When I’m actively blogging, I often assume a great deal about my readers and their pre-existing knowledge of my topic. I often go so far as to assume that, even after I’ve researched a topic, I’m roughly on par with them in terms of really understanding the topic, so I focus on my own reflections on a complex issue without explaining it.

Whenever I do this, I punch myself in the arm. Why? If I do it too often, a large bruise will start to appear, both on my arm and my blog. People will see it, not understand it, and avoid it.

How do you solve the problem of attracting beginning readers without alienating your regular audience? My solution is to make roughly one fifth of my posts focus specifically on very fundamental issues, such as the difference between APR and APY and how compound interest works. My regular readers usually read these as well and the posts tend to attract a lot of comments, as these experienced readers look for places to fill in holes that I’ve missed.

In short, occasional “fundamentals” posts do not alienate your regular reader base - and can attract new readers.

Here are several avenues you can take for identifying and writing posts on fundamental topics in your area.

Make a list. Take fifteen or so recent posts on your blog and make a list of every word that refers specifically to something within your domain. Maybe you write an art blog and you discuss artists all the time. Maybe you write about NPR and regularly refer to contributors. Maybe you write a financial blog and drop the term EPS all the time.

Write a blog post explaining, in your own words, what exactly each term means. Don’t assume the reader is stupid; treat them as if you are explaining the topic to a friend. Imagine, for example, that you’re a literature blogger and a friend stops over, pulls a book off your shelf, and asks, “What’s this about?” Would you talk down to that person? Probably not (unless you’re massively condescending). Imagine that the person you’re writing for is that friend who just pulled a book off the shelf.

Encourage comments on these posts. Such posts tend to attract lots of comments (for me, anyway), but it can’t hurt to even request comments at the end of that post. This encourages your regular audience to fill in gaps (and feel smart) and your new readers to ask questions that they might have. Never forget that blogging is a conversation and you’ll be fine.

Occasionally (not always), link to your explanation by linking the appearance of that word in future posts. Readers who come to your site and are confused as to who John Hodgman is or what APY is can just click on the word and be whisked to another blog post on that specific topic.

After you’ve done a lot of these, post a compendium. This post can just list all of the “fundamentals” posts you’ve made. Once you’ve created this, add it to your site’s sidebar along with a link that says something like “Getting Started” or “[Your Topic] 101.” This way, when new readers come along, they at least have a chance to understand your most recent “deep” post.

Your content will bring new readers to the site, but if you put forth a bit of extra effort to make their entrance easier, they might just stay around for a while.

Building a Better Blog for 2007 is a month-long series at The Simple Dollar, outlining steps you can take to build a long-term healthy blog that will attract readers. Jump ahead to the next essay, Celebrate With Your Readers, or back to the previous one, Don’t Clutter It Up.

Recently, CNNMoney.com posted an article containing 35 outrageous fees, along with tips on avoiding them. Unfortunately, due to the terrible layout of the article (you’re forced to jump from page to page in a very awkward fashion), it’s almost impossible to see all of the fees and also jump to the one you want to read.

I did the footwork for you, and here’s the list of Money Magazine’s 35 Outrageous Fees. Each one is linked to the appropriate page on the CNN/Money site so that you can jump straight to the information about that fee. After the list is a bit of general commentary.

1. Airlines: Paper tickets
2. Airlines: Talking to a person
3. Changing your flight
4. Airlines: Reserving an aisle seat
5. Overpacking
6. Car rental: insurance
7. Car rental: excise taxes
8. Hotel fees: Internet connection fee
9. Hotel fees: Resort fee
10. Hotel fees: Automatic gratuities
11. Hotel fees: Package delivery fees
12. Hotel fees: Mini-bar restocking
13. Phone surcharges: Carrier cost recovery fee
14. Phone surcharges: AT&T’s tax-related surcharge
15. Phone surcharges: Property tax surcharge
16. Phone surcharges: Activation fee
17. Phone surcharges: Cancellation penalty
18. Gift card activation fee
19. Junk closing costs
20. Title insurance
21. Biweekly payment fee
22. ATM fees
23. Monthly service fee
24. Bad deposit fee
25. Foreign currency fee
26. Credit card late fees
27. Balance transfer fee
28. Over-limit fee
29. Same day payment fee
30. Mutual fund fees: Index funds
31. Mutual fund fees: Large U.S. stock funds
32. Mutual fund fees: Target-date retirement funds
33. Variable annuity expenses
34. Brokerage transfer fees
35. 529 expenses

It’s a good list, but most of these “outrageous” fees boil down to consumer irresponsibility, unfortunately. Many of these are due to violations of clearly-stated policies by companies; just follow their policies and use some common sense and you’ll skip right over many of these fees. However, there is one fee that really irritates me that isn’t listed here: a fee to deposit loose change into your savings/checking account.

