[Kevin]

David Peralty from Branding David has offered 2 hours of blog consultation to the winner of weeks 4 challenge.

The winner will be able to speak to David for 2 hours on the phone, e-mail, skype, im or ustream.. You will be able to discuss tactics for link baiting, SEO, WordPress management and much more.

In the last 4 years David has worked for some of the largest and most well known blog networks on the web so I’m sure he will be able to greatly help the winner with their blog.



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Here is this weeks question :

	Quote:
	"What is the one blog that has a balance of great design, strong branding and excellent content in your mind, and please defend your selection?"

As always, I think it's important that things are kept fair and competitive :

• You are only allowed to write one answer so please take your time to think about it and leave a good reply.
• Ideas/Suggestions should be original ie. don't just copy someone elses idea and try and claim it as your own
• Deadline for entries is 12pm ET Tuesday 11th November 2008

On Tuesday 11th November David will choose what he believes to be the best response

Good luck

Kevin

[Sneakyheathen]

My selection is "The Design Superhero" (http://thedesignsuperhero.com/)

In terms of design, this blog fits in with its name through the appropriate color scheme of red, blue, and even some green. These colors are kept consistent and make the dark theme extremely visually appealing. As well, they make a nice contrast for the crystalline style of the logo, which moves into the branding. The logo for thedesignsuperhero is easily recognizable as a tiny diamond with a "d" in the middle. It works pretty well for any medium of design, as you can see it used around the net as a favicon and an avatar. It's a simple, easily recognizable, easily scalable design.

The content ties into this as the designs, freebies, and tutorials that Aravind presents are, well, of "superb" quality. The posts never fail to intrigue you with a great design showcase, useful freebie, or interesting tutorial.

That's my recommendation.

[DeskCoder]

John Cow

He has really distinguished himself from his spin-off counterpart. He has made a name for himself which is very recognizable. His design is unique, and selling his theme design was an excellent idea. When you see the theme used elsewhere, you instantly think John Cow. Now, I don't read his blog, especially since I thought the previous owner was a cry baby, but the new owner seems to be putting out some decent content, especially offering the free eBook to his visitors.

[slee]

It has to be without question Veerle’s blog.
Her design is extremely beautifuly implemented and the content is superb. Veerle writes many articles including tutorials for Illustrator which are invaluable. You can tell it is a very popualr blog, as soon as a new article has been published the comments roll in.

The use of fonts on the site seem to be prefect, they are easy to read and every part of the blog seems to compliment each other. It is just one of those sites you can read with ease.

[mayank]

John Chow has to be one of the best blogs on the internet. @Deskcoder - I think John chow should be the actual winner - If someone uses the name of some other person to create his online presence then that other person's personal branding is much more than the one who copied. On top of it, it was John himself who made John Cow popular .

His blog design have been always amazing and Unique blog design has done some amazing work both the times.

John was always good with marketing, although it was really the content which made him achieve all these targets. Even though his blog is sort of banned on Digg and on Google.. he still generates loads of traffic and no doubt the amount of followers he has is no doubt proves that what he's actually capable of.

[DeskCoder]

	Quote: Originally Posted by mayank
	John Chow has to be one of the best blogs on the internet. @Deskcoder - I think John chow should be the actual winner - If someone uses the name of some other person to create his online presence then that other person's personal branding is much more than the one who copied. On top of it, it was John himself who made John Cow popular . His blog design have been always amazing and Unique blog design has done some amazing work both the times. John was always good with marketing, although it was really the content which made him achieve all these targets. Even though his blog is sort of banned on Digg and on Google.. he still generates loads of traffic and no doubt the amount of followers he has is no doubt proves that what he's actually capable of.

See, now here is where I disagree. John Chow's theme is nice, but it is not unique in any way. John Cow has gone to the lengths of actually branding his theme by allowing people to buy it. I also think Cow has a theme more suited to his branding, while Chow just has a nice, plain theme.

I also think John Cow has the edge on content because I have not read anything interesting on Chow for a LONG time.

[x7seo]

I would have to say it is Garry Conn over at www.garryconn.com Gary is very open about sharing his knowledge of making money online and goes into detail about how to do this. He gives visual and well written guidelines on keyword research, url naming, content development and how to monetize blogs and websites.

His blog is one of my daily "must" reads.

[mayank]

	Quote: Originally Posted by DeskCoder
	John Cow has gone to the lengths of actually branding his theme by allowing people to buy it. I also think John Cow has the edge on content because I have not read anything interesting on Chow for a LONG time.

See that's the whole issue. When the design is not unique then how exactly that will go in unique sense.

Well, What's interesting with John chow's content is that you can learn from every post of his. Be it marketing, be it making money... his every post is a money maker for him - the question to be asked is that what exactly he does right which others are not doing... and then find out the answers by going through his blog posts.

[Kevin]

I have just spoken to David and he has informed me that he likes DeskCoders reply the best (thats his 2nd prize in two weeks!!)

@Deskcoder - I have forwarded on your email address to David. Also, I forwarded on an email from Performancing for you too

[Rarst]

Crap I missed time to post mine... I thought it was this evening and I still have few hours. I am bad with am/pm and time zone on top. (( Anyway.

My selection is Daniel Scocco and his blog DailyBlogTips.

It is top-level blog managed by one person (which is pretty uncommon, most blogs of this level is team effort). There is usual selection of metablogging post with tips and news but there are also some very original content.

Daniel is focusing on extremely long post series about gaining traffic - which is without doubt one of topics bloggers are most interested in.

There is also selection of free high-quality WP themes up for grabs. It's great fit for metablogging blog.

What I like most is that plenty of stuff Daniel does at his blog require considerable time and/or money investment (like those free themes or his Blogging Idol projects). Some people go for metablogging niche because they think blogging itself makes them experts on blogging. Daniel is blogging expert because he actively studies blogging and not afraid to invest in that.