What does your blog design say about you and your brand? I say everything.

I recently updated this theme to a more “classic” type theme that fits what I am. I’m a consultant/speaker/marketing guy who needed to show that. So when you visit this blog, you immediately get a feel for who I am and what I represent.

My friend Zac Johnson just updated his blog design to a more “super, money making affiliate” type of theme because that’s what his blog is all about. That’s what Zac is… he’s a super affiliate. Makes sense.

Your blog design is your brand.

As I’ve stated many times before, your brand, to me, is really the experience your customers/readers/viewers (whatever) have with you (MPDailyFix Blog). So if you’re a blogger, the experience is usually the ways a reader can interact with you, and that starts with your blog design.

For Zac’s blog, he’s chosen to go beyond what most bloggers in his space are doing. Instead of just having comments on blog posts, Zac is asking for participation. I think this is a very smart way to build traffic and loyal readers.

What Zac is doing is allowing his readers to tip him using my ScratchBack widget (shameless plug). The tip is $25 for a full-week spot on his sidebar. But here’s what’s different. From his blog post.

Join Zac’s Top Spots:
A cool new program from my good friend Jim Kukral. Jim’s all about having fun with marketing, so he came up with ScratchBack… which is a new fun way to “tip” sites, while getting a link back in return. I really like the concept, but I wanted to bring it a step further. In addition to giving Jim’s program some much deserved exposure, I wanted to offer something extra for my blog readers as well. You can buy (or “tip”) your way into my Top Spots for a small price of $25 a week. In addition to receiving a Top Spots Link, I’ll also send you a new Black MoneyReign t-shirt. Send me a pic of you wearing the shirt and I’ll add your pic and a link back to your site/blog url on my blog TopSpots page.

So what Zac has done really is…

• Let all of his readers advertise on his site for a low-cost, not just the higher-priced advertisers
• Enabled them to participate beyond just leaving comments
• Giving them a Zac Johnson t-shirt in return, plus the opportunity for them to take a picture of themselves in the t-shirt to send back to him, which he’ll then post up in his photo section, driving more traffic to them

Zac’s current tip price is only $25 for a full week of space in his top spots. Considering he has over 1,000 rss readers alone and over 25,000 page views per month from over 13,000 unique visitors… that’s a pretty darn good deal in my book.

I’m shaking things up here at JimKukral.com. Since 2001, this blog on this domain has changed designs probably 50 times. Each design to match my mood or goals of the moment.

Today, I’m going all legit, putting up a professional design that I really like, for the moment. That’s the problem with being a former designer…

This design you’re seeing now (Nov 2007), is also perfect to launch my new daily web show that is coming next week. More details will be leaked after I consume massive amounts of turkey and pie.

For now, what do you think of the design? Does it make you more likely, or less likely to visit my blog and subscribe to my rss feed?

I should win this. I need it badly. Blogdesign.com