Photo by roland

I spent some of today listening to a talk by Mac productivity leader Merlin Mann. One quote in particular won’t seem to work its way out of my mind. It went something like this:

“It’s amazing how many people will read a blog about productivity that updates twenty-four times a day.”

While funny, it’s also poignant. Another irony wasn’t lost on me: that I’d spent an hour and a bit listening to a talk on “Attention Burglars & Time Sinks”, which I found via Lifehacker (the hyperactive productivity blog in question) while reading feeds when I should have been writing a post very much like this one. I was, effectively, wasting time learning how not to waste time.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who procrastinates by reading blogs about productivity.

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Photo by tasteful_tn

If you’ve been wondering why your blog or website hasn’t been growing as quickly or steadily as you hoped, you might be encountering one (or more) of the five barriers to success. So far, I’ve covered four parts:

1. Content with a lack of significance for its target audience.
2. A lack of diverse entry points to the site.
3. An un-defined or vaguely defined target audience.
4. Readers perceive your blog as low quality, even when it’s not.

In this post, I’ll be outlining the fifth and final barrier to success: failure to blog consciously.

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Photo by Violator3

I like blogging, but there are a few things about it that drive me a little crazy.

Maybe you can relate?

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Photo by feaverish

These six themes are at the forefront of modern, minimalist, typographically interesting Wordpress theme design.

I’ve moonlighted as a blog designer, a design consultant and write design reviews every week at ProBlogger. I write on usability, simplicity and minimalism in design. This stuff is important to me, and my criteria for good blog design is difficult to meet. Yep — I’m picky and proud of it.

There are thousands of free Wordpress themes available, and of those thousands, I’ve seen hundreds. Of those hundreds, I would only use a few. Less than ten, in fact: themes I consider simple, usable, elegant, modern and uncluttered. Themes that emphasize what’s important and de-emphasize what isn’t.

If you’ve been thinking about a redesign for your Wordpress blog (or are open to the possibility in future), I’d recommend any of these themes. If you have some knowledge of code, I’ve suggested the customizations I would make to optimize each theme for usability and readability.

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Photo by froodmat

If you’ve been wondering why your blog or website hasn’t been growing as quickly or steadily as you hoped, you might be encountering one (or more) of the five barriers to success. So far, I’ve covered three parts:

1. Content with a lack of significance for its target audience.
2. A lack of diverse entry points to the site.
3. An un-defined or vaguely defined target audience.

In this post, I’ll be outlining the fourth barrier to success: visitors perceiving your site as low quality, even when it isn’t.

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