I have a confession to make. The last few months have been the happiest for me in several years. I am convinced that the biggest reason for the turnaround is that I finally have some grasp on my money which I never really had before.

For years, I wondered seriously whether or not I was clinically depressed. I often looked at depression websites and noticed that I matched up with many of the symptoms, but I never bothered to actually address whether or not I was in fact depressed.

It turns out that I wasn’t depressed after all, but that my spirit was being crushed by debt and a fear of money. I was suffocating in debt and it surrounded all my thoughts, but I was too frightened to do anything about it.

Ask yourself these ten questions:

1. Do you buy yourself things as a reward on a regular basis, for such minor events as “payday” or “I got through work without killing anyone day”?
2. Do you realize that you need to change things, but feel too trapped by debt to even know where to start?
3. Do you lie awake at night wondering how you’re going to pay for the essentials in your life?
4. Have you lied to anyone about money in the last month?
5. Do you think to yourself “I shouldn’t be spending this money,” but you do so anyway?
6. Do you read or hear about people that are rich and believe that you’ll never get there without a miracle?
7. Is your first thought after a windfall involve what new things you can buy?
8. Do you owe so much money to various people that you can’t conceive of how to begin paying it off?
9. Do you believe that you will never be out of debt?
10. Do you believe that you will never have “enough” money?

If you answered “yes” to the majority of those questions, there’s a good chance that you feel a general malaise in your life. For me, it coated everything with a sense of sadness and helplessness. I felt as though I was slogging through a swamp flowing backwards and it took all of my effort to merely stay in place.

After a while, things did begin to slip backward and I was nearly swept away by an onslaught of unexpected events. I finally realized that I had to do something to fix things, and so I started as easily as I can.

I started by taking one day at a time. I just woke up each morning and committed myself to not spending money in unnecessary ways. I didn’t worry about saving or investing or anything for a while; I just worried about not spending money.

After a month or two, I suddenly began to realize that my checking account had a lot more money in it. I remember the day that I realized I could make a quadruple payment on my highest interest credit card. When I wrote that check and put it in the mail, I felt as if there was a ray of sunshine on me. It didn’t drive all of the clouds away, but I began to feel the warmth of the sun just behind the clouds.

Two months later, I paid off that high interest card. In the five months since then, I’ve paid off all of my credit cards, my auto loan, and I’ve started investing in a mutual fund.

Once these events started occurring, the clouds lifted from my life. I realized that my worries about money were not only affecting me, but they had been affecting my relationship with others, including my wife and my son. I began to see them in a new light, not one clouded in worry about how I was going to provide for them, but as the beautiful people they are and what they give me each day.

Please, if you answered “yes” to many of those questions, wake up tomorrow morning with a plan for the day, a baby step for turning things around. Don’t worry about saving or investing or anything else, just make little changes so that you’re pulling less money out of your checking account. If you want, keep track of the good choices you made and look at that list when you’re feeling down.

Give it a few months. Keep paying your bills as before and just keep making baby steps. One day, you’ll look at your checking account balance and realize that you have more money than you thought, and you’ll realize that there is hope.

Please note that I am not a medical professional of any kind; do not accept any of this advice as a solution to your potential depression. I’m merely offering reflections on my own life; if you’re concerned about depression, please seek professional counseling and don’t rely on this post for answers.

In an ever-changing fast-paced world, most of us are accustomed to doing things now, and long-term financial planning is often difficult for us to wrap our arms around. We don’t want to think about being a millionaire in twenty years; we want to start down that road now with quick actions that we can use to quickly see rewards.

Here’s a list of eighteen things you can do today that will improve your bottom line in the coming year. I’d advise you to sit down right now with a piece of paper, make a list of the ones that you are going to do today, and total up how much money this will save for you. If the individual items seem frivolous, just bear with me: there’s a conclusion to this that you may find interesting.

