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Brand new blog design.

by Ed on 19th May 2008

It generally follows that the more content you have on your site, whether it’s a blog, ecommerce or corporate site, the better results you get. (NB: Make sure it’s good quality content.)

Maybe it sounds simplistic, but I’ve seen this to be true so many times.

  • More content = more pages for visitors to browse.
  • More content = more traffic from Google and other search enignes, which tend to favour sites that are constantly growing.
  • More content = more explanation and chance to give the reasons why you and your products and services are the number 1 choice in your marketplace.
  • And so on.

However, there’s a very important caveat.

Speed of loading, navigation and design all directly affect how visitors interact with your site.

If your pages take too long to load, or if your site is poorly structured and hard to navigate, or if quality content is buried deep and hard to find, you may not see the benefits.

Time for a new design.

My blog has almost reached 200 unique posts, covering a wide variety of topics all related to web marketing.

As a result, I’ve become increasingly conscious my old blog’s design was too minimalistic (not very compelling), and was not very well structured and hard to navigate.

My web statistics have been pointing to that fact more and more.

So you’re now looking at a totally redesigned blog theme, which went live at 3.30pm (BST) today.

The menus along the top of the screen should allow you to browse topics of interest.

The front page not only make the most recent blog post highly prominent, it also (on the right side) lists my most popular and also ‘most commented’ topics.

If you have a WordPress blog you can get plug-ins to do that for you – or use a theme with the functionality already built in like I did.

How much content is there on your site?

One simple way to start adding more content and engage your existing customers and clients is to start a blog, but at the very least you could start an ‘articles’ section.

-Ed.

P.S. I hope you like the new design and find it more appealing and easier to use. Let me know?

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Article by Ed Rivis

I'm the Amazon 5-star rated author of three books about web marketing, and since 2008 have spoken to more than 4,000 business owners at conferences and seminars around the UK. I've also developed software that automatically generates lead pages and home-study programmes that help small business owners like you generate more sales-leads and win new customers and clients, online.

Ed has written 326 awesome articles.

  • Richard

    Hello Ed

    I like the new design. I am surprised, as your previous blog was factual and very easy to read – a bit like a landing page. This one has content spread out more like a newspaper or a portal website. I am interested to see how this format compares to the old format.

    I tend to read everything you post, anyway. I really like the new design – it looks clean and professional.

    RR

  • http://SuccessNavigator.co.uk Graham Pears

    Love it. Clear, crisp, easy on the eye and easy to navigate.

    Nice one Ed!

  • http://richardmclaughlin.biz Richard McLaughlin

    My partner has been speaking about doing something similar to one of her primary sites. Having a large quantity of content is very useful, but when her readers are having problems finding all the information easily it means time for a change.

    I am not sure how you did it Ed, but in WordPress it is easy to build a static page that can handle the needs of most people. Another option is to use a CMS product like Mambo.

    Nice new look.

  • http://www.incameraphotography.com John Boyes

    Like the redesign Ed,

    Be interesting to see if the portal look converts more than the trad-blog look!

    Cheers

    J

  • http://alicedesigns.wordpress.com Alice

    Did you use WordPress.org – ie is this a blogsite?

    I really like it, by the way.

    Alice

  • http://www.code-whisperer.com Nigel West

    Hi Ed

    To be honest I’m not so keen on the new look. I like the top section with the menus, but I think the middle column masks the importance of the latest blog. It won’t make me stop reading though! Naturally it’s all down to personal opinion and I’ll be interested in what shows up in the statistics.

    Regards

    Nigel

  • http://www.cybercashology.com Robert Phillips

    Ed,

    I like the new design. It looks good – even better than the old one which wasn’t bad at all. I’ve been thinking about changing the theme of my blog for awhile now….but haven’t been willing to put forth the effort to this point. Maybe someday.

    Robert

  • http://www.sumatrix.com Ed

    @Richard – thanks for the praise. The truth is this isn’t my design – it’s a premium (paid) theme which I then adapted. (The link to the site where I got it from is at the bottom of this blog. All I had to do was some branding and tweaking – only took about 7 hours start to finish.)
    Also when you say “I am interested to see how this format compares to the old format.” … ME TOO! It’s all a test and stats for the next 7 days should give me a good idea.
    @Graham – thanks!
    @Richard McLaughlin – How I did it? As per the other Richard above… I cheated!
    @John Boyes – My favourite commercial photographer!
    I meant to tell you John, I’ve had a tonne of comments about my book photography… I’ll make sure your credits are on the next batch.
    Back to the business at hand — yes I’ll be monitoring my stats closely over the next few weeks and months. (If the old redesign suddently reappears, take that as a clue!) However, this new design is a lot more structured, and has more eye candy (but not overdone which would contradict what I talk about in my book.)
    I think stats for the new design will reveal MORE browsing, longer time on site, more subscribes, and more backlinks… but of course only time will tell.
    @Alice – thanks! (That’s high praise coming from a blog designer :-) Yes it’s WordPress, but self-hosted.
    @Nigel – thank you I really appreciate your opinion.
    I’ll be blogging about the effect this new theme has on my levels of readership and response when I’ve logged enough data over the coming weeks.
    It’s all a test – I think it will improve things, but if you actually speak for the majority then the old design may still resurface. Again, time will tell.
    Thanks everyone for your great comments.
    -Ed.

  • http://idealinvestment.blogspot.com/ ideal4investors

    Ed,

    Love the new design. It has given me some ideas on how to make my blog better too!

  • http://alicedesigns.wordpress.com Alice

    I would suggest using WordPress.org (not .com) to create this kind of site, and not Mambo which was suggested above. I’ve just purchased a book on how to do a blogsite: “Does this blogsite make my wallet look fat?” by Sandra de Freitas and I can’t wait to get stuck in it. I’m sure you can buy it from Amazon…

    Alice

    PS I’m secretly jealous of your design.

  • http://www.support4change.com/ Arlene

    My first reaction was UGGH. Too much. It’s trying to be like a newspaper.

    But then, I realized that my reaction may be similar to my reaction when the Los Angeles Times periodically feels it has to change the width or the columns or some other feature. I get used to it and forget what the old version was like. Of course, it may be that I liked your older version because I subscribe to notices and can follow up when it sounds interesting. And I surmise that many of your readers are like me. Or they bookmark your blog or use RSS.

    However, I do have a serious problem with the design and a suggestion for how you can rectify it if you don’t go back to the earlier version. You see, I don’t keep my windows open all the way. They are wide enough for the vast majority of websites, but will sometimes have to pull them wider for one like yours. I like having several windows and programs open at once, since my work requires more than one application. So when I first clicked on the link to your site, I found I had to open the window larger. I can do that, of course, but these days there is an assumption that everyone likes a wide-open window. Because the designer has built that width, he or she decides that all the space has to be filled up. Then I have to either open the window for a specific page or scroll back and forth, which is for the birds.

    Right now I have opened both the window in which I’m writing this and the one in which your blog is open and notice that you are wider than even Amazon.com uses. As you may know, they have the floating center panel that allows people with smaller screens to see all the content. You have a wider window than they require, and even then people can squeeze their window down considerably. And your page is wider still if I don’t want the text on the left to jam up to the edge.

    If you don’t go back to the old design (not that it has to be exactly as it was before), I suggest that you make the right column narrower. Looking down the right side I see nothing that can’t be reduced to half the width. You will need to redesign the ad for your book, but that won’t be impossible.

    Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But sometimes if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

  • http://www.TomBrownsword.com/ Tom Brownsword

    Hello Ed,

    At first, it was a bit confusing, but once I took a minute or three to look at the page and familiarize myself, I figured out what all the parts were and was OK.

    I would like to see the most recent post in full on the first page, but that’s a personal preference.

    The new format may be confusing to new blog readers, though. I knew that I’d have to click somewhere to read the entire post — something that people new to blogs might not realize — and even then it took me a minute to figure out where to click. A “Click here to read the rest of this post” link might help.

    I’d also put some type of column heading above the most popular posts column. I didn’t know what that was until I read this post. I know that I’ll usually check out those posts on a good blog (yours definitely qualifies!) because I want to see what others like — and why (it’s a great feature).

    The RSS feed comes through just fine still; I got the entire post in my iGoogle reader.

    Best regards,
    Tom

  • http://www.sumatrix.com Ed

    @Robert – thanks for the kind words!

    I know what you mean about deciding to change the theme – it wasn’t something I undertook lightly (I was quite apprehensive it’d totally break things. Obviously I had “backups of my backups”, but still, it’s always a real hassle when things go wrong.

    On that score, one of the best things I found during the update was a plugin that lets the Administrator see the new ‘work in progress’ theme while everyone else sees the old theme… until the admin decides to make the new theme fully active. (Theme Test Drive).

    @ideal4investors – Thanks, and good luck (note the plugin mentioned above may help you during the update).

    @Alice – I havn’t used Mambo but am familiar with it (and Joomla etc.)

    For me self-hosted WordPress is the ONLY way to go due to the range of plugins, range of themes (both paid and free), flexibility, and the critical fact it’s on your own domain and you own your own traffic. WordPress rules. :-)

    @Arlene – thanks for the feedback.

    Yes this one is quite a wide layout — optimised for 1024×768 browser width. which looking at my stats for most people won’t be a problem because only 2.98% of my visitors have a lower resolution (i.e. 800 x 600 pixels), 27.51% are running at 1024×768 which my blogs optimised for when full screen… which means that the other 69.5% will see the full HOWEVER that doesn’t mean I don’t care … I *will* look into this and see if I can tweak the theme to narrow things down a bit.

    @Tom Brownsword – If you had to think about it then according to Steve Krug, I failed! :-) Actually I think what threw most people was being sent to homepage — my AWeber should have taken subscribers directly into the latest post itself then they’d be more at home and then explore outside that once they had their bearings. You made me realise all this so thanks for your comment — I’m going to change my blog broadcast to do exactly that from now on.

    Also thanks for the RSS feed heads up – good to know as well.

    ***Again thank you to everyone who commented I really appreciate it and will do my best to tweak and improve where I can.***

    -Ed.

  • http://www.WordofMouthMagic.com Martin Russell

    Hi Ed,

    Nice look, but one big hassle is that I need to click on a particular post to read it all. I find that style annoying, but it will show up in your stats as lots more clicks so I’d just be aware of that difficulty with interpretation.

    Regards,
    Martin

  • http://www.oibo.org Mo

    Ed – the design is great! I’m sure the new layout, will attract even more visitors to the site! Keep up the great work.

    Regards,

    Mohamed

  • http://www.sumatrix.com Ed

    @Martin – I think my blog broadcast will fix that problem because it’ll take subscribers directly into the latest post, not the homepage. However I’ll keep my eye on the stats and agree totally – ‘page views’ statistic on it’s own is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Thanks.

    @Mo – Cheers!

  • http://www.thekissbusiness.co.uk Karin H.

    Hi Ed

    Nice to see the added ‘recent comments’. That’s a feature I always look out for whenever I visit a blog. Give especially new readers an indication of how well the conversation is ‘flowing’. Just make sure your name is in it too – as some bloggers forget to thank or even acknowledge readers who take the time and effort to leave a comment.

    My own blogs always show the links to various categories to make ‘browsing’ and finding relevant articles/posts easier, as well as recent posts and recent comments.

    What I do question though is the fact that every comment any one makes here is kept in waiting – I rather risk the odd ‘spammer’ than slowing down the conversation (and since you’re using WordPress, Askimet is rather good at catching the majority pf spammers automagically)

    Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)

  • http://cindyking.biz/cindy-king-in-the-media-on-multicultural-marketing/ Cindy King

    Hi Ed,

    I really like the new theme. I also liked the old one.
    But this magazine theme is very much in style right now. Magazine themes are fun to spend some time to look around in.

    I love that widget for latest posts, most popular and most commented – all in one box. Am going to have to get one of those too.

    But, I noticed this page is called http://www.edrivis.com/?p=313

    Don’t you want to change that to the name of the post?
    Or was it difficult to do in this theme?
    With over 200 pages of content wouldn’t that give you lots better SEO value?

    WordPress themes are usually easy to change, but with so many pages to do did it take more fiddling with?

    Only thing is, I can’t see your smile very well in the photo up top!

  • Paul Kirby

    Hi Ed,
    I like the refreshing look. I have to keep reminding myself that i am ‘one of the converted’ and therefore my opinion should not sway your changes.

    I’d be keen to know how your traffic/readership is affected by this update.

    Keep up the great work.

    Paul Kirby

  • http://www.spotlightideas.co.uk Eamon

    I like blogs that are blogs plus magazines / resources and so on. This blog gets the balance right, I think (and interesting / useful content ..).

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