How to Get Your Images Sharp on Blogger using IMGMAX Parameters

DISCLAIMER: The images in this post are optimized for a Retina display. If you are viewing this post on a standard screen, the sharpness and quality differences will be less obvious.

If your blogger images are only sharp when viewed "at full size" (when you click on them and load them in a new window) you probably have some code in your image url that is causing it.

Here is an example of the SAME photo url rendered differently in the same blog post:

SHARP (look at the watermark):

BLURRY (look at the watermark again):

What is the difference?

This is the image source code for the first (sharp) image:

src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhO3whVvjkzF2F-Irq11HoR-Zaqvb0Dmu8JfOHD1wsNzh_F3-qWIThPUiroDEJ25GhqdHXD-33wiaP3qr-sftDZKAaaLD98tPhOrGDHxGIRhw6pATEcqVAGrtTTCeUo46Bqq1uLGnOyZ4/s640/Sawdust-is-my-glitter-filled-ornament-.jpg?imgmax=1600"

This is the code for the second (blurry) image:

src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhO3whVvjkzF2F-Irq11HoR-Zaqvb0Dmu8JfOHD1wsNzh_F3-qWIThPUiroDEJ25GhqdHXD-33wiaP3qr-sftDZKAaaLD98tPhOrGDHxGIRhw6pATEcqVAGrtTTCeUo46Bqq1uLGnOyZ4/s640/Sawdust-is-my-glitter-filled-ornament-.jpg"

 The image URL is the same, but the blurry image no longer contains the "imgmax" parameter at the end of the url (When I compose in live writer or mars edit this suffix is automatically added)

If the size of you original image displayed doesn't match the number (or if that number is missing) blogger can mess up the proper display size making the images look blurry.

THAT NUMBER HAS TO BE THE ACTUAL WIDTH OF THE PHOTO.

So if you are displaying an image that is uploaded at 2200px wide you should have ?imgmax=2200 on the end of the url.

Here is another example:

This image was originally uploaded at 1200px wide.  THIS is the original.

 This is the image displaying at the "medium" blogger setting with NO tag:

This is the image with the CORRECT imgmax tag ("?imgmax=1200"):

And this is what happens if I have the incorrect max width (in this case I used "?imagemax=100"):

It can be super frustrating if you don't know why your images are blurry, but once you do, it is a pretty easy fix!

How to Break A Post Into Multiple Pages (Paginate) on Blogger

It is no secret that I'm a Blogger blogger. Plus many people may be surprised to hear I have no intention of moving to Wordpress.  I often feel like I'm the only one who still uses this platform but I actually really like it.  I feel like I really "get" it and I'm not relying on someone else to help me with it. I understand it isn't for everyone, but it works great for me.

I do have one complaint about using Blogger: The people who will constantly tell you what they think it can't do.  And sure, it may not be 100% manipulatable, but most problems can be overcome.

Today I am going to tackle one of those "drawbacks" that I have heard you can't do on Blogger:  PAGINATE (Cut posts up into smaller sections for faster loading.)  Sure, Wordpress probably has a plugin or something for this, but I have always heard it was impossible to break up posts in Blogger.

Well today I am going to share a little secret about paginating on Blogger:
IT ISN'T IMPOSSIBLE.  (See? This post is paginated!)

In fact, it isn't even difficult to code it. For anyone who is too nervous to mess with your template code, I have good news for you: YOU DON'T HAVE TO.  You can accomplish it entirely within the post composition itself! I'm going to show you how (and I'm going to use this post to demonstrate how it works!)

For today's example I am going to use a four page post breakdown. You can actually break a post into as few as two or up to an unlimited number of pages.  I thought four would get the point across.

How to Install The Facebook Tracking Pixel On Blogger

If you are on Facebook and are interested in tracking conversions to your blog from ads or post boosts, you are going to want to install the Facebook Pixel.   If you have never heard of the Facebook Pixel, you can read the quick summary directly from Facebook explaining how it works.

The problem is that the code they generate for users DOES NOT WORK directly on Blogger.

Installing the Facebook Pixel Tracking Code will give you an error that won’t all you to save the code in your template.   Luckily there is a work around that will convert the code to something more Blogger friendly.