1. Drink less expensive coffee. Do you stop at the coffee shop a bit too often? Cutting out one latte a week can save $5 a week, or even ordering a smaller size three times a week can save $3 a week. Do you really need the grande latte? Savings: $5 a week

2. Prepare your own “fast food.” Fast food is convenient and tasty, but with some advance work, you can prepare your own quick foods at home. They take very little skill, are good for you, and are usually at least a dollar less expensive than the equivalent item at a fast food restaurant. If you eat fast food even once a week (and many of us eat more than that), then that’s a dollar saved. For me, I can save as much as $5 a week, so let’s average the two. Savings: $3 a week

3. Instead of watching television, read a book. After evaluating the per-hour cost of my hobbies, I discovered that television viewing was the most expensive and reading was the least expensive, so I basically just turned off the television and opened a book. What happened? We trimmed our cable bill to just the basic channels (a savings of about $15 a month), cut down our electricity usage (television and surround sound were off for two hours when they used to be on) which saved about $0.50 a month, and rediscovered a hobby that makes me consider the world instead of sitting there absorbing whatever the television feeds me. We’re even thinking about eliminating the cable entirely, since the few shows we now watch are almost all on network television. An average individual could save about $8 a month doing this, so we’ll use that. Savings: $2 a week

4. Find worthwhile weekend projects that don’t burn money. I used to spend my weekends involved with some pretty expensive hobbies, but then I started spending a couple weekends a month engaged with things that made money or were at least inexpensive. Do you spend $50 on a golf excursion with your buddies twice a month? How about a once a month trip to the mall with a $100 bill? Replace these with cost-effective weekend activities. Even better if you’re a parent: these can all involve the kids in a productive fashion. Just replacing one expensive weekend activity a month can save $30-$50 a month. I’ll even estimate this one on the low end. Savings: $10 a week

5. Air up your tires. On your way home tonight, stop at a gas station and air up your tires. It’s incredibly simple to do (if you’re capable of taking the cap off of a toothpaste tube, you can do it), it’s free, and it saves serious money - about $0.07 a gallon with current prices. Do this once a month if you can, and you’ll save about $3 a month. Savings: $0.75 a week

6. Use free software instead of expensive commercial products. In the past, I’ve bought copies of Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop and I also paid for yearly renewals for an antivirus package. No more. I save about $50 a year by using great open source software solutions. Most are easy to install and work as well as the software they replace. Instead of buying an expensive software package, look at what you can get for free. Savings: $4 a month.

7. Buy in bulk. Instead of buying smaller packs of items you’ll continually use (such as toilet paper, dishwashing detergent, laundry detergent, fabric softener, shampoo, conditioner, dish soap, tissues, diapers, baby wipes, trash bags, etc.), buy them in packages that cost the cheapest per unit (almost always the largest one). Put the excess in storage and continue to refill smaller containers out of the bulk containers as you need them. Even if you save only $5 per year on each item, if you buy ten items in bulk, you’ve saved $50. If your grocery list has such continuous use items on it, pick up the bulk version instead. Savings: $4 a month

8. Plan your road trips more carefully. We often make multi-hour treks to visit my son’s grandparents and other relatives, as well as visiting friends and going on camping trips. By planning ahead just a bit (maybe fifteen minutes of work), we can save $20 on each trip. If you travel quite a bit, planning ahead can easily save you up to $100 a year. Savings: $5 a month

9. Drink lots of water. Keep a water bottle full at your side and take a big drink every time you feel hungry or thirsty. This trick has saved me from many trips to the vending machines and unnecessary stops for food and beverages when out and about, and this converts straight into cash in my pocket. By cutting out the unnecessary snacks, I can save a couple dollars a day on average - and some people are far worse than I am. Savings: $10 a week

10. Check the library for books instead of the bookstore. Before you go buy a book, check and see if it’s available at your local library. Many libraries now have an online catalogue that enables you to check for a book. If this keeps you from buying one book a month (average cost $12), this adds up to $150 a year. Savings: $12 a month

11. Keep a list of what you spend. I keep a small notebook inside my jacket along with a pen, and whenever I spend money on anything, I jot it down. Every once in a while, I look it over and usually shake my head at the wasted money, but that’s not the powerful part: the power is in the guilt I feel when I consider adding an item to my notebook. This usually makes me stop and reconsider frivolous purchases, which can save me as much as $50 a pop. On average, though, it’s much smaller than that. Savings: $10 a month

