Now Reading ...Finally, I’m back for my short term vacation. 
It’s refreshing, and I’m ready to break my blog’s 6 months wall. What is this wall all about? Let Brian explain it for you in his part 1 and part 2 post about breaking 6 months wall.
You may notice that my post have no serious dropping in frequency at all because I was using a scheduled posts to keep my blog running. Timestamp feature is really a big life saver for me to taking a breath from blogging. I witness the process running automatically without my inclusion.
At the night of my arrival at my home sweet home, I have a nice long chat with Mayank (pro-blogger) from the brother-saurus (Reviewsaurus.com and Tipsosaurus.com) .
I got a real wisdom for this last night about whitespaces and clutter in my blog. I admit, my blog is too crowded by ads and widget. It’s make some of my reader who use dial-up connection unable to browse my blog.
The loading time is too long which make people annoyed to come back to my blog. Thanks to Mayank, I’m finally enlightened.
At the same night, I uncluttered my blog to a certain state that you’ve seen today. The move that I’ve made are as follow:
- Removing all “no function, just for fun” widget
- Decreasing Mybloglog
and Blogcatalog widget size. (I would remove this widget if you can suggest me a good reason! ) - UPDATE: Blogcatalog Removed!
- Remove less click-through ads
- Remove footer menu
- Remove Pages links in the side bar
- Decrease top commentator list
At the same time, I added several news ads in my single post. I think it’s pretty usual now and I’m going to follow the flow.
My main motivation for uncluttered my blog is influenced by Skellie’s post about 50 Tips to Unclutter Your Blog. The post is a little bit broad in assumptions, so I follow only 25+ tips from that post to make make blog better. Not all of them, because my blog will looks like an empty house if I follow them all!
I’ve also added a new reward system for my top commentator. Well, this blog review activity is stopped for a period of time and I want to relaunch it again with a new system to reward my loyal commentator.
The new system is as below:
every 2 weeks once, I will reward blogger who manage to stay up in the list with a blog review and interviewThe selection is using revolver method. Means will rolling from 1 to 5 and repeat the at 1Selected blogger will be emailed along with the interview questions and data requests.the rest of blogger that is not selected will be promoted at the end of each review and interview of the selected bloggerevery 1 week once, mini review will be given to each of blogger about their newest achievement or posts.
And I also have new offer for you!
On every Friday (second top peak traffic day of this blog), an opportunity to do a guest blogging is opened for you!
If you are interested to working along with me, please send me email. You can blog on 5 topics in this blog. Spreading from psychology effect in blogging, Popularity building, Bloggership (blogger relationship), Blogging technical skills and Tips to make a living online.
Hope to see your email soon. Any comments, opinions, advises? Please comment below.
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(August 21, 2007, 1:54 am)
hey I stumbled into Skellie’s blog just this morning! I really liked that blog… and Mayank gave you nice advice
Now I know what you were asking for!! Now you have plenty of adspace… like your idea of reviews and guest posts…
I’d definitely write for your blog!!
Reply to pearl(August 21, 2007, 6:10 am)
Oh yeah? Skellie is an amazing lady!
Reply to Ken XuI have subscribe to her blog and will visit her blog often.
Oh, you are qualified as a blog-fortuneteller now, Pearl! How come you know my intention?
Sharp senses!
okay, please send me your guest post and I will publish your excellent post this friday.
Anybody else?
(August 21, 2007, 2:57 am)
Gud job Ken :).
Well, remove atleast 1 one of the widget either mybloglog one or the other one (whatever the other one is) because it increases the load time….And i think this reason is gud enough
Reply to TipsoSaurus(August 21, 2007, 6:21 am)
Oh, I need to send a big THANKS to you!!
Reply to Ken XuThanks for your gold-like advises. Yep, I see Ram and Nirmal Also vote for the same idea to remove one of them. I’m really helped by your opinions. thanks again.
(August 21, 2007, 6:30 am)
You know what I don’t like about Kontera? It always underlines my name
See your comment and my name is double underlined 
Reply to Ram karthik(August 21, 2007, 6:56 am)
Reply to Ken XuYeah, I see it. Ram at shopping.com!
I will also remove this service and will re-apply it after I have a lot of pageview permonth.
Don’t worry, you won’t see it again tomorrow.
(August 21, 2007, 4:15 am)
Ken, welcome back from the vacation. Your blog looks good now. And as Mayank said you can remove one of the two widgets and I would suggest you to remove BlogCatalog. Your blog loads pretty fast now. I like the new reward system. So now you will be seeing many comments from different bloggers.
Reply to Ram karthik(August 21, 2007, 6:27 am)
Welcome, Ram. Thanks for commenting!
Reply to Ken XuI will remove the blogcatalog as your suggestion.
Really? that’s great if the system interest you.
(August 21, 2007, 4:29 am)
Good that you removed all the unwanted stuffs, as Mayank said, you can remove one widget for visitors. I feel you can keep mybloglog and remove the other.
Reply to Nirmal(August 21, 2007, 6:30 am)
Hi, Nirmal. Yeah. Mayank give me a good advises. Thanks for the suggestion, I’m going to remove it now.
Reply to Ken Xu(August 21, 2007, 7:03 am)
Good one as always, Ken.
Reply to jamyHow is everyone take on squeeze page from Darren idea, of course ?
So much to learn , so little time , sigh !
Jamy
(August 21, 2007, 10:56 pm)
Well, there is an infinite tweak available for us to spin the topic around.
I’m also believe, time is relative. Darren Spent almost 4 year to learn and become a problogger. So, it’s not a fast learning that you can do it in 2-3 months period.
Take it easy, aunty.
Reply to Ken Xu(August 21, 2007, 11:10 am)
I just cleaned up my blog last week. Thanks for the info on scheduled posts. I will have to try that on my wordpress blog. I know it doesn’t work with blogger, I did try it there.
BeachBum
Reply to BeachBum(August 21, 2007, 10:59 pm)
Hi, Michael. Thanks for commenting!
Reply to Ken XuYeah, Blogger really need to improve their service and feature. I see so comparison happening in BloggingTips.com by Mani.
May be you should check it out to see if blogger.com have a bright future or not.
(August 21, 2007, 1:11 pm)
It’s just looking better
More whitespace
Reply to Shankar Ganesh(August 21, 2007, 11:04 pm)
Thanks Shankar!
Reply to Ken XuHope I can decrease the download time.
(August 21, 2007, 4:35 pm)
In these days, I’m feeling like mybloglog recent readers can cause blog loading slow down.
Reply to Myo Kyaw Htun(August 21, 2007, 11:11 pm)
I see your blog is clean from MBL.
But I think MBL have become a common view for a community blog. I hope someday MBL could fasten their MBL widget loading time. 
Reply to Ken Xu(August 21, 2007, 5:45 pm)
Thanks for the link, Ken.
I think your blog looks great, btw. I don’t think I saw it before, but it certainly looks simple, and uncluttered now. Exactly the way I like them!
Reply to Brian Heys(August 21, 2007, 11:15 pm)
Oh, thanks for commenting Brian!
Reply to Ken XuI learn a lot from skellie post. Thanks to her, I could declutter my blog and fasten the loading time.
I’m glad you like it, Brian. Thanks! Please do visit if you have time.