Everything Typepad

Tips for a Better Banner

Size matters
A banner should complement a blog's content, not distract or pull the reader's attention away from it. One key element to this is choosing the right overall size for the banner. Horizontally, the image should be as wide as the blog's container. We have more tips for choosing the width for a banner here.

Vertically, the image shouldn't extend beyond about 1/4th of the screen size when you first load the main page of your blog. Anything more than this forces the reader to scroll down to get to the content which can be distracting and in some cases even confusing. A good rule of thumb is to start with an image that's 200 pixels tall and adjust from there.

Quality matters, too
No matter how lovely the content of an image or drawing is, if it's pixelated, blurry, stretched out, or squished up, we would recommend opting for a different image of higher quality. The banner is the first thing a new visitor will see when they visit your blog - using a poor-quality image could send the wrong message about the quality of your content.

Choose your focus
You might be tempted to create a banner using your fifteen favorite images plus a fancy font plus drop shadows, blurred edges and every image filter at your disposal. Unless you're a graphic designer, this type of banner can be extremely hard to pull off.

Instead, consider focusing on just one or two favorite (high quality!) images and a simple but unique font for your blog's title. No one has ever gone wrong by keeping a design simple and elegant!

Some great resources
If you don't have your own image or drawing to use for your banner, you still have a lot of options. For free stock images, try stock.xchng or if you're willing to pay for stock imagery, iStockphoto has thousands and thousands of images to choose from.

Skout is a resource for designers looking for free fonts, stock photos and illustrations, color tools, and all manner of goodies.

For examples of great TypePad blog banners, see this Everything TypePad post and the Featured TypePad site.

Need help?
We're here to lend a hand, of course. If you need help with a new blog banner, or improving your old one, contact the TypePad Services Team and we'll be happy to assist!

I Listen To Everything

WHO: Diana Miller
BLOG: I Listen To Everything
TYPEPAD MEMBER SINCE: 2010
WHY WE THINK I LISTEN TO EVERYTHING ROCKS: As Senior Talent Executive for NBC's Last Call with Carson Daly, staying up on the latest in music wasn't just a hobby for Diana Miller, it was a full time job. She has a constant urge to find new music, and an even bigger urge to share the good stuff she finds.

Everyone loves music. Not everyone has the time to hunt for it. Diana Miller listens to everything so you don't have to! I Listen To Everything is a music website and blog designed to help average music lovers keep their music collections fresh and up to date. It's a music blog for people who might not usually read music blogs. Whether you know a lot or a little about music, if you are sick of the music on your iPod, I Listen To Everything is the place to be!

FOLLOW I LISTEN TO EVERYTHING: TypePad, Twitter, and Facebook

Get Satisfaction Champions: Making Our Community Even Better!

You might have noticed that there’s been more activity in our Get Satisfaction forum lately.

If you’re not familiar with it, Get Satisfaction is a great place where not only the TypePad Support Staff can help you with any questions or issues you might be having, but your fellow TypePad subscribers can too! We love to help out our subscribers and we also want to help foster TypePad as a place where everyone helps out everyone else. We really want to see TypePad develop as a community and we think that this is a great place to start.

To help encourage everyone’s participation, we’re going to begin a new program called Get Satisfaction Champions. If a member of TypePad and our staff sees you being particularly helpful, we’re going to mark you as a Champion on Get Satisfaction and also give you some free TypePad time applied to your account to thank you. Being helpful could consist of answering someone’s question before the support staff has a chance to, starting a topic to give people great ideas to use on their own blogs, or even something else entirely. Be creative! Anything that you think might be helpful, won't just improve our community and the sites of your fellow bloggers, it may earn you some free TypePad time as well!

We really do think of TypePad as a community and we’re striving to make this a better place for all of our subscribers. We encourage all of you to become Get Satisfaction Champions and help our your fellow TypePad members!

Royal Tunbridge Wells

WHO: Anke
BLOG: Royal Tunbridge Wells
TYPEPAD MEMBER SINCE: 2005
WHY WE THINK ROYAL TUNBRIDGE WELLS ROCKS: I ♥ Royal Tunbridge Wells offers an inside look at "the most fabulous town in the entire world".

Life in Tunbridge Wells is a dream - at least according to the dedicated gentleman who pens this blog, and his wife, who contributes her thoughts on Royal Tunbridge Wells in a feature called Mrs. Anke's Ladybits. This blog is really well designed and a fantastic read besides, well researched and packed with historic and current information. We can certainly see why "A day away from Royal Tunbridge Wells is a day wasted"!

