Josh Sharp design and development. Web pages with purpose.

You may have noticed I've been getting into the whole 'blogger' thing lately. Unfortunately, not by blogging much more, but the rest of it that goes with it — finding new blogs, networking, chatting in forums, etc. Part of this is the Entrecard widget you can see to the right. In addition to providing me with a tiny bit more traffic, it's a good way to browse for new blogs.

So what's that got to do with the title, you ask? Well the thing is, the majority of the Entrecard blogs are written by "the little guys" who are aspiring to be the big guys. Everyone wants to be John Chow or Darren Rowse (ProBlogger). And these bloggers definitely have passion, and persistence, and they're networking to make the most of their traffic. But they're not all designers, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

The problem with being a little guy is you're essentially a one man (or woman) operation, required to run all aspects of your blog. In addition to being the writer, you have to be the marketing guy, the designer, and the editor. It's a lot of work.

So I would like to extend my services to anyone who would like some tips on their blog design.

Most design flaws I see on blogs come down to poor contrast, very busy pages, or poorly organised pages. These are all easy things to fix!

So for a very reasonable fee I'll critique your site and give you some ideas on how to increase your readership and page stickiness without changing anything about your content, simply by making your blog easier to read. You might have the most interesting, unique posts in the world, but nobody is going to stick around to read them if they can't find them amidst the clutter of your text ads or many site badges.

To celebrate this tremendously momentous occasion, I'll critique two sites for free. If you think your site might benefit, simply contact me with all the details and we'll go from there.

Update: Well I guess nobody thinks they need usability or design consulting, even if it's for free. Oh well.

This year, one of my big plans is to start a tech blog. I may not be fully prepared yet, but I'm starting the ball rolling. I have a domain, so the next step is to gather some writers!

The plan is to create an Australian tech blog which will report on web and tech news, ideally with a local focus. Something like a cross between TechCrunch and Gizmodo. At the moment there's not much of a local voice for Aussie web startups, and it's hard to find local tech news that isn't covered by Whirlpool. We could fill that niche. Of course, Australia isn't the biggest market, which is why blogs which start with a local focus often struggle to gain much traction. But we could give it a go. I believe that there's a chance to be the Australian tech blog.

And if nothing big happens, then everyone walks away with a bit more experience. Not such a bad thing.

So I guess I'm looking for enthusiastic bloggers who want to take a chance at making a splash locally. You must be able to blog at least once at week, and the aim is to get 4 or 5 bloggers, so that we have at least one update a day.

Who's with me?