12. Install compact fluorescent bulbs. Replace the light bulbs in your home with compact fluorescent bulbs; stop on your way home from work and use one of those Christmas gift cards to stock up. If you replace fifteen bulbs with CFLs and use each bulb for four hours a day, you’ll save $0.22 a day, or $7.50 a month, in your energy bill. Per bulb, your savings each month is about $0.50. Savings: $7.50 a month

13. Write a grocery list. Preparing a grocery list seems kind of silly at first, but it works amazingly well. We keep a pad of paper and a pen attached to the refrigerator so that both my wife and I can write down anything we can think of that we need or that we want for preparing a meal. Then, when we go to the store, we just stick to that list; if it’s not on the list, we don’t buy it. Our weekly grocery bill immediately dropped by about $20 when we started sticking to this principle, and it’s so easy to do (and actually faster, because you don’t wander through the store wondering if you forgot something). Put a pad and a pen on the refrigerator and start making a list today. Savings: $20 a week

14. Eat breakfast. Before you leave in the morning, eat something small, like a bagel or a cup of yogurt. Why? When lunchtime rolls around, you won’t be as hungry and you’ll make more sensible dining choices which don’t involve going out to TGI Friday’s and ordering a giant appetizer before your meal … not that I’ve ever done that … not me … yeah, right. When I do this, I save about $3 on ann average lunch, which is balanced against the $0.50 or so that the breakfast food cost me. Savings: $10 a week

15. Invite your friends over. “Won’t that cost money?” you ask. Nope. Invite your friends over about once a month for a potluck dinner. Break it down into small pieces for everyone to bring (assign each person something to bring) and provide one of the main meal elements. For example, you can have each couple bring their favorite pizza topping and some pizza sauce and you provide the dough. Not only is this cheaper than going out to eat, you’re also spreading some of the dinner cost out among the guests. Even better: since you’re at home already, it’s pretty easy to find a very inexpensive activity to fill the evening, which is much cheaper than out-on-the-town activities. We did this with a New Year’s Eve party once and it was a huge hit - and it didn’t cost much either. Everyone brought their favorite pizza toppings, favorite finger snack, and a six pack of their favorite beer. Total cost for hosting a memorable New Year’s party: about $20 (dough, some mushrooms, and some Leinenkugel). Savings: $20 a month

16. Install programmable thermostats. This is another great item to spend Christmas gift cards on. A programmable thermostat can cut your energy bills by about $100 a year by following pre-set programs to lower and raise temperatures in rooms automatically. This enables the house to be at a nice temperature when you’re using it, but at an ambient (or close to it) temperature when you’re not (in the night, or when you’re at work, for example). This can save serious cash over the long term. Savings: $7.50 a month

17. Turn your computer off every night. You can do this automatically with little effort, and with a typical desktop computer, you can save about $2 a month on energy costs. Savings: $2 a month

18. Use the ten second rule. The ten second rule basically states that you should pause for ten seconds before making a purchase and spend that time asking yourself if you really need what you’re buying. Quite often, the answer will be “no,” which is all the incentive you need to put the item back on the shelf. I do this all the time and end up saving some decent money each month. Savings: $20 a month

Now that I’ve done all of these things… If you’ve done all of these things, you’re now spending roughly $85 a week less than you used to. Instead of letting that money just sit in your checking account, tempting you, sign up for a high-yield savings account at ING (4.5% APY and a $25 signup bonus if you use a referral code - just ask me for one) or HSBC (5.05% APY). Set up an automatic weekly deposit into that high-yield account from your checking account equal to the amount you’re now saving.

And how much will I have? If you followed all of the steps in this plan and put it all into HSBC, at the end of the year you’ll have $4,641.22 in the account. You might think that some of the ideas on this list are a bit silly, but how silly is $4,600 a year? That can easily be enough to make a few extra mortgage payments each year, pay off your car, or start an investment portfolio.

The best part? You can start immediately.

This week, The Simple Dollar is investigating how you can take a small amount each day for the year 2007 and end up with a solid amount of money at the end of the year.

These calculations take advantage of offers and promotions available in December 2006 and also use interest rates from that time to calculate returns. While the plan still works, the exact dollar amount returned will differ.

The face of Andrew Jackson is a face many of us are familiar with; he adorns the $20 bill, a currency value that many of us use on a daily basis. He was a natural born leader who made things happen, and his stern face issues a challenge: what happens if we simply save twenty dollars each day this year? Where will we be at the end of the year? Let’s take a look.

