Thursday Sessions: A(nother) Guide To Maximizing Your Passionfruit Account

We are talking about improving your blog... it must be Saturday!! Wait, then why am I at work? And why is everyone else at work? And why am I not asleep in bed? Poop. It's Thursday.

I learned how to edit for foul language from my friend Whitney. Ah well. Let's talk about some Passionfruit tricks you may not know about. If you missed it, you can find my first post about passionfruit tips and tricks here. Plus, we've teamed up to give away 5 free annual memberships, each worth 50 bucks, but we'll get to that momentarily. 

Here is a current snapshot of my passionfruit ad shop. I have the buttons set to just a basic black, but now that I have a new blog design, I want to change my ad shop to match my exact blog colors. 

I know that my purple color is #fbb5f3 so that is the color I'm going to make the buttons in my ad shop. If you need help figuring out what color is on your blog, just leave me a comment and I'll email you back to help :) 

Most blogs have a two column template with a relatively wide sidebar. My sidebar, for example, is 340px wide. Ads that look the best are either square or are wider than they are tall. All of my ads are the exact same width, 300px. I then differentiate the ads based on height. 

For example, my most prestigious ad is 300px wide by 400 px tall, giving it the most visibility on the sidebar. Then they range all the way down to the smallest, which is 300px wide by 200px tall. 

Which looks better to you? The left side where they are all the same width, which is a proper width that fills the sidebar, or the right side with odd heights and widths? Duh, faster is better. (If you don't like those AT&T commercials get outta here.) 

Don't hesitate to go in and change your ad sizing... just be courteous to your sponsors. Email everyone and let them know you are adjusting the size of their ad. Give them some time to get a new ad in place so their old ad doesn't look distorted. 

To change the size of your blog's ads....

Go to Manage Spots, then edit the spot you want to adjust. Change the pixel sizing and click save. You don't have to change any HTML on your blog, because it will automatically change your blog's ads to the new size! 

You wouldn't leave you sponsor page blank on your blog would you? No, you put stuff in there like impressive numbers and sad face pictures to WOO over potential sponsors. So be sure to put that same information on your Marketplace profile. 

The new passionfruit isn't just for ad space. I actually use it for my Social&Chic design page. Before Passionfruit 2.0 was released I was sending invoices via paypal. I kept forgetting who I had invoiced, who i hadn't. To say it helped my organization is a vast understatement. I also think clients enjoy just making the purchase on their own time and own dime.

I was able to list out all of my services, everything from full blog redesign to post signatures. I have sold a la carte items I had never been able to sell in the past, like social media icons and business cards, probably because no one knew I offered them. I can't recommend it enough for fellow designers.

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Now lets give away some free memberships shall we? This giveaway will only stay open for 24 hours. And the best part, in my opinion, is that if you already "put a ring on it" for the year, your $50 will be refunded if you are one of the 5 winners! Great for me seeing as I put a ring on it in the first, like, 17 minutes it was available. If you ain't first you're last, right?

Here are the giveaway rules: 

• 5 free memberships will be awarded, valued at $50 each, good for one year
• If winner has already paid for PF they will be refunded
• Giveaway winners announced on August 30th
• You must have PF installed on your blog to be a winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway