I have lots of very fun designs ready to offer for sale at SNS Blog Design over the next couple months, but to make room for them it is time to clear out the inventory a bit.
Right now is a wonderful time to pick up great designs for under $25! One of a kind blog design for that price is impossible to find!
Hurry though, you know the drill … the first person to purchase a design gets it then it is GONE!
As a designer and as a blogger I simply cannot tell you what blogging platform is the best fit for you. I can, however, share with you a few thoughts & questions to consider when you are trying to decide. I am most familiar with Wordpress (self-hosted) and Blogger, but I do know a bit about Wordpress.com and Typepad blogs as well.
Just some very basic information about the platforms mentioned:
Blogger: Possibly the most basic and user friendly blogging platform available. Blogger is absolutely free, offers a huge variety of “gadgets” for your sidebars to make your blog look and feel more professional without the hassle. There are many many free templates available to use on blogger and there is NO extra fee for you to install custom themes!
Self Hosted Wordpress: The next favorite from a flexibility perspective is self hosted Wordpress. Although it is definitely a bit more complex, it is very popular even for new bloggers. Although the software is free at Wordpress.org, you do need to have it installed on your own hosting …. which is not free. If you are not familiar with Hosting or with how to move around within your hosting to install applications or software, then I suggest that you go with a hosting company that offers wordpress installed. There are several out there. I even created www.MomBlogCentral.com to meet this need; there I provide hosting for my customers that comes with a wordpress blog installed, provides regular updates as they become available and installation of the plugins you want for your blog.
Wordpress.com: Basically wordpress.com offers free blogs with many theme choices (NOT custom). I don’t use them and I don’t design for them, because few people decide to pay for access to the CSS file as it is simply easier to move to their own hosting if they wish to do so. If you want to keep things free (which seems to be why people even think of looking at wordpress.com) you are rather limited in a few other areas as well: 3 gigabytes of storage (long term this may be an issue) and they do serve ads on all free blogs (they say this is occasional, but to remove them you have to pay an annual fee). A few of my clients have approached me frustrated because it was confusing as they signed up with all the options that did require a fee.
Typepad: Admittedly I don’t know nearly as much about this platform as I have never used it for my personal blogs. Typepad seems to be loved by those who use it, but from a design perspective, I have to state that it isn’t the easiest to work with and you Cannot add custom headers or other images for the design unless you have a paid (plus or higher) subscription with them.
Here’s some Q & A’s for you:
For everyone the blogging experience is going to be unique and the needs for functionality in the blogging platform will be equally as unique, so I know that I haven’t answered every possible question you may have here. I am more than happy to try to answer any questions you may have, but keep in mind that with the constant changes in all the platforms I cannot be an expert on every one. Good news though is that there ARE many blogs out there that are written by people who have spend a lot of time researching, exploring and truly becoming an expert on one platform. So, I also suggest that you search for one of those blogs for each platform you are considering.
Before signing up anywhere and especially before putting out any money, you’ll definitely want to make sure that you know what you need to know and feel comfortable with your decision. I know that many bloggers, and almost all bloggers who have been blogging for quite a while have a domain name, but you DON’T have to start with one if you are going with Blogger, Wordpress.com or Typepad! In fact, Blogger even offers a VERY simple process for you to use that will allow you to purchase a domain name simply right through your blog.
Did you know that Sweet ‘n Simple Design offers some truly unique and creative products for you to give to the moms you love??? Here’s just a couple ideas:
Happy Holiday Shopping Everyone!!
I you are an active blogger, you’ve probably started to notice some interesting and dynamic themes out there! Many of the large blogging sites that have many contributors or subjects are converting to this style blog and the great news is that they are available for both Wordpress and Blogger blogs!!!
I am happy to offer these to my customers and you will notice them going up on the site over the next few weeks. As always if you have any questions or think that you may be a good candidate for purchasing a design using a magazine style template, feel free to contact me prior to purchase and I’ll help you choose the perfect product for you!
I am always looking for great plugins, but admittedly there are thousands and I only check them out as I have a need. I was looking for a plugin that could tell me how many visitors were online at any given time. I found that feature (and MUCH more) in the plugin called WASSUP!
It tracks visitors in real time, seriously … it refreshes itself every 5 minutes or so … right in your dashboard! Very fun! There’s a fun widget that you can configure and place in your sidebar that tells those visiting you how many visitors are online now (you can see this in action at www.AFrogInMySoup.com on the lower left sidebar).
I got a lot more than I bargained for with this plugin and it does quite a bit more than I mentioned here. I highly recommend it to anyone that has a busy blog or would like to keep better track of those popping in to look over your wordpress blog.
I’m taking a bit of a breather this week to get ready for the onslaught of mid-month design orders so I thought I’d update the blog. Complete with a new design and theme 
.
Have you discovered our sister site yet? To get wonderful premade, semi-custom blog designs hop on over to SNS Blog Design for all the latest! These affordable blog designs are available for Wordpress and Blogger blogs and are … of course … still all one of a kind! One of a kind blogs for one of a kind moms is so totally the motto!
Speaking of SNS Blog Designs though, I am offering many of the designs in a mega giveaway at A Frog In My Soup. You’ll definitely want to check that out. As those designs leave, I’ll add more over the next few months to replace them.
New mommy cards are coming this week too, scrappy, colorful and modern. Very fun!
I am very excited to be participating in another Cyber Baby Shower sponsored by Happy Panda! These showers are becoming more and more popular among the mommy blogging community! It is a fascinating event and I highly recommend that you hop on over to see what it’s all about! Better yet, participate!!!!
The shower is for Colleen of Classy Mommy who is due to have her baby in a couple of weeks! I invite you to visit her blog tomorrow (Friday, Nov 9th) for the baby shower! I am offering another Blogger Blog Design for this event. So if you are a participant and are interested in winning a free design from me be sure to participate and let them know that is what you are interested in. See you there!
I thought I’d take a moment to start off this blog with a little introduction. As you probably figured out I am the owner of Sweet ‘n Simple Design. My love of web design began over a year ago as I created my very first website All Mom Shops. I learned everything I know through building that site and subsequently it’s sister sites.
I love to support moms by offering as much information and encouragement as I can. This has become a definite theme throughout all of my sites. This site is really no different . . . offering Work At Home Moms the opportunity to effortlessly create a beautiful website to showcase and highlight the products you have so lovingly filled it with. Whether you’re building a website to add another feature for your customers to shop your store or if you are solely looking to sell online the shopping cart systems that my templates are designed for are the very best. How do I know that?
I own a store (Snuggy Bugz) that uses one of these great carts and I looked long and hard before choosing! I struggled for quite a while hitting walls at every turn, there were free cart programs that were far too difficult to program (yup, even for me) and still didn’t look the way I wanted; then there were shopping carts available through some of the larger websites and those simply ended up costing far too much.
Although you can get similar “diy” type shopping carts many places I found Cart and Soul and I was thrilled! I encourage any WAHM who is getting started to try her hosting service and you’ll understand almost instantly how incredible it is! The only thing about it though is that the cart system by itself is shockingly plain. You’ll want to personalize this cart immediately, and fortunately there are a couple of websites that offer inexpensive designs – Sweet ‘n Simple Design is one of them!
We are thrilled to offer WAHMs the opportunity to purchase a template that is perfect for them even their budget! Our template prices start as low as $25 and even our limited edition templates are affordable – starting at $50! As the store grows and your budget increases returning customers can “trade in” their template for a discount on an upgrade!
I know that I still don’t have very many templates available, but I’m working on an incredible “Create-Your-Own/One Of A Kind” program that you will LOVE! And I’m happy to work on anything you throw my way (within reason of course)!