Thesis Theme Site Review: Tech Patio

Tech Patio is a lightly customized Thesis Theme site that nicely demonstrates a few simple changes you can make to create a unique WordPress website.

This Thesis Theme site review highlights the web design elements, structure and functionality, best content examples, successful blogging strategies and areas for improvement for the Tech Patio Thesis Theme site.

The man behind Tech Patio

Klaus is a Danish blogger who created his first personal website using Microsoft Frontpage in July 1998.  Beginning with HTML “coding” using Notepad and similar programs, Klaus then played with ASP, Access databases and MySQL, followed by JavaScript and CSS.  Although he says he doesn’t have the time to wrap his head around learning a new language, Klaus says that if he does it will probably be PHP.

So, now that I have established that he has been online for more than 10 years and has a far greater understanding and experience with computer languages and coding of websites than me, and most other people, what else is he into?

He loves all things Apple e.g. Mac, iPhone, Apple TV and as a web developer he writes about technology including green technology and has a tech news category. Klaus also writes about blogging and SEO and some rather unusual topics – more on that later.

While I do check my posts for spelling errors etc., they might not be perfect when it comes to grammar. After all, English is not my first language.

Tech Patio’s Unique View of the World

Different skills, interests and life experiences give each blogger an individual view on the world. Two bloggers may blog about the same main category or key topics but the outcome will be suitably adjusted by their priorities and passions.

At Tech Patio you will find articles on:

• Apple (including iPhone, iPod, iTunesand Mac and Snow Leopard)
• Blogging (including Thesis)
• Future Tech, Green Tech and Gaming
• ‘How to’ guides on topics such as x and x.
• Hardware (including monitors,USB and Wireless
• Making money online and marketing
• Mobiles (including Motorola, Nokia, Palm and Sony Ericsson
• Friday Flick Find and Personal Blog entries
• Product Reviews on Apps & Games,  Cameras and Movies
• Search Engines (including Bing and Google)
• Security (including Phishing and Viruses
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Social Media (including Facebook, FriendFeed and Twitter
• Software (including Browsers and Operating Systems
• Tech News
• Web Development

Site Design, Usability, Best Content & Blogging Strategies

TechPatio changed to the Thesis Theme in August 2009.

The next image is a side-by-side comparison of TechPatio before Thesis Theme in July 2009 and after Thesis Theme in December 2009.

If you want a much larger version, click on the image.

The screenshots are made up of smaller screenshots showing different parts of the blog such as the header, footer, home page, content and other interesting parts.

Tech Patio BEFORE Thesis Theme    ~    Tech Patio AFTER Thesis Theme

A few thoughts on the Tech Patio site…

10 Smart Thesis Theme Tweaks Already Done by Tech Patio

1.  Add Thesis Theme affiliate link to footer. Every Thesis user should be promoting this wonderful theme and earn your rightful referral fee.

2.  Incorporate ads to help pay for hosting and perhaps earn a tidy income in the future – training readers to be tolerant and accepting of ads.

3.  Add background image and/or colour. The blue, white and grey colours are soothing and cool – good for a tech site. The right-sidebar is particularly nice with the blue background to help separate the nav elements from the content. The blue background is a carry-over from the previous site’s design and would have helped regular visitors identify the site.

4.  Add unique header image, logo, favicon and gravatar. The wet patio header image with logo adds a fresh, 3D-like touch. Also great to see the logo used as the favicon and gravatar for blog owner comments.

5.  Add communications icons like twitter, YouTube, email and RSS in a prominent place for readers who are interesting in keeping in touch or staying in the know. Tech Patio has twitter, YouTube, RSS and Gmail icons that float in the left-side of the screen are a nice touch – always accessible – like Mona Lisa’s eyes.

6.  Plugins and widgets. The addition of the Latest Poll and Translator plugins add extra interactivity for readers and accessibility for non-English readers. The use of a poll within a post is also a nice touch. Would suggest leaving polls open for as long as possible unless you get mega amounts of traffic on it.

7.  Contact Form and About page. It’s amazing how many people forget this. Blogging is about the people and communication. Readers need to be able to contact you and they might also be interested about you.

I must admit that I used to have one but then incorporated the information into other posts and pages and thought that would suffice. I have an ‘About’ page on my Thesis Theme HQ 2010 To Do LIST.

8.  Subscribe to Tech Patio box in the most obvious location, that is in this case the top right-hand side of the blog. Subscribe to RSS feed button and additional prompts throughout the site at the end of posts for example all perform the purpose of reminding readers to subscribe.

9.  Post footer. Klaus has done a great job adding recent posts, social bookmarking icons/links, tags, trackbacks and Google AdSense. There is a lot happening at the end of a post with six (6) calls to action to:

• read something else via a recent post link of interest
• share the post on Digg, StumbleUpon, twitter or Facebook
• view other articles with similar tags
• click out via a Google AdSense link and help Klaus pay for his hosting
• click out via a trackback to somebody else’s site that made reference to the article just read; or
• leave a comment.