How to Install The Facebook Pixel into a Blogger Blog

How to Confirm Google Analytics is Installed Correctly

Google Analytics is the gold standard of traffic monitoring software.  When site owners talk about their monthly page views or uniques, they are almost always referring to their numbers form Google Analytics.  This tracking software is the most accurate and therefore should be installed on your blog if you ever need access to your traffic statistics (don’t EVER use numbers from Blogger!)

However.. this accuracy is only true if you have Google Analytics installed CORRECTLY on your site.   This means the tracking script should be installed only one time, and in the correct location on the page.  If you have duplicate versions of the tracking code or have it installed too early in your head section, you can get falsely inflated analytics.

To demonstrate just how dramatic this inflation can be, I did an experiment on my own site.  I installed a second tracking code into my html and then watched my traffic over the next 4 days.  This is what happened:

My page views doubled and my bounce rate dropped to about 10%.  

As much as I wish those numbers were true.. They are completely an artifact of the duplicated code. 

How to Add An Image Slider to Posts on Blogger

Slideshows have been the hot new fad on blogs lately.  Many blogs have them on the sidebar, in the header and within the post content itself.  They are a great way to add a lot of images to a single post without making readers scroll and scroll to the bottom of the page.  They also can help loading time since they only pull one image at a time.  If the images are clickable you can also use sliders as a way of rounding up your old content.. almost like a fancy ‘navigation’ tool.

How to Paginate A Blogger Post

Over a year ago, I shared a tutorial on how to split you Blogger post into multiple pages.  

It was an okay way of paginating, but the setup was clunky.  There were a lot of moving parts. It was far from ideal for beginning bloggers.

How to Add Breadcrumb Navigation Menus At the Top of Your Blog Posts

Breadcrumb navigation is becoming a more and more relevant when it comes to a blog’s user friendliness (which trickles down to search engine friendliness).   Most SEO and marketing experts agree that breadcrumb paths are a positive addition to almost any site, especially those where the content can be categorized with some sort of hierarchy. Today we’re going to discuss exactly what breadcrumb navigation is, why it is important and how you can install it on your Blogger blog if you don’t have it already. 

What is breadcrumb navigation?

Breadcrumb paths are the horizontal menus found at the top of a post or page that show the hierarchy of post content.  On Blogger, the cascade is typically:  Home >> Post Category >> Post Title

The term “Breadcrumb” is a homage to the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel where the children left a trail of breadcrumbs to find their way out of the forest.  In that same way, your breadcrumb navigation shows the path of your content. (Although not necessarily in the order you actually got there.) It is more of a roadmap of your site structure to help users navigate through your content.

I have been using breadcrumb navigation on my DIY site for a while now and it has been great for reader retention and increasing pages per session.  This is what they breadcrumbs look like on my blog:

Why are breadcrumbs so important? 

Breadcrumb navigation is extremely important especially on large commerce sites.  For example, Amazon prominently uses breadcrumb paths on their site:

and even though the structure of most blogs is not nearly as complex as Amazon, it still can be very valuable for a good user experience and SEO.

BENEFITS OF BREADCRUMBS FOR USER EXPERIENCE:

1. Aids in navigation: Having a breadcrumb path allows for easy discovery of related content. Since most blogs are written chronologically, the “next” and “last” post navigation options may not result in related or relevant content.  They are typically easy to understand for most users (and not as difficult to find as your menus in your header or sidebar) and don’t take up a lot of space or slow down you site.

2. Reduces Bounce Rate: Having a breadcrumb trail available has been proven to reduce a page’s bounce rate. By giving users an easy way to find related content they are less likely to leave after they have finished reading the content on the current page. I also increases time on site and pages per session.

3. Gives user a frame of reference: Many site visitors will not land on a home or menu page but will instead find themselves on a single post.  A quick glance at the breadcrumb path makes it quickly obvious where exactly they are located on your site, relative to the rest of your content.  Additionally, the label the current post is categorized under provides insight into the type of content available on your site.

4. Allows for easy back tracking: Breadcrumb navigation makes it easier for a user to backtrack to a parent directory (or in blogger’s case, to an entire category label).  Since breadcrumb paths tend to narrow down content by increasing specificity, they allow users to ‘back out’ of a post into a larger segment of your site’s content. 

