Site updates
September 1st, 2007 | by Brook Durant |
Site updates
I decided today was as good a day as any to make some changes to the blog and liven it up a bit after talking to a couple of readers who said it was to plain. Which of course translates to boring. So with a little bit of blood, sweat, and tears I managed to liven it up a bit. At least I hope so.
- What was changed?
- First thing changed was the color scheme so the different sections would hopefully stand out better and not blend in so well with one another. Hopefully that will draw attention to the unique parts of the site and things won’t run together as badly.
Next I decided it would be a good idea to get
so I added adsense code to the top of each page, but only on the individual article pages. If you view the site from the root (www.ablogaboutnothing.com) you still won’t see any in-post ads. I also added bidvertiser ads at the bottom of each individual post.Finally I rearranged the sidebar and increased the width a little bit so things didn’t seem so crowded. To be exact the rearranging entailed putting the My Blog Log widget at the very top. Followed by the RSS Email opt-in and the main RSS feed link. Reason for these changes is that A) people like to see themselves and their friends and B) I’m hoping by putting the RSS stuff up near the top it will encourage people to subscribe to it.
The next change was actually done several days ago and that is the rotating ads on the sidebar. I wrote a little bit about the plugin that allows me to do that in this post from a couple of weeks ago. In the line up of rotating ads I also threw in a banner made using Paint.Net which tells visitors they are appreciated. Just a small gesture to build brand loyalty, but more importantly I do infact appreciate all of my readers.
That is pretty much what was changed up to this point. I’ll be keeping an eye on things over the next 3-4 weeks and deciding if anything else needs to be reworked. What changes if any would you make if you were given the option?
Don't forget to subscribe to A Blog about Nothing's RSS feed!
By D Downey on Sep 1, 2007
Great Changes
I look Forward to visiting often
By Jaz on Sep 2, 2007
This looks nice. Think I’ll subscribe!!
By A Blog about Nothing on Sep 2, 2007
Thanks too the both of you for the feedback!
By dcr on Sep 2, 2007
I like it except for the gray background. It doesn’t go well with the peach color, and it just gives that “ugh!” feeling. Maybe a white background would be better. I do like how the peach and blue liven it up a bit. But, the gray background is taking away from that.
By A Blog about Nothing on Sep 2, 2007
DCR - Thanks for the input. I’ll try another color. White was to um, white? It seemed to overpower. Maybe another color. Got any ideas?
Edit - Ok trying out a new background color “light cyan” #E0FFFF
By Blog Directory on Sep 2, 2007
Not bad but the blue writing on a blue background would be hard to read if you are colour blond or hard of seeing
By RT Cunningham on Sep 2, 2007
The background color should be darker than your foreground. It isn’t right now. Cyan doesn’t go well with many colors except shades of blue.
By A Blog about Nothing on Sep 2, 2007
Good point, Blog Directory. I’ll have to figure out something with a little more contrast.
RT - How about “slategray” makes things stand out a bit more…?
By Jym on Sep 2, 2007
You can work on the header.
Is it necessary to repeat “A blog about nothing” twice?
By UDz on Sep 2, 2007
I like the new site layout better and you’re certainly right about moving RSS feed subscription towards the top of the page. However there are few suggestions that I’d like to make.
Currently my display setting is set to 1440 x
900 px and your webpage looks something like this (I’ve uploaded the snapshot to the web for you to take a look) http://www.hotlinkfiles.com/files/314121_3trog/ablogaboutnothinglayout.JPG
As you can see if you centered your blog title or left aligned the entire body table the problem would be solved. But I’d recommend you to go with centering.
And regarding the color schemes, which is one of the most hard decisions we have to make as a designer, I have to admit that I really like how you came up with light colored scheme. But if you are having difficulty choosing just one color when everything else seems to be fine then I’d suggest you to use color scheme suggestion tools found on the web, such as
http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html
and
http://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorwizard.asp
. As I understand that this could be more personal so I’m not going to suggest my choice right now. But the sites should definitely help you to come up with some intriguing color that will soothe your site.
I hope you’ll find my suggestion useful,
Good luck on designing,
UDz
By A Blog about Nothing on Sep 2, 2007
Jym - I had it there for redundancy in case the image didn’t load as that is the main navigation link back to the home page. I’ve removed it and will look at putting it elsewhere.
UDz - Thanks for the tips, but I couldn’t see the image that you uploaded. It’s giving me an access denied error. I made some changes to the color scheme based on those color coordinator tools. Didn’t change everything but now the sidebar, header, and body match up a bit better. I like the contrast of the “linen” in the post area so I’ll leave that.
By Mo on Sep 19, 2007
I find the color use distracting. The bright red and purple vs. the subdued colors: gray, blue-gray, brown blog title. Perhaps changing the red and purple to brighter versions of your existing colors in your masthead (A Blog about Nothing) would help. To me the masthead photo and type give your blog a mood that should be picked up elsewhere. You can use darker and lighter versions of the colors in your masthead.
By A Blog about Nothing on Sep 19, 2007
Mo - Thanks for the input! Perhaps over this next weekend I’ll take a closer look at it and see what I can do. I’m not much for color coordinating clothes so you can imagine how much trouble I have with websites!