How can I save $20 a day? To save $20 a day, you have to be willing to trim some fat from your budget. Some great ways to do this are learning to cook at home, utilizing simple energy saving techniques, buy groceries in bulk, and cut down on frivolous spending at the electronics, music, and book stores. If you do these, there’s a good chance you can free up $20 a day for building your future.

What are the rules? Each day, you put away $20 towards an investment goal. The goal is to not risk any principal in this investment, to keep it liquid, and to have it set up so that the investment is as easy as possible. To do this, we will be using two online savings accounts in tandem: HSBC, because of the 5.05% APY interest rate, and ING Direct, because of the solid 4.5% interest rate and the $25 signup bonus.

How much can we turn $20 a day into by the end of the year? First, sign up for an account at HSBC Direct immediately. They offer a 5.05% APY interest rate on their basic savings account with no minimum. For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll assume that you make a $100 opening deposit on January 5 into this account, $20 per day.

On January 1, we start saving $20 a day. We set up an account with HSBC Direct and make our first deposit of $100 on January 5, and a scheduled $140 deposit every seven days thereafter.

On January 19, our account tops $250, so we sign up for an ING Direct savings account so we can earn a $25 signup bonus. We deposit this $250 in it, leaving $130 in our primary account and wait ten days to earn the bonus and withdraw $275 (and a bit of interest).

On February 1, we withdraw our money from ING and see that our account currently holds $545.70. $25.70 in the first month is a very nice return; let’s keep it up.

On March 1, there is $1108.22 in the account. We’ve already socked away a grand and our earnings are going to go up greatly in the coming months. It will be a fun ride.

On April 1, the account holds $1813.56. In the last month, we made $5.33 in interest alone, and for the year we’ve made $33.56 in income just from putting the money in the bank. Considering the short term of investment, that’s a very good return.

On May 1, the account holds $2381.34. We’ve already got more than two grand in the bank, and last month we made almost $8 in interest. The money is starting to build on itself, as the interest on the interest for the past month was three cents.

On June 1, the account holds $3091.66. Once you’ve crossed the three grand mark, you’re eligible for a lot of interesting investments, such as a Vanguard 500 index fund, that can potentially earn a lot more.

On July 1, the account holds $3664.51. We made $12.85 in interest over the past month. At the halfway point in the year, we’ve not only managed to sock away $3600 of our own money, but we’ve also made $64.51.

On August 1, we’ve topped the four grand mark at $4239.95. We made almost $16 in interest over the previous month. Slowly and steadily, the amount is building up.

On September 1, the account balance is $4957.94. We’re basically halfway to five figures at this stage! If you can keep this up for just nine months, you’ll have five digits in the bank.

On October 1, the account balance is $5538.55 and it earned $20.61 in interest over the past month. At this point, the account is earning enough interest each month to match what you’re putting in each day. Your money is really starting to work for you!

On November 1, the account balances at $6121.77. The money is steadily rising, like rainwater in a puddle. Keep it up!

On December 1, the account balances out at $6847.57. We’re getting close to an interesting threshold, which we blow away on December 28, when the balance crosses the $7300 mark (actually leaping over it). Why is this interesting? $3650 is the amount you’ll put in for the year, so all balance increases after December 28 are pure income.

On January 1, 2008, the account balance is $7435.99. During the year, the account earned $135.99, and that’s with your money slowly being deposited throughout the year, not sitting in the account at the start; even more, it also doesn’t include the deposit from the final four days of the year (another $80 above and beyond the current balance). You’ve probably also noticed how easy it is to trim $20 from your daily spending, so you’re likely to stick with the plan for the future. About five months from now, if you continue with this plan and just let it sit at HSBC, your balance will be in the five figures!

Amount Saved: $7300.00
Amount Earned: $135.99
Percent Return: 1.86% (for the whole year, even though you only had most of the money in the account near the end of the year)

During this final week in 2006, The Simple Dollar is reviewing one of the top investment book of the year (based on Amazon.com sales). What does Phil Town’s Rule #1 really all about, and does it bring anything useful to the plate that we didn’t already know? This week, we aim to find out.

To put it in a nutshell, Rule #1 is a simplification of the investment philosophies of Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett. Phil Town basically takes their ideas, strips away almost all of the nuances, and leaves behind the bare skeleton of how Graham and Buffett invest. It’s simplified to the point that almost anyone could do it, for better or worse.