BENEFITS OF BREADCRUMBS FOR SEO:

All of the benefits for user experience chould technically also be listed under SEO benefits, since user friendliness and engagement is such an important factor when it comes to a page’s search engine rank.  There are also some ADDITIONAL SEO perks from having breadcrumb navigation available on your blog independant of user experience.    

1. SERP results markup: Google recently announced that they are updating the MOBILE algorithm to show breadcrumb paths instead of URLS on SERPs (Search engine results pages).  To insure your links show up that way requires some additional RDFa markup separate from the HTML for navigation.

With that markup search results now look different on mobile.
2. Keyword Density: Listing the keyword rich post and category names on each page increases the keyword density on your site.

3. Internal Linking: This navigation system links together similar content via the same category label. These additional links are beneficial SEO wise.

How do you install the breadcrumb navigation to your blog posts?  

It isn’t super difficult if you have a standard template.  Custom templates may be slightly more complicated, but for most blogs it is a few simple lines of HTML added to your template.  This is what this blog’s breadcrumb menu looks like using this tutorial. 

INSTALLING BREADCRUMBS ON A BLOGGER BLOG:

From your Blogger dashboard go to Template and create a backup. Next click on “Edit HTML”   Click INSIDE the window and search for: 

<b:include data='top' name='status-message'/>

Remember you need to click ON THE CODE and THEN hit “Control-F” or else you won’t actually search the HTML! 

Now Replace the highlighted text with the following (we are adding the navigation menu to the top of your posts):

<b:include data='top' name='status-message'/>
<b:include data='posts' name='breadcrumb'/>

Now you want to find this part of your code:

<b:includable id='main' var='top'>

Replace it with the following  (What we are doing here is adding code to generate the actual text in the menu itself) :

<b:includable id='breadcrumb' var='posts'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.homepageUrl == data:blog.url'>
<!-- No breadcrumb on home page -->
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<!-- breadcrumb for the post page -->
<p class='breadcrumbs'>
<span class='post-labels'>
<a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl' rel='tag'>Home</a>
<b:loop values='data:posts' var='post'>
<b:if cond='data:post.labels'>
<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
<b:if cond='data:label.isLast == "true"'>  » <a expr:href='data:label.url' rel='tag'><data:label.name/></a>
</b:if>
</b:loop>
<b:else/>

»Unlabelled

</b:if>

» 

<span><data:post.title/></span>
</b:loop>
</span>
</p>
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "archive"'>
<!-- breadcrumb for the label archive page and search pages.. -->
<p class='breadcrumbs'>
<span class='post-labels'>
<a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl'>Home</a> » Archives for <data:blog.pageName/>
</span>
</p>
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'>
<p class='breadcrumbs'>
<span class='post-labels'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageName == ""'>
<a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl'>Home</a>

 » All posts

<b:else/>
<a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl'>Home</a> » Posts filed under <data:blog.pageName/>
</b:if>
</span>
</p>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='main' var='top'>

Finally we need to format how the menu appears.  To do this you have to add the CSS (styling) to the text.  Find: 

]]></b:skin>

Paste the following immediately before it:

.breadcrumbs {
padding:5px 5px 5px 0px;
margin: 0px 0px 15px 0px;
font-size:95%;
line-height: 1.4em;
}

This is CSS markup and you can change the way your menu looks by changing this text.  This is just the most basic formatting, but feel free to play with this code if you are comfortable with CSS.

For example, here is a much more complicated CSS markup you could use instead:

.breadcrumbs {
font-size: 14px;
background: #eeeeee;
background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #eeeeee 0%, #cccccc 100%);
background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%,#eeeeee), color-stop(100%,#cccccc));
background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #eeeeee 0%,#cccccc 100%);
background: -o-linear-gradient(top, #eeeeee 0%,#cccccc 100%);
background: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #eeeeee 0%,#cccccc 100%);
background: linear-gradient(top, #eeeeee 0%,#cccccc 100%);
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#eeeeee', endColorstr='#cccccc',GradientType=0 );
height: 25px;
line-height: 25px;
color: #454545;
border: solid 1px #cacaca;
width: 100%;
overflow: hidden; 
margin-bottom: 25px; 
padding: 0px
}

With that CSS this is what the menu would look like this on my blog:

Depending on how comfortable you are with your template, you also can move your menu to different parts of your post.  I put mine under the title, but you could also put it in the footer or near the comments.  It really will depend on your layout.  The standard location is at the top of your post.

