Tossing It Out Tuesday: Blog Remodeling

        It's been a long time coming, but I finally made the plunge in changing the look of my blog page.  I'm nowhere near where I would like to be, but at least I took the first step.  I kind of miss my old page--it was so simple.  Now I have to figure out some of the other things I'd like to do with my page.  So, I'm going to turn to you for your advice, know-how, suggestions, and what have you.

        I'm going to toss out to you what I'm thinking about doing and if you happen to know how to do it you can toss out that information back to me.   You can tell me if you've tried some of these things and how they worked for you and if they are still working. 

        Here are some of the things I would like to add:

 Title -- I've added a picture to my header, but I've got this big empty space next to it where I'd like to put my blog title.   I keep messing around with this but I can't seem to figure out how to move my blog title into that space and use a larger and perhaps different font.    Does anyone have an idea how I can do this?

  Tabs --  A while back Blogger sent a notification that we could add tabs to our blogs so there could be additional pages just like a regular website.  I didn't do anything at that time and now I cannot seem to find anything about it.  Can someone tell me if this can still be done and where do I go to find out how?  If you've done this to your blog, how's it working for you and do you like it?

On Page Stat Counter -- I've found many of these and I'm wondering if it's worth having on my site and which is the best.  I currently have Google Analytics and have noticed that I can now put a counter on my page.  I tried the Analytics counter but the number that it gave was different than what the Analytics stat page showed.  Any thoughts about on-site counters?  Do you pay attention to them?   How about those nifty little widgets with the flags that show where in the world your visits come from?  I personally don't pay much attention to them, but they look kind of cool.  Any thoughts on those?

Slideshows --- I've got all of these awards and buttons and stuff on my sidebar and they are really taking space.  I was thinking about making a separate page for these if I can figure out the thing with the tabs.  However, I also have seen the slideshows that some of you have put up to display the awards and those look rather attractive.   Do the slideshows cause the page to load slower for your visitors?  Or do you prefer the the awards and such on a separate page where most visitors will probably rarely go?   All I know is that I seriously need to clean up my sidebar.

 Other Stuff-- Are there any gadgets or widgets or other thingamajigs that you think I could use on my page?   I see pages out there that are absolutely dazzling with all sorts of sparkling and moving things on them, but I've also had people say that these are difficult to load.  I don't really need fancy-schmancy since I'm mainly concerned with written word blog content.  But if you can think of any other buttons or doodads that might be good for my site I'd love to hear your suggestions. 

          I'm sure the answers to my questions can be found online somewhere, but if someone is able to just come up with answers for me it would save me time.  A lot of you have already been redesigning your own blogs and have probably run into some of the things I'm asking about.  Perhaps others are wondering the same things that I am.  This is a good time to share some knowledge and maybe even gain some new knowledge.  

          We're listening--what can you tell us?  Anyone want to rate my blog appearance as it stands now?   If you have already changed your blog look, how much of a challenge was it for you?   If you haven't changed anything and are considering it, what's holding you back?

          On Thursday I'll tell you about the photo that I added to my header.

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