10. Keywords in domain name. Klaus has even written about this one in his post The Importance Of Keywords In Your Domain Name For SEO? I’m referring to the Tech in Tech Patio of course. If you want to know why this is smart, read the above post.

Okay, so now for some areas for improvement – we all have them…

Nav Menu

• The default grey nav menu is a little uninteresting and could be jazzed up a bit more.
• Suggest drawing out a colour or two from your header image such as brown, blue or orange to add extra flair.
• Suggest the nav items be reviewed so that the Subscribe item fits better and doesn’t create a second row with void of white. Perhaps reconsider the use of the ‘Articles’ button as the other nav items also have articles.
• Suggest an archives page that gives readers the opportunity to really take in all of your categories currently listed in your sidebar.

Comments

• Suggest a unique look for the blog owner comments, even just the default or perhaps using CSS to add the logo in some way.

Ads

• The Google AdSense in a variety of colours including red, blue and green with different fonts and background colours tends to stand out too much, perhaps even a bit ‘ugly’. It is okay to have ads. Clever bloggers recover at least the cost of their hosting and domain registration fees this way. However, ads that blend in add to the overall smooth look of your site.
• Suggest integrating the appearance of ads by tweaking the background and link colours.
• Suggest the Google AdSense units within posts be placed at the top of the posts, perhaps below the post titles or towards the end of the posts instead of breaking up the flow of reading.
• It is difficult to concentrate on reading when you are giving the reader a call to action to click away before they have read the article.
• If the reader arrives and doesn’t like the blog post then they have an option to click away via a Google AdSense unit if they can see it clearly below the post title, above the fold.
• Alternatively, if they have read the post and are ready to leave and click away via an ad unit (if you are lucky), then have the call to action at the end of the post after the post content.

• The use of hooks to place ad units rather than doing it manually is more reliable and also easy to remove ads in one hit.

404 Errors

• The first post in the Friday Flick Find category…has a dead link.

What Is Friday Flick Find?

July 23, 2009 Friday Flick Find at TechPatio is my way of highlighting a video I’ve watched in the past week, that I really liked or found interesting…

• Fortunately the excerpt in the teaser told me what it was about, but the link is broken.

Length of Page

• The ‘About’ page for example is of standard length, however the insertion of every category in the right-hand sidebar and additional Google AdSense units stretches the page out to more than twice its length, making the task of scrolling down to check out what is in the footer a bit of a marathon.
• Suggest removing some of the category listings to the nav menu, a drop down system or a shorter manually coded text widget with the categories you really want to include in the sidebar.

Footer

• Currently, Tech Patio has very little in its footer apart from an affiliate link to Thesis Theme and a Privacy Policy. Excellent start but you can do more…
• Suggest shifting some items to a fatter footer such as recent comments, top commentators, featured sites to reduce the scrolling required, make the site’s appearance cleaner and give readers a reward to checking out the footer. Add all of your categories – knock yourself out.
• Suggest repeating the logo and all or part of the header image to give the site a solid foundation at the bottom of the screen.

Opportunity for Extra Revenue & Blog Growth

• ‘Guides / How-To‘ category

Some of the best ways to make money online are to sell your own product or somebody else’s product.

When I went to this area of Tech Patio by taking the jump from the nav menu I was expecting to see some How to Guides (plural) that I could download for free or perhaps have the opportunity to purchase.

Instead I found another category with a handful of posts containing tips or links to other sites offering guides and tips.

I would recommend Klaus capitalise on reader’s expectations by considering some of the following options:

1.  Insert an AWeber Opt-In form or a customized Contact Form

This serves to:

• collect email addresses and start building an email list to market to now or later;
• advise readers that they can find out when new Guides arrive; or
• send readers to a squeeze page that requests a name and/or email address before getting to the ‘Guides/How to’ category page.

2.  Replace the ‘Guides/How to’ category archive posts page

Create a ‘Guides-How-To’ page that calls the posts within this category after your unique words and perhaps some links or a banner image or two promoting recommended products.

An example of this is my Blogging Strategies Directory page, accessible via the nav menu that takes you to a page with posts from each Blogging Strategies category.

I use the List Category Posts Widget that uses a simple [square bracket] call function of the category id.

For example, to display the last 50 posts in a category, listed by title in ascending order, I would use the following text in the visual editor (no need to change to HTML view)…

Final Thoughts

• I enjoy visiting Klaus’ Tech Patio site and also enjoy reading his comments around the web on other Thesis Theme sites e.g. Serradinho and Extreme John.
• The site offers useful insights to tech and other fun subjects and the design is much more interesting than it was prior to switching to Thesis Theme.
• If you want to see an example of a great WordPress blog by someone of a Non-English Speaking Background (NESB) then check out Tech Patio. Like many other NESB blog owners, Klaus takes care to consider his words and is more than happy to tweak as necessary. Many only-English speakers could take a leaf out of his book.

Interesting Posts to Read @ Tech Patio

Okay, here’s some useful and interesting [wierd] posts that Klaus has written…

Thesis/WordPress Tip: Featured Posts Script & Exclude From Front Page

Get Paid To Find Porn – In China

Microsoft Shows “Minority Report” Look-Alike Office Wall

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