Now you should have everything you need to install this extra navigation option for your readers and will help drive those readers to all the other related content on your site.

Optimize Your Blog's Meta (Search) Descriptions Using Keyword Research

One of the things many bloggers struggle with when it comes to SEO is what exactly to include in their posts' meta descriptions.  The meta description (also called the search description on Blogger) is the short text snippet that appears on SERPs (search engine results pages) under the page title and URL.  Typically the meta description is a summary of the page content.

Search Engine Title Swapping: Make Post Titles Appear Before Blog Titles on Google

How your blog posts show up in Google’s search results is extremely important.  Since search engines take into account how frequently a displayed listing is clicked when ranking content, you want to make sure that your search results accurately reflect what your post is about.  Since the most predominant part of a search result is the post title, ensuring that it is displayed in full is very important.  But by default, Blogger does not have your search listings formatted that way.  

How to Back Up Your Entire Blogspot Blog (Content, Template, Images and Widgets)

If you google “How to backup your blog” you will find 1000 tutorials.  But what I  have noticed about almost all these posts is that they are incomplete.  They either tell you how to backup your content (which is important! don’t get me wrong) or your template, but typically they don’t cover your entire blog. They don’t explain how to save a copy of ALL the stuff you want saved in case of a zombie apocalypse or nuclear war.  What would it take to rise from the ashes and build a new blog? THAT is what you are really asking when you say “How do I backup my blog?”

So today I’m going to cover all the things you can (and should) have copies off.. just in case something goes terribly wrong.

There are 4 main parts to your blogspot blog that you should be backing up: 

1.  Your content.  The HTML that makes up all of your posts and pages.

2.  Your template.  The code that packages up your content so nicely in your browser.

3.  Your images.   Contrary to popular belief, no, in fact your images are NOT backed up when you
back up your content.  Your images are actually hosted outside of your content and so if you want to make sure they are never lost, you probably want to keep a copy of each and every one of them.

4. Your HTML gadgets.  The content within your HTML gadgets (your sidebars and footers) floats in a strange “no mans land” when it comes to Blogspot.  It isn’t backed up with your template, nor is it backed up with your content.  Typically it wouldn’t be catastrophic to lose the little bit of HTML in your sidebars (usually it is images and text for things like buttons or ads or whatever you keep in your side bar). However, if you ever want to migrate to a new blog or new template, having a copy of those gadgets is a good idea.

How do you do it?  It is easier than you think.

How to Divide Your Email List and Target Your Subscribers Automatically

On my “real” blog I actually write about a LARGE variety of projects.  I am not one of those bloggers who has a very specific niche, but I cover a wide range of topics from remodeling and woodworking, to kid crafts, recipes and holidays.  Because of this, I always had a hard time retaining email subscribers and/or getting them to open my emails.

Since I wanted to make the process of sending out emails as painless as possible, I had been using RSS driven campaigns (meaning anytime I posted a new post on the blog, it would automatically detect the RSS feed and send out an email.)  The problem was that not everyone wanted to hear about every project.  (I totally get it, we are busy and you only want to read about what you are interested in.)

Then I discovered the beauty of the “LABEL DRIVEN RSS FEED”!!   Game.changer!  

Label driven feeds are the same RSS feeds that you are familar with, but instead of going out for EVERY post, it only goes out for posts with a certain label or tag. This means that I could flag posts with different labels and set up different automatic RSS emails for different target audiences.

How to Generate and Submit a Site Map for a Blogspot Blog

A question I get from a lot from bloggers is “How do I know that Google sees my site?” And the short answer is: as long as you have the privacy settings set correctly (In your Blogger Dashboard under Settings >> Basic) Google can find you.
The long answer, however, is a little more complicated.

