Plain and simple – logo creation is not that easy (and really not that cheap).

Hiring a premium-level firm like UBD or an e-famous independent artist can run up a considerably large bill. Somewhere close to $1k will get you a handful of very well made drafts. Fortunately, when you work with professionals, you’re going to get your money’s worth. Not a bad way to go at all, but not all of us can afford that level of service.

We can hear you telling yourself right now, “That’s just too much money.” Hold onto that thought, as we’ll be answering that later on in this post. What do you do if $1k+ is well outside of your budget?

Time is always of the essence, and logos can chew away at your time like you wouldn’t believe. Trying to sift through an endless number of artists/designers/firms, comparing pricing, then going on to potentially rejecting drafts that come your way can take FOREVER. Trust us, we occasionally have to hire other people to do work for us, and tracking down legitimate help is PAINFULLY SLOW. Like pull-your-hair-out type slow. Luckily, we have the skills (obviously) to handle all creative work in-house, so we have a backup plan for logos. Not everyone is in our position, though, so we’ll help you get your backup logo plan later in this post.

So, here are a few strategies we recommend to develop logos:

Get Specific

Have an idea in mind before you even go looking for help with a logo. While it’s always great to let a designer run free with an open concept, you’re also leaving yourself open to a surprise when you get drafts back.

Keep It Simple

You probably won’t want to go overboard while thinking of a logo design.

Is It Printable?

Think about your logo being printed on a plain, white business card. MOST logos will want to adhere to a color scheme that looks appropriate on a white background. It just makes your life easier down the road when expanding your marketing and branding efforts.

This isn’t a rule, but simply a kind suggestion.

Show The Draft(s) To Others Before Deciding

Okay, so you’ve got yourself a draft but aren’t sure if it’s the perfect logo for your business… How do you make sure it’s good? Show it to other people!

Try to avoid only showing your drafts to people in your office. You’d be surprised how often honest opinions can be drowned out by group dynamics. Test your designs against “non-techie” folks before actually using them in live marketing.

Sounds good, but I’m not a designer and don’t have a lot of money to invest into my logo…

First off, it’s totally okay. We’ve all been there. Sometimes the most creative solutions to problems come forth when cash and resources are low.

By now, you have most likely heard about 99designs.com and how great they are for crowdsourcing design work (logos included). We’ve used their site before, and it’s pretty amazing to see how many talented designers answer your calling when needed.

There are two ways in which you can really use 99 Designs to help with your logo design:

1. Start a new project with them, and have tons of designers design something for you (starting at $211)
2. Or, you can try their new “Ready-made” logos for only $99

99 Designs is a pretty incredible resource when you think about it. For only a few hundred bucks, you can have a group of talented designers take a shot at making your perfect company logo.

If you’ve only got $99 to spare, they’ll let you choose from a HUGE number of awesome logos that will most likely work for you.

To summarize, here are a few options:

• EXPENSIVE – Pay a very talented design firm or independent artist to create your logo.
• PRETTY EXPENSIVE – Crowdsource your logo design on 99 Designs, or on a similar site.
• INEXPENSIVE – Get a “Ready-made” logo for only $99.

Hopefully you’ve got a basic idea of how to get started with your logo, and where you will be able to get one made for you. As an extra help to you, here’s a quick link for 99 Designs:

Standout Comments is a joint venture product between John Chow, Alex Shalman and Jeff Rose.

Their goal was to create a WordPress plugin that would not only engage your readership and keep them coming back to your blog but it will make you money as well.

We think they hit on all targets and Standout Comments will soon become a must have plugin for every WordPress blog!

Supercharge Your Comment Section

Your comment section is one of the most valuable pieces of real estate on your blog. However, most bloggers don’t take proper advantage of it. When using a third party apps like Crazy Egg to track where readers look, click and visit, I have consistently found that area around the comment field is the most busy. Anything I place there gets a better response than in other locations.

Standout Comments take advantage of the busy comment area to put your message across. The plugin offers enhanced comment features, subscription and sharing option and the ability to monetize the comment section.

As explained in the video above, Standout Comments is extremely easy to install – just upload to your WordPress plugins folder and activate it in your WordPress control panel. From there you’ll be able to set all the options the plugin offers. For example, below are the option tabs to add social media buttons and Aweber opt in codes. There are also options for Twitter, advertising and general.

You can turn on any or all options to give the comment section the look and feel you want. Here’s how it looks on John Chow’s blog when it is turned on.

Only $67 for Unlimited Blog License

Standout Comments sells for $67 for an unlimited license. You only need to buy one plugin to use it on any blog that you own. The plugin will help you get more subscribers to your email list, promote your blog posts on social media services like Twitter and even runs banners advertising so you can make money on a highly valued part of your blog real estate.

Put Standout Comments on Your Blog and Win an iPad

To kick out the launch of Standout Comments, the Standout Comments guys are holding an iPad-giveaway contest for the month of May. Purchase Standout Comments, install it on your blog and it may win you a brand new 16GB Apple iPad! They’re offering one entry per blog, so if you have five blog and install Standout Comments on all them, you’ll get five entries!

Also, anyone buying the plugin this month will get a free $47 eBook from John Chow on the secrets of getting blog comments! This is too good to pass up!

Make Your Comments Standout with Standout Comments

When you create a Facebook Fan Page, you are pitching your blog to a potential audience of 400 million active users.

Here are some facts you should consider:

• 20 million people become fan pages everyday.
• There are over 5.3 billion Facebook fans overall.
• The typical user becomes a fan of 4 pages per month.

With these numbers in mind, it’s easy to see why you should invest a little time and energy into creating a Fan Page.

Let’s take a closer look at why it’s a good idea:

1. It’s easy for users to “fan.”

All it takes is one click for people to fan your Page. It eliminates a lot of the steps people typically take to connect with the content of your blog.

A user does not need to:

• type in their first name,
• type in their last name,
• type in their e-mail address,
• click the “Subscribe!” button,
• wait for the confirmation e-mail in their inbox, or
• click on the e-mailed link to confirm their subscription.

All of these steps have been consolidated into one simple, almost-thoughtless click of the “Become a Fan” button.

It couldn’t be easier for someone to get involved with your content, and you’ll never have to worry about your messages winding up in someone’s spam folder.

2. The News Feed is gold.

In a way, Facebook’s News Feed has become a highly-personalized AP wire.

The average user spends 55 minutes per day on Facebook. Everything they read, including your posts, can seem equally important and respectable.

Being where they spend most of their time is a good segway to hooking in more readers.

3. Detailed demographics!

The Facebook Insights Page shows a wealth of information about your fans including:

The information allows bloggers to better understand who reads his/her content. The more you know about your audience, the better!

4. It’s easy to trick out Fan Pages.

You can make your Facebook Fan Page look amazingly professional.

The FBML (Facebook Markup Language) static page widget allows you to add custom tabs to your Page. It can incorporate PHP, HTML, CSS, and Facebook’s proprietary code to create custom tabs with e-mail signups, promotions and more info on your blog.

I won’t get too technical in this post, but stay tuned for Part II and Part III for more information about FBML!

5. Facebook is all about community.

Facebook users have a neighborly, social mindset while they are browsing their News Feed. When they skim through their friend’s updates, “Likes,” and photos, they are seeing if there is anything they can interact with.

When you post something new to your Page, users are still in this mindset. As a result, your content will look less intimidating and less commercialized.

This makes it more likely for them to look at what you have to say. If you seem friendly and try to start discussions, your followers will respond positively.

Users will also remember you better because they are more receptive.

6. Pages may lead to higher conversion rates.

The combination of ease of use, strong community and large number of users means that conversion rates are high.

A good example of these high conversion rates can be seen with the guys from UBD. They started actively promoting and advertising their Facebook Fan Page a few weeks ago and have already seen stunning results.

Their Google AdWords account showed only a 5% e-mail opt-in rate while their Facebook Fan Page has an average 20% e-mail opt-in rate.

That means that their advertisements on Facebook have proved to be 15% more cost effective than Google AdWords, so far.

A reason for this high turn-over rate may be because advertising through Google AdWords is very competitive, while Facebook advertising is still young.

It seems that for the moment, and with the right strategy, Facebook advertising is a better deal.

7. Do it now, before it gets more competitive.

It’s a good idea to be an early adopter with anything Facebook-related! Although there are over 400 million active users on Facebook, this number is still growing.

New Fan Pages are constantly being created, but the world is just beginning to realize how useful these Pages really are.

The sooner you start, the easier it will be for you to stand out in the long run.

Create your Fan Page, today!

More about how to customize your Fan Page’s layout and drive more traffic to your Page will be detailed in Part II and Part III of this blog series.

P.S. – Don’t forget to become a fan of Unique Blog Designs on Facebook.

Our good friend and blogging mentor, Yaro Starak, has released the free Roadmap Report – which is a guide to becoming a successful blogger.

I know that when I started blogging, almost two years ago, I could have benefited HUGELY from reading a report such as this.

Yaro and his new partner, Gideon Shalwick, have also released a series of 10 free Become a Blogger Videos. The videos are easy to watch and very informative. If you are trying to grow your blog, I am sure you will find them worth watching.

In the Roadmap Report, Yaro promises to explain “how he stumbled upon the “X-Factor” For Blogging Success, and how it turned upside down everything he thought he knew about blogging….”

We’ve been following Yaro’s blogging methods for over a year now, and he is one of the few people that really understands how to grow a successful blog.

10 Easy To Follow Videos Showing You How To Create Your Blog From Scratch!

Let me be the first to say, thank you to everyone who left a comment or wrote about the contest!. 606 comments and 113 trackbacks later, we have a few winners.

First of all, it took quite a while longer than expected to add up and properly randomize all of the contest entries. With over 600 comments each worth 1 entry, and over 100 trackbacks, all worth 5 entries, that contributed to a total to well over 1100 total entries! Thankfully, Microsoft Excel was quite handy when it came to organizing all of the entries and making sure that everyone had the correct number of entries. After we randomized all of the data, we used a random number generator from Random.org to select our winners.

And the winners are…

The three (3) winners of our new Citrus Theme are:

• Young of EssentialBlog.cn
• Eric Nagel of Netnagel.com
• David Butler of ButlersOnline.net

The winner of the iPod Touch is: Pangeran Wiguan! Congratulations, Pangeran! Pangeran won via a blog trackback entry. He blogged about the contest on his blog, Pangeran.org

Congratulations to all of the winners!

Once again, thank you to everyone who participated in the UBD 1-Year Anniversary Contest. I can tell you now that the prizes for the UBD 2-Year Anniversary Contest will be much bigger!

By the way, if you haven’t already checked out our new Citrus Theme, head on over to www.CitrusTheme.com and let us know what you think…

UBD worked with the Blog World Expo team to add functionality and relaunch their official blog.

We are proud to announce we recently redesigned and helped relaunch the official Blog World Expo blog. Blog World Expo is a new media and blogging convention being help September 20-21 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The blog design was done by UBD’s Senior Designer, Matt Blancarte.

Meet Us At Blog World Expo

Last year, we had the opportunity to meet many of our current and past clients as we were proud Blog World Expo Exhibitors. This year, UBD will have a 10×20 foot booth – twice as big as the previous year.

Last year also was the first year of the expo, however, it attracted top bloggers such as John Chow, Jeremy Schoemaker, Neil Patel, Zac Johnson and WordPress founder, Matt Mullenweg.

Below are some photos from the event:

UBD and Friends

Our Booth at Blog World Expo

UBD Team with John Chow and Shoemoney

The John Chow Blogger Dinner

I wrote a full review of last year’s Blog World Expo on my blog.

Blog World Expo Discount

Are you thinking about attending Blog World Expo? If so, Guy Kawasaki is offering a special BlogWorld Expo Special Discount for an additional 20% off the early-bird prices (expires August 22).

You can register for Blog World Expo by clicking the banner below:

1. Write to Your Readers! Addressing your readers specifically could spark conversation. When you read something that strikes a cord with you, you are more likely to comment, right?
2. Ask your readers questions – When writing an opinion article, asking your readers what they think will increase the likelihood that they will comment.
3. Make sure the comment link is large and easy to click on. If they can’t see the link they won’t click on it!
4. Write interesting headlines! If a reader sees a headline that grabs his/her attention, he/she is more likely to read and comment on that particular article.
5. Limit your posts to an appropriate length… We all skim what we read, so making sure a post isn’t too long will encourage more comments.

Follow these five steps to be well on your way to establishing a more lively blog.

Thats right, GM is blogging.

Make your way over to GMnext.com, you will find articles written by executives, proper use of podcasts and other forms of new media. To me, this cements the value in using blogs as a way to market your business, small or large.

The other day, Nate, Matt, and I were discussing different markets and how they could use blogs and in what way. We all agree that small to medium sized businesses are among those who could benefit the most from blogging.

Why?

All small businesses need a website. The only problem is most small businesses are working with a relatively small budget. Well, as most of you know, to get a decent website designed these days costs at least $5,000 big ones.

A blog can be a far less expensive alternative that benefits from higher search engine rankings in most cases. Also, because a blog is based on some sort of content management system, preferably WordPress, a blog can be easier to update and modify.

Having a great design and useful content on your blog can also convey trust and can encourage visitors to become evangelists for you and your brand.

So what now?

In the coming years, it is likely that more of the population will understand how valuable a blog actually can be; a powerful marketing and branding tool, a way to develop a community around your brand, a highly search engine optimized web site, relatively inexpensive, and of course they are easy to update and modify.

Seeing the companies with big market research budgets do it first, is just one of the first “clues” that blogging is here to stay.

Recently, the UBD team (Josh, Matt, and myself) participated in a podcast with Neil Patel on social bookmarking and how to leverage social media for your blog.

For those of you who don’t know Neil, he is an expert on social media and search engine optimization. He is also the author of the popular Pronet Advertising and his personal branding blog, QuickSprout. As if that is not enough, Neil is also the founder of CrazyEgg heat map testing software and Advantage Consulting Services.

Some of the social media websites we talked about were StumbleUpon, Digg, and Entrecard

You can checkout/listen to the podcast here.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a topic that every new blogger eventually has to learn about and become aquainted with. We pride ourselves on creating SEO-friendly blogs, but there are always more things that can be done to enhance the SEO functionality of your blog.

Below, are a few tips from Ahson Rafiq, a young web developer who runs a great blog on search engine optimization called Blueverse.

Keyword Research – Targeted Domains

Having a good domain can help your SERPS in a lot of ways, and it makes your job as a SEO much much easier. On the other hand, if you’re sure of your content targetting skills, you can make the most vague domains work just as well. The most common way to choose a niche blog, in order to either make it a personal brand or just to make money, is to do keyword research for the most commonly searched terms. I suggest checking out Google Trends and running a few queries to see which keywords would work best for you.

It is also important that you don’t step on anyone elses brand name, so do your research (basically just a lot of Google queries) before you finalize the domain. Now remember, don’t ever make your blog too niche specific because that will corner you “content wise” and you’ll be fighting with writer’s block. Try starting with the make money online niche because there is plenty of room left for exploring monetization.

URL Structure

Most blogs use the domain.com/post-name/ structure but that gets hard to manage, so if you’re into friendly urls choose one of the following:

/category/postname.html
/category/postname.php
/year/postname

My favorite is the default permalink structure that WordPress blogs have:

/year/month/day/postname

If ever I need a special structure for a post, I just use the Advanced Permalinks plugin.

Using that plugin gives me choices for permalinks, which makes things much easier. You can also do this with the default version of WordPress by going to your Dashboard>Options>Permalinks. The screen should look like this:

SMM – Social Media Marketing

If a new blogger were to ask me what they should focus on, the answer would always be Social Media Marketing. The first step is to get yourself known with a bang. A front page Digg story is the sure way to go, so at first try to make posts that could make headlines on sites like digg/reddit/stumble upon and get you insane amounts of traffic! The conversion rate of subscribers on this is hardly 10% but something is better then nothing!

Some bloggers have even made a whole living out of just SMM, if you try hard enough you just might crack it!



Linking to Other Blogs

Your first 50 or so posts should utilize references and trackbacks to bigger blogs. Blogs that are in the techno top 100 or are well known and have tons of visitors and subscrirbers, so linking to bigger blogs of the same niche can not only give your blog more authority but it also speeds up indexation as well!

Using Scrapers to Your Advantage

If you’ve ever noticed trackbacks that have flat-out plagiarized your writing, that is referred to as scraping. You now have the opportunity to stick it back to the scrapers by embedding anchor text automatically in your scraped content! All you have to do is download a plugin, and you’re good to go. Check it out here.

This post was guest blogged by Ahson Rafiq, who is the author of Blueverse, an excellent blog on search engine optimization and web development. Also, you can check out a previous post that includes some great SEO plugins here.