FOLLOW ROYAL TUNBRIDGE WELLS: TypePad and Twitter.

The Design Implementation Service - Bringing Your Design Home to TypePad

Many organizations - from schools to non-profits to large companies - have their blogs with TypePad and want to match the blog's design to their website. Or they may have developed a new design but aren't sure how to implement it on TypePad. This is where TypePad One's Design Implementation Service comes in.

The cost for this service depends on the complexity of your design so when you sign up we will need to see your website or a mock-up that you provide, then we will give you a quote. The cost is based on a $200/hour rate. We'll need you to provide graphics and other images to be used in the design.

We love the Design Implementation Service because these are often the most complex designs we do and show off just what TypePad is capable of supporting. Didn't think you could do your design on TypePad? You may be surprised!

If you would like to match your blog to your website, or just have a really great design you've created that you want to use on TypePad, check out our Design Implementation Service today!

Featured Tuesday! Recapping Last Week's Featured TypePad Blogs

Things have been rocking over at our Featured TypePad blog! We've been showcasing some fantastic blogs from folks behind the scenes in the entertainment industry, and people working hard to make a difference in the environment, all suggested by TypePad bloggers and readers! We love hearing your suggestions, so keep it up. We even have a handy form that you can use to tell us which blogs you'd like to see featured.

Here's some of what we've been talking about (just click the image to read more!):

Read more about these great blogs at Featured TypePad, and look for new blogs there every week!

Did You Know?: Password Protecting Your Blog

While it’s great to be able to share your blog with the world, sometimes you might want to keep things more private – just between you and a smaller group of people. This is easy to do with TypePad’s built-in password protection feature.

When you enable password protection, only those people that you supply the username and password to will be able to view your blog. Everyone else will get a prompt to enter the username and password and, if they don’t know it, won’t be able to view the blog.

You can choose to password protect only specific blogs and Photo Albums or you can password protect your entire account. You can enable password protection for the entire account or specific blogs or Photo Albums by going to Account > Password Protection. You can also enable password protection on individual blogs by clicking through to Settings > Password Protection.

We have more information on how to enable password protection for your blog or account here.

If you enable password protection and encounter any problems, check out our password protection troubleshooting tips here.

We hope you found this useful! Check back every other week for more "Did You Know?" tips to help make your blog even better!

Hypebot

WHO: Bruce Houghton
BLOG: Hypebot
TYPEPAD MEMBER SINCE: 2004
WHY WE THINK HYPEBOT ROCKS: Hypebot brings you music industry news - from an insider.

You may know Bruce Houghton as the Founder and President of booking agency Skyline Music, but he is also the mastermind behind Hypebot, a blog that brings you daily news on the music business, with a keen focus on marketing, digital entertainment, promotion, and technology. The blog is full of useful information for anyone who is into music - from musicians to enthusiasts. Rock on!

FOLLOW HYPEBOT: TypePad, Twitter

The Comic's Comic

WHO: Sean McCarthy
BLOG: The Comic's Comic
TYPEPAD MEMBER SINCE: 2007
WHY WE THINK THE COMIC'S COMIC ROCKS: This blog presents a unique perspective of the comedy industry - the inside!

The Comic's Comic is brought to you by Sean McCarthy, who along with manning his blog has contributed to the New York Daily News, Entertainment Weekly, the Boston Globe, Boston Phoenix, BostonNOW, and the Boston Herald, amongst others! The Comic's Comic is the definitive guide to comedy, from the back room to your room.

FOLLOW THE COMIC'S COMIC: TypePad, Twitter, Facebook

Keep It Simple: Use the Feeds module to display links to posts from other blogs

The Feeds module allows you to display links to the most recent posts from other sites - including your own blogs - in the sidebar.

Do you have multiple blogs within your TypePad account? If so, you can use the feed from one blog to display links to your most recent posts on other blogs within your account.

Grab the feed for the site you want to add to your sidebar and go to Design > Content. Select the Your Feeds category, choose the RSS/Atom Feed module, and click the Add This Module button.

Enter the site's URL or feed. Please note the feed needs to be valid in order to be picked up. Click OK. You'll be prompted to edit the module Title and number of entries to display. Click OK when complete.

After arranging the modules in your content, click Save Changes to update your blog.

The Organize Content article in the Knowledge Base has more information on the Feeds Module.

If you are using Advanced Templates for your blog's design, the template tags for the module are available in the Knowledge Base.