Get Rid of The Blogspot: How to Setup a Custom Blogger Domain on GoDaddy

One of the biggest perks with using the Blogger platform for your blog is that is is 100% FREE.  You don’t have to pay to be ‘self-hosted’ like other blogging platforms.  (While I’m on it, the term ’self-hosted' is a misnomer actually.. unless you have a server in your garage, you aren’t self-hosted, you are paying for a hosting service.. you aren’t actually hosting your own content. It should be called “privately-hosted” or “third party-hosted” or something.)

In the case of Blogger blogs, our host is Google.. which is a pretty sweet deal!  Like any other hosting company (Bluehost, HostGator, FatCow, DreamHost..) Google DOES NOT own your content, the same way any other hosting company doesn’t own their client’s content.  (That is another big misconception about Blogger.) Hosts (even Google) are just ‘holding’ it for you and displaying it on your little corner of the internet, it is still YOURS and cannot be taken away from you. The biggest difference between Google-hosting an other privately-hosted blogs, is that Google holds our content for free, and without any bandwidth limitations or a big monthly bill!

How to Remove, Rewrite and Republish Old Content and Optimize SEO on Blogger

With the start of the New Year, many bloggers are cleaning house.. both literally and on their blogs.  One question I get all the time when I talk about SEO is “How can I optimize old content?”

We all have those old posts that have great content, but not the best photography or that we haven’t optimized correctly.  Often they are posts that we would love to share with our current readers, but we aren’t sure the best way to do it.  We worry about what we will ‘mess up’ if we change them.

We also have posts that are just TERRIBLE and we want to remove them all together.  Posts that are either no longer relevant or are no longer trafficked.  People often ask “Can I just go back and delete old content?” and the answer is “It depends.”  (I know.. not the most straight forward answer.)

So today I’m going to show you a variety of situations that you may run into that involve either deleting, rewriting, republishing or changing the date of old content to keep your blog evergreen and to optimize SEO as well.  The specifics of this tutorial will focus on Google’s Blogger platform (since that is my favorite) but the tips apply to other platforms as well.. but you may need to adjust the method for editing/changing/dating posts.  (Tips for Wordpress users will be in RED)

How to Turn Your Blogger Posts into Rich Pins on Pinterest

In case you didn't realize it, I do 100% of my own blog formatting and HTML programming.   That is the big reason I am still using Blogger (instead of Wordpress) and why my blog layout/template never changes.  If it ain't broke.. (since I'm the one who will have to fix it!)

The truth is that I have ZERO computer programming experience, I just spend a lot of my time pounding my head into my keyboard and using google to try to figure out how to make my blog do what I want.  I am sure there are some really weird things going on in my code but, eh,  it just has to look okay to the average reader. 

What Does It Really Cost To Run A Blog?

I am constantly asked about what types of resources I use when I blog.  My blog is a little unusual because I am self-hosted on Google and thus my blogging expenses are vastly different from many other mid-sized bloggers who are self-hosted on Wordpress. So for fun I thought I would create a quick guide to all my favorite blogging tools and how much I spend on them every month.

This post will include my ENTIRE OVERHEAD (other than supplies I use in the posts themselves) for my blog. Hopefully this will give non-bloggers (and even fellow bloggers) and idea of what it costs to run a successful blog.   And in case you are wondering, right now my blog gets between 250,000 and 300,000 page views a month.   That is about 300% more than it was a year ago, when I was averaging only 100,000.

I know for sure that investing in the resources I will talk about below is one of the reasons I have seen that growth.   It wasn’t until I started really INVESTING in my blog and treating it as a business did I earn a full time income, since now my monthly revenue is significantly more than these expenses.

What is Haven? What Makes It Special?

 Phew.. I have finally returned from my extended Haven vacation, and in my typical style I'm late getting my recap post up.   We decided to take a few extra days sightseeing in Washington DC and so I am only getting home now.  Originally I was going to write up my recap earlier, but another experience got in the way (and I'm glad it did.)

SNAP 2015 (and Notes from my Blogger Roundtable)

I wasn’t actually going to do a SNAP recap post this year but when I asked on my Facebook page if people wanted one, the majority said yes.. so here it is.  (Bet you didn’t realize the content of this blog was reader-interactive.. did ya? Well, if you aren’t following my Facebook page, you aren’t getting a vote!)

Anyhoo..

