ColorLabs is bringing bloggers an exciting new feature with their newest WordPress theme framework, called Backbone.

That feature’s called drag and drop customization.

Let’s take a sneak peak behind the scenes and see what a blogger can do with a Backbone child theme.

1. Simplicity is the ultimate understanding of complexity

The new drag and drop features bring bloggers both the ultimate power in editing and beauty, because it combines not only a brilliant design but also access to just about anything you might want to customize on your blog.

2. Subscribe Settings

Bloggers now have the option to quickly update everything they need to control their subscription settings, including a the feedburner widget, the text that appears encouraging people to subscribe, the email subscription option, and even a mailchimp option.

I don’t know about you, but having all this in one area is definitely going to help me stay organized and on top of how my readers will connect … which, to be honest, can sometimes get lost in all the noise.

3. Analytics Settings

If you’ve been blogging for a while, or at least tracking some form of analytics, then you’re probably comfortable with working with a snippet of script from Google … but for some this is still way beyond their level of comfort. Backbone addresses this by enabling bloggers the option to control their Google Analtics statistics from their drag and drop admin panel. In addition, you also have the option to control your GoSquared and Feedburner analytics, which I’m sure is only the beginning.

This is truly one of the most powerful features, as it enables you to quickly and efficiently begin tracking your analytics.

4. Blog title and logo options

Another are a lot of bloggers have trouble is with the customization of their logo. While the title has been pretty easy to tackle using the WordPress options built in, the logo’s always been more tricky. For some, it means hacking into the header and manually inserting the html. For others, it means finding a plugin to do this for them.

Now, you can control this right from your drag and drop admin panel, which makes it easy not only to opt whether you want to use a logo for your title or the actual blog title for your title.

5. Add a favicon and look really cool

Let’s admit it, we’ve all looked up how to customize or add a favicon to our blog. The favicon was created to visual the favorites option in your browser, but since then has become more of a status symbol setting apart the cool bloggers from everyone else. With the framework and themes from ColorLabs, you have this option built right in so you can join the cool kids club.

6. Social Settings

Keep all your social information in one place, and pull from it when you need to. This area is an awesome way to save you time and keep you focused.

7. Customize the header styling

If you’d like to make a little change to the color, margin, or border in your header, now you can swiftly.

8. Customize the widget styling

Same goes for the widgets in your sidebar and footer … control the borders, titles, text, and other stylistic aspects in your widgets.

9. Optimize your blog title and description

Use this area to customize your blog title, separators, and even the default layout you’d like to use for pages and posts.

10. Control Indexing

Let search engines know what you want indexed and what you don’t want indexed, such as tag archives, author pages, or search result pages. This can help keep the search engines bot focused on what matters … like your latest post.

11. Tap the Open Graph

If you’re a facebook developer, you’ll find this little addition handy … for the rest of us … time to do some research of buddy up with savvy developers.

12. Customize your footer

Control your ColorLabs affiliate link and logo that appears in footer of your theme. This is a nice gesture from ColorLabs, as some companies include this into the code of your theme, which makes it a bit more difficult to remove it if you wish to do so.

In addition to creating posts, bloggers have the capability to create pages, including the all important about page, the contact page, and even a welcome page if they prefer to move the index portion of their blog to another area of their overall design.

With this capability came new challenges.

Each page you create should be designed to enhance the visitor’s experience on your blog, while helping them discover what you have to offer. Whether you want people to discover your email sign up form, the products you sell, or links to your social profiles, it’s important to make it as easy as possible.

The squeeze vs. The sidebar

If you sell products or services through your blog, or funnel visitors aggressively toward a particular asset on your blog, such as an ebook or online course, you’re probably already familiar with the squeeze page and it’s important role in increasing conversions.

If this sounds a little too advanced for a beginner … let me assure you it’s really not.

The main difference between a squeeze page and a regular page has to do with the sidebar mostly. You see, the sidebar is a distraction depending on how you customize it … it gives your visitor places to go.

A squeeze page is designed to hold your visitors’ attention.

If you’re wondering how you create squeeze page — or any page — that has no sidebar … I’d like to introduce you to the Backbone Theme Framework … it gives you six page layouts to use every time you create a page or post.

The best part … you can change them on the fly, without having to worry about losing your content.

Flex your post n’ page power

This was the first thing I noticed while testing the Beta Backbone Theme Framework. Because it’s a framework as opposed to merely a theme, bloggers that use it have the power to separate their design from their code, which means no more headaches or wasted hours hacking away at code in order to customize your theme. The option is still there, of course, but ColorLabs (the company behind the framework) has addressed a lot of the most popular customization needs, including page layouts.

When creating a new page, scroll below the post until you see this:

Select the best blog layout that fits your needs. The image above features the full-width layout selected, which is optimal for creating squeeze pages, landing pages, and others you’d like to limit distraction.

Take a look at this sample post I created, and how it looks with some of the best blog layouts.

Full-width layout

Right sidebar layout

Left sidebar layout

Double right sidebar layout

Sidebar sandwich layout

Double left sidebar layout

The layout work seamlessly

From what I can tell so far, the Backbone Theme Framework provide a smooth experience for the blogger interested in using the page layout.

I’ve been tweaking all six of the layouts for this sample page, as well as switching the theme entirely to two other Backbone child-themes (featured to the right), and I’ve yet to run into any problems.

This type of flexibility makes me wonder what the future holds for both designers and bloggers, as well as for the companies leading the way with beautiful, innovative design.

Which templates would you use?

I’m guessing a lot of bloggers out there would love to get their hands on a way to create full-width pages for their email sign up form, column content, affiliate products or services, and more, but I’d love to actually here what you’d use for your own blog if you had access to the six templates mentioned above.

Swing by ColorLabs to learn more

I’ll be testing and reviewing the Backbone Theme Framework all this week, so you can look here for more throughout the week until the launch.

If you’d like to learn more, swing by ColorLabs or connect with them on Twitter.

I fell in love with the company when I discovered Arthemia … in my eyes, it struck the perfect balance between the minimalist style and magazine style theme. I use it for a few projects, including creativeblogger and my personal blog (far from ready to be seen, but I don’t mind sharing it with ya).

A few days ago, ColorLabs asked if I’d be interested in testing the beta version of their new theme framework, Backbone … I think my response was something along the lines of “ohmyawesomeyouguysrockIloveyourthemesandframework…waitnewframework!?”

Explore Backbone With Me

If you’re interested in seeing what the Backbone Theme Framework has to offer, or you’d like to learn more about what a framework does in general, consider this week dedicated to you — I’ll be covering various aspects of the framework throughout the week, including the advantages of page templates, the ease of updating your design, how the separation of code and design helps your search engines optimization, and much more.

From what I’ve seen so far, this is the solution most bloggers need to kick it up to the next level. Watch FUEL all this week and I’ll prove it.

Kick Me Your Questions on Twitter

If you have a specific question you’d like me to investigate for you, kick it my way on Twitter (@fuelblogging or @christophrRice).