another one of the hoard of Internet business blogs that are nothing but monetization. It’s meant to be more of an actual personal blog about everything I know about Internet business from the last 5+ years of experience actually doing it, instead of just talking about it… and the tools I’m creating to make it all more manageable for everyone.
My first software product is nearly complete and I plan on releasing it any day now, so hopefully very soon I can switch out of production mode and back into marketing. If I find any third party products worth recommending, I’ll do it. In fact, if I knew of a great info-product creation course, I’d be recommending it here, but I haven’t seen one worth mentioning..
The long answer is once I build up the content with helpful articles and web development how-tos, I’ll most likely start by installing the new OpenX (formerly OpenAds), http://www.openx.org and see how that works with Wordpress. And, I also have my own sales page tracking system in the works that will plug right into the existing backend CBMerchantPro system. I hadn’t thought of adapting it to work for Wordpress too, but maybe that’s not a bad idea. But, that will most likely not debut for a few months at soonest. I’ve got to get through this first product launch first.
One thing I hadn’t considered is that anyone might bother printing these blogs and reading them offline. Thanks for the heads-up David. I’ll take that into consideration as I complete the current theme over the next few months.