A Non-Professional's Experience at BlogHerPRO 2013

I just got back from an intense few days at the BlogHerPRO conference which was held in Silicon Valley this year.

Let me explain: I do NOT consider myself a "Professional Blogger" by any means.  

 

If I had to survive on my income from blogging to feed my family, we couldn't even afford Ramen. Blogging still has to fall into the "pastime" category for me.

I will confess, the only reason I attended was because I live in the Bay Area and it was going to be an "easy commute" over to the venue.  The reason I have "easy commute" in quotes is that anyone who lives around San Francisco/Silicon Valley can testify that there is no such thing as an easy commute.  On a good day I was facing at least an hour in traffic, but I had an unforseen complication of a public transportation strike to make it even more exciting.  I ended up staying in a hotel close to the venue to save myself the headache and turned the two days into a mini-vacation for myself. BEST.DECISION.EVER!

Not only did I learn quite a bit at the conference, but I also came home refreshed.   Check out the venue for the opening night's cocktail mixer:

One other cool thing about this specific conference (vs, say Haven for example) is that the participants were very different.  There were hardly any DIY bloggers there (I may even say there were NO other DIY bloggers there.. at least that I met), and I only recognized a handful of blog names.  I did however meet a TON of local bloggers whose blog topics ran the gamut from MommyBloggers to FoodBloggers, Self-HelpBloggers, TechBloggers and even a few people who blogged professionally about things like Medical Care, Law, and Business Development.   

There were a lot of bloggers at this conference with tens hundreds of thousands of followers and millions billions of pageviews and it would have been easy to be intimidated, but most people were super nice and easy to talk to;  Regular ol' people with regular ol' lives.  Even though I am a tiny blogger, I could actually relate to a lot of the "big guys."  In fact,  Britt Reints  (who spoke about Pivoting your Brand) even gave me a little shout out, after hearing my story of re-branding my blog earlier this year.

It was fascinating really (at least to me, who doesn't really run in non-DIY blog circles) to hear about other people's motivations for blogging and how they have found success.  (Pinterest isn't exactly a big traffic driver if you are blogging about Medicare or Binding Legal Contracts!)

And even though was quite a bit of information in the sessions that didn't (and probably won't ever) apply to me (like turning your blog into a marketable physical product,) the message of "You don't have to be perfect!" "Give yourself a break and just do the best that you can." and "Don't compare yourself to others!" still resonated.

All these (now) big professional bloggers had to start somewhere.  It struck me when keynote speaker Porter Gale said: "Miracles and success are an accumulation of small steps.  Baby steps still mean you are making progress!" (Totally random anecdote: She and I actually had a discussion about how the houses on Houzz are insanely large and over-the-top and just how fun that makes them to look at! See.. I told you.. regular ol' people! )

If you are interested in the information presented in any of the sessions, you should peruse though the Virtual Conference Blog Posts.  I promise, if you are a blogger, big or little, you will learn something.  

The final highlight of the whole event was the announcement that the next BlogHer conference (you know, the "BIG ONE!')  is going to be in San Jose!  My backyard!!  I hope that I will get to see a few of favorite fellow BlogHer Sponsored DIY bloggers there!

 

Kim Six Blogger Support Launch Annoucement

Today’s post is going to be a little different than my typical DIY project.  However, a HUGE chunk of my time has been going towards my new “blogger support” business and i thought I would share a little glimpse of what I’ve been doing behind the scenes.  Plus, since everyone likes a good “before and after” reveal, I thought I would throw in a few of my latest redesigns.

If you missed my previous announcement back in January, I began working on Blogger/Blogspot blogs in my free time the middle of the night when I should be sleeping.  It has been a lot of fun, and I’ve been super busy since there is clearly a demand from bloggers that need help.  I also am getting ready to present at SNAP in a few weeks about optimizing your Blogger hosted blog.  Blogs! Blogs! Blogs! Blogs! That is all I think about these days!

So what have I been doing with all those hours?  My most recent client was Mindi from My Love to 2 Create.   Here is what her blog looked like ‘before’:

She didn’t want a total makeover, but more like a refresh which included a cleaner layout, truncated posts and a drop down menu.  Here is what her blog looks like now: