Somebody’s been eating my content

Well, I’ve had a chance to ruminate on the blog design advice I received from Randy Charles Morin and TDavid, particularly with regard to ad placement. Trying to balance my goals, I ended up with what you see before you (if you’re reading at my site). Here are some highlights:

1. The combined page header and ads were pushing the content too far down on the page. But, I like having the ads in a “hot” area, and according to the Google heat map, the flame is hottest right above the content. So, I decided to shrink the header. I replaced my mug shot with one that was shorter and less formal (who dresses up for a blog, anyway?), reduced the title’s font size, and restyled the section with a gradient and brighter colors. Shortening this section moved the ad space up into the area that was formerly occupied by grey space.
2. Extended the leader board with a link unit beside it. More links, same vertical space requirement.
3. Added an ad unit in the middle of the sidebar, and another one just above the footer. Each of these units are only visible when the other units aren’t, so hopefully they don’t create that ad-saturated feeling that TDavid decries.
4. Moved the RSS subscription links to the top of the sidebar, and added a modified version of Randy’s chicklet generator to give easy links for subscribing in My Yahoo!, Newsgator, Bloglines, My MSN, Rojo, Google, and Rmail. My only modification was to remove the “Subscribe” button, because I already had two separate links to subscribe to entries and comments.

So, what do you think? Is it too hot? too cold? just right?