Comments on: Best Way to Design Blog Network Blogs?

By: Is Content king and the most important factor of web?

Is Content king and the most important factor of web? — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 03:51:59 +0000

[...] my RSS feed or click here for explanation about What is RSS? Thanks for visiting!Just read “Best way to Design Blog Network Blogs” and it raised one the many age old arguments on web design on about design verses [...]

By: Joseph Cizek

Joseph Cizek — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 06:18:30 +0000

I just finished turning my personal blogging focuses from one blog into a small blogging network, while preserving my personal branding efforts.

Starting at http://BlogFu.info, you’ll see that along with my blog on blogging tips, trends, and techniques, there is also my blog on online marketing (OffMadison.info) and my personal blog (JosephCizek.info). All these sites are being fed of one instance of WordPress.

I opted to use WordPress versus WordPress MU (the multi-site & multi-user flavor) because I wanted to keep all the sites under similar visual design and branding, and share content easily among the sites. Without any hacking of the core WP code, I figured how to get all the important features of WP MU w/out actually using it.

For anybody with multiple blogs – and for anybody considering establishing a blog network, I’ve found just using the standard WordPress is best.

By: Joseph Cizek » Designing for a Blog Network

Joseph Cizek » Designing for a Blog Network — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 06:08:44 +0000

[...] http://www.blogherald.com/2007/09/18/best-way-to-design-blog-network-blogs/ [...]

By: Scott Gentry

Scott Gentry — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 02:45:00 +0000

I’ve done this both ways in the past. Currently we are in beta with a new brand and need the consistentcy – http://exec-summary.net/ Focused primarily on monetizing markets, there’s also content for fitness and technology. We will likely morph over time to slightly different designs within the framework, but keep a tabbed format atop.

By: Jermayn Parker

Jermayn Parker — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 04:43:26 +0000

An individual design is important, while content is king I would rather eat a four star meal on a nice plate than on the floor.

By: TDH

TDH — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:39:08 +0000

Well, I’m obviously partial in this since I’m responsible for quite a few Splashpress redesigns, and have pushed on for the unique design, with a networking twist solution. That would be your third option in the bullet list above.

The problem with taking one design and using it over a larger number of blogs is that they lose brand power and their uniqueness. It is, however, possible to take a good general design and swap colors, logos and major graphical elements, while maintaining the brand identity of the blog itself. That is probably the most cost-efficient solution, and the second best way to go if you ask me.

What you never, NEVER, should do is slap up a general design on a bunch of blogs, and just change some colors and think you’re done, moving on, next one. You need to make a dedicated choice if you want to run the same theme all over your network, and you need to spend time and/or money to brand within the theme’s limits as well.

Content is King and all that, I believe in it, but if the content isn’t delivered in a good enough way, if design solutions looks weird and dated, then it won’t reach its destination and what good is it?

My two cents, as you put it. :)