Of course, with such simplification comes some problems. The book’s philosophy is very good at finding companies that are going to be successful. However, it’s basically impossible to find companies this good. Companies that are so good that this method will find them are companies that large money managers have long ago discovered because they use nearly identical methods.

So here comes the recommendation: buy this book if you’re a beginning stock investor or a conservative investor. This book is loaded with great, simple metrics for finding great companies to invest in. If you follow Town’s philosophy as closely as possible, you will eventually find good companies for your money and you will make money.

However, I don’t recommend this book to experienced or risk-taking investors. Phil Town’s plan is focused on easy methods for finding good, stable companies that will make strong money over the long haul. If you’re looking for huge returns immediately and are willing to gamble to get them, go elsewhere; similarly, if you’re already familiar with Graham and Buffett, this book will be a simplification for you.

Personally, I enjoyed the book quite a lot. I tried his plan on a large number of companies and only found one that seemed to indicate that it was undervalued, and I am considering an investment in that company. Which company? I’ll reveal it in the future, as it will probably be the first company that I buy into with any seriousness as I begin investing in individual companies.

You can jump to other parts of this review of Rule #1 by following these links:
Overview
The Four Ms (and an addendum)
The Five Numbers
Implementing The Rule
Buy or Don’t Buy?

Rule #1 is the eighth of fifty-two books in The Simple Dollar’s series 52 Personal Finance Books in 52 Weeks.

Here it is, the last morning roundup of 2006 (I won’t be in on Monday, of course, as I’ll be sleeping soundly after our New Year’s celebration). Here are some great recent personal finance blog postings.

Beware a US Stock Market Crash A well-done negative take on the strong stock market as of late. It gives three good indicators of a stock downturn. I actually think 2007 will be crazy, with the market going up and down like a drunken horse. Indicators are pointing wildly in different directions, which usually means chaos. (@ investor trip)

Living Intentionally - Living Cheap This post actually has very little to do with living cheap. I like things like that. (@ the weight of money)

When a visitor comes to your site, the first thing they’re looking for is content. They want to see what you’ve written and they don’t want to be distracted by confusing things. The more confusing options you throw out there, the less likely they are to feel welcome on your site and the less likely they are to stick around.

Simplicity is good; clutter is bad. Successful sites generally keep the clutter in the sidebar and out of the way of the primary article. Even clutter outside of the primary article can be bad if it’s unclear and without obvious purpose to the casual reader.

Quite often, the design intention is good: a blogger wants more things that are useful on the site. The problem comes in when a casual reader arrives and is overwhelmed by options that are less than clear. Here are several common mistakes that some bloggers make when designing their site.

Social bookmarking icons We’ve all seen the row of icons that covers the bottom of a post, each one linking to a different social bookmarking site, right? If you haven’t, here’s an example. For casual users, these are just plain confusing, even if you have a tool tip popping up that says “add to furl” or “add to delicious” … those statements make little sense to people who are just searching Google for a key piece of information. On the other hand, for experienced users, the icons are still a waste because most of us have our social bookmarking sites of choice already integrated into our browser toolbar. These icons don’t have an audience and they’re just distracting to most users.

Site metadata icons These include buttons that link to Feedburner and to other sites that aggregate RSS feeds, as well as to all sorts of additional sites. An example of this that doesn’t go too far into overkill can be found on the right hand bar of pfblogs.org. These are fine in small doses - one or two that link to something interesting can be fun - but some sites go into overload mode and the whole thing becomes distracting for the casual user.

“Gadgets” Many people have a penchant for including gadgets of all kinds on their site, often in multiples. For an example, see User Generated Content, which includes several such gadgets on his right hand bar. While these are all right for a personal site, if a casual user pops in, it’s basically information overload time and they back away slowly. I recommend never using more than one such gadget, and making sure that it aligns appropriately with the rest of your content.

The most important thing to remember at all times is that a visitor comes to your site to read the latest postings and nothing else. The more things that you throw at this user, particularly those that create a “busy” display, the harder it is for that casual visitor to read your post. Thus, it’s always better to minimize the extraneous material on your site and focus on your content above all.

Building a Better Blog for 2007 is a month-long series at The Simple Dollar, outlining steps you can take to build a long-term healthy blog that will attract readers. Jump ahead to the next essay, Don’t Forget the Fundamentals, or back to the previous one, Talking to Other Bloggers.