It's been a while since the last post, and I've been busy with a few updates to the blog. I've installed a new header, I hope you like it, and added an extra sidebar on the left for social media buttons (in my favourite colour too).
The results of the poll are in and 56% of readers read this blog in a news reader or through the Reading List on the Blogger Dashboard. The remaining 31% are happy to receive Blog Updates via email daily, or as they occur, and the remaining 13% would like weekly emails. Since I'm not super regular about writing blog posts I'll leave the email updates to daily and let you know when I switch over from Feedburner to Mailchimp. I received and email from Mailchimp today, apparently they are updating their website and streamlining the setup, so I have to relearn everything all over again - I have terrible timing!
Mmmm, lets see, what else. Oh, you might have noticed some other stuff in my sidebar and tabs. I have a new profile image! I think it is a fair representation of me, glasses and all, and will appear pretty much everywhere I am online. I've also ditched most of my adsense ads and installed Passionfruit Ads. I've done this mainly because its much easier to manage button/badge swaps with other blogs, and also to manage ads. I found that Adsense was too impersonal for me and I couldn't control the type of ads appearing.
Here's what Passionfruit Ads offers
- Sponsors or advertisers use Paypal to buy ads direct from your site and you get to approve each ad before it goes live.
- No messing around with code everytime you need to change sponsors. Passionfruit take care of hosting the images. You insert a one-off piece of code in a HTML/JavaScript widget where you would like the sponsors to appear (mine is in the right sidebar) and Passionfruit manages your ads, auto-expiring and auto-running new ads as they go live. Easy!
- Would you like your ads to auto-rotate/shuffle? Done!
- No need to send invoices. Passionfruit sends reminders to sponsors for you, thanking them and inviting them to renew.
- Prefer to swap ads/badges with other bloggers? Passionfruit can do that too! All you need to do is set up a coupon on their site for 100% discount for swappers.
- Passionfruit also gives you the HTML code for your Sponsor Page, setting up your shop for you!
This brings me to my blog, I'm offering three ad sizes. One 250x250 Prime Time ad appearing right under my new profile image, two 250x100 Large ads appearing below the Prime Time ad. Finally, four 125x125 ads especially for swaps (use the coupon code SWAPS) and Australian Madeit stores (use the coupon code Madeit) and you'll get these spots for free! Would you like to be a Sponsor or swap a Badge? Click on the Sponsor Tab at the top of the page and follow the instructions to organise your spot!
Photo credit: andrea joseph's illustrations / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND
