Tana – our design guru
If you are a regular reader of our blog, I’m sure you have noticed our redesign, which officially launched on February 10th. I want to share with you 10 Ways to Improve Your Blog’s Design just in case any of you out there are thinking of starting your own blog. But first, I want to take a moment and give a big shout out to Tana Nelson of Your Marketing BFF {link}, who with her expertise and experience has taken our blog to the next level. Tana, you are the best and we wouldn’t look this good today without your help!
I met Tana at Bloggy Boot Camp in Las Vegas last October. If you want to read any of the stories from our incredibly awesome Bloggy Boot Camp experience, click on the links below:
Tana and I sat at the same table at lunch and struck up a conversation. Tiffany, unfortunately, sat elsewhere (maybe really not unfortunately – she probably sat with other awesome bloggers! She just didn’t get to know Tana!). In our short lunch hour, I felt like I’d met someone who:
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knew what she was doing
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knew where she was going
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and how she was going to get there.
The funny part of this story is that in her own “toot sweet” life (she’s a mom, a wife and runs a business), she forgot to bring business cards! So, I gave her a pile of mine and told her to cross through my name and to write her own information on my cards so that she would have something to hand out! So, from that little gesture of helpfulness, I’m sure that Tana will never forget who I am! Plus, I was getting a double bang for my buck because there was no way, in the short conference day that we had before us, that I was going to network with all the women at Bloggy Boot Camp! By giving Tana my cards for her use, I was distributing to others through her, thereby doubling my coverage!
Tana, pictured above (no, actually, that’s her avatar, but she looks amazingly like that IRL!) is a marketing professional and owns her own company. She listened to our vision and then interpreted it in an affordable manner. Want to know what our vision was (is)?
Our Vision
Our vision was to have a fresh, clean look and structure in black, white and gray (like Dorothy in Kansas) with just a bit of color. When a reader then went to our individual posts, those posts would be full of color (photos) much like Dorothy arriving in the Land of Oz! I think Tana accomplished this goal, don’t you?
The old design, Patchwork, was a free theme that we picked out of the available choices in WordPress that functioned in the way we wanted it to function. But, we had no attachment to the “patchwork” design because Tiffany and I aren’t quilters or sewers. If you are one of our blog followers since the launch date (July 28, 2012), you will know that this is our 5th theme template! In the early days, we also tried out Matala, Cloudy Blue Sky, Warm Home and settled with Patchwork. I think they are all very fine templates; it’s just that in the early days of blogging, we didn’t really know what we were doing, so if we couldn’t get a template to display the way we wanted it to display, we would just move onto another one!!! Here’s a picture of our old themes – all beautiful and free from WordPress.org.
Picture of several WordPress Theme Templates
Sorry they’re a little blurry – if you are interested in seeing these beautiful themes in action, check out this WordPress themes site by clicking on the link.
So, what’s to like about our new site redesign? Here’s a list of 10 Ways to Improve Your Blog’s Design and what to like about our new design:
#1 – Put Your Face Forward
Many blogs and websites have beautiful headers and creative avatars. But, people want to know what people look like! So, make sure your picture is somewhere front and center on your blog. We put ourselves right in our header:
Carole and Tiffany header
To read more, click on “Page 2″ below…
Excellent list of 10. I learned a few new things about your blog that I didn’t know and learned the “whys” of all the other changes that I did know about. I’m so proud of you and Tiff, this is truly a professional undertaking, and you will end up famous one day (I hope).
Awww, shucks! Thanks so much for the nice comments. I’m so happy that you like our new (and professional-looking) design!
I’m not familiar with WordPress, but I thought of a way to bypass the oddly placed “pages” links. Keep the text you have stating “click on page 2″ but link that text to page 2. Then your reader can follow the link rather than scrolling down to finds the page tool. It seems WP makes the subseqeunt page links simple like http://www.tootsweet4two.com/10-ways-to-improve-your-blogs-design/2/ just adding the late number ar the end. I’d be happy to help further if you need it.
Elizabeth recently posted..Pirate’s Log – February
Thanks for the excellent idea, Elizabeth! I’ll give that a try and use it as a “work-around” until we can move the “Page 2″ link to the correct location!
In updating my site I discovered the LinkWithin widget is the issue. It can easily move under your labels by adding this code to your html just after the label section of your post footer. <div class=”linkwithin_div”></div>
Elizabeth recently posted..The First Mate Meets The Ocean
Thanks, Elizabeth! How thoughtful of you to share this info! We’ll give it a try.
Thank you SO much Carole for sharing me/my business with your readers! It was a blessing to meet you, form a friendship and work with you. I know you and Tiffany will be successful…because you are great students and are willing to do the work. Success doesn’t come overnight, but you’ve laid the RIGHT brand groundwork that will attract (not repel) your specific clients. So proud of you both! KUDOS and thanks again
Your Marketing BFF, Tana
Thanks for the great comment and kind words. We appreciate everything you have done to contribute to our continued success!