Comments on: How I Redesigned My Blog [by Ben Yoskovitz]

By: Stacy

Stacy — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:53:15 +0000

Does anyone know how you can incorporate your blog design to look just like the rest of your website? I’m having trouble with this and I don’t want a blog that looks just like anyone else’s and like it doesn’t belong on my site.

Any advice?

By: Zander Erasmus

Zander Erasmus — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 04:32:09 +0000

very good article *thumbs up*

i must say that this article is just packed with useful info
I’ve spent the last month trying to come up with a good design and it’s a really tricky thing… but if you’re willing to spend the time it can definitely pay off in the end

Zander Erasmus

By: homaid

homaid — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:12:57 +0000

When looking at design, layout or structural basics, just go to the experts.

This is the winning tip in this article .

Thanks

By: Soman

Soman — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:18:39 +0000

Regarding Website Re-Design , website should contains excellent banner with company logo, not much graphics work, it should be neat and simple.

Navigation should be very clear to user to visit the all pages on the site.

No need to much ads in home page , specially animation ads.

Layout should be left, right and main content page. Don not divide more columns.

By: Mario Sanchez

Mario Sanchez — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:11:35 +0000

Ben, great job with the redesign and the write up. It validated one of my assumptions, regarding categorizing posts with only one (or at the most two) categories. At the beginning I did it because of search engine reasons, but after reading your article I can see how it can also greatly benefit readers. Thanks.

By: Dee Copeland

Dee Copeland — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:58:20 +0000

To be honest, I’m tired of my Typepad template at http://www.TexasRealtyBlog.com. I vowed to update it every 6 months or so. I hired a team from Elance to widen the columns and we made basic changes, but moving my content is a concern.

I think Real Estate Tomato is a Typepad blog, so they can be changed using the advanced template, but it seems like a lot of time and money.

By: Tanvi

Tanvi — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 10:30:59 +0000

Thanks for the insight. But to a beginner like me, can you be more specific? Help the beginners all out? HTML, RSS…all greek,
Please help.
P.S. Article seemed great!

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 05:51:10 +0000

I love Benjamin’s design. Why is it that designers sites are not as nice as their customers? Example: fsbrainstorm.com

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 04:28:08 +0000

Very well written and very well organized.

…hope you get the desired results you need.

http://www.24hourapartments.com
http://www.roommatesville.com

By: jen at semantically driven

jen at semantically driven — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 22:36:03 +0000

The thing that really jumped out at me about this redesign was the copy evaluation and rewriting. I think this falls by the wayside for far too many websites, particularly corporate ones.

By: Ben Yoskovitz

Ben Yoskovitz — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:14:04 +0000

@Pam: I understand completely re: excerpts. I’m not convinced either. But it does allow for a slightly cleaner design, and easier access to front page content when a visitor comes to the front page.

MOST of my traffic comes to single posts vs. the front page, so I felt I could make the move without alienating too many people. But we’ll see how it goes.

By: Pam

Pam — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:40:09 +0000

Really good post on redesigning your blog. I like the way you broke the redesign into elements and took a critical look at each area of your blog. Also using a list of words to help you realize what kind of visual statement, or branding you want. The one area I disagree with is deciding to “use excerpts on the home page instead of full posts.” Personally I find it a irritating to start reading a good post and then have to click to another page in order to read the rest of it.

By: Dan Schulz

Dan Schulz — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:27:07 +0000

Thanks for answering my question, Ben.

By: Samara

Samara — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:53:26 +0000

I like you new design. As many times as I’ve designed my personal blog at home I never thought about writing down the process, like choosing colors, what font family you want to use, getting ideas from other designs, etc. It was interesting to read about a process I’ve repeated for the course of almost 2 years now.

By: Terry Ng

Terry Ng — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:22:16 +0000

Not a bad design, but I think more of a “branding” element is needed. The bold font for the title of the blog comes off a tad generic to me.

By: Karel - Caribbean Public Relations

Karel - Caribbean Public Relations — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:19:07 +0000

I have to agree with Ben on bringing in someone to help, even if you think you can do it for yourself. I say this because I just moved my blog from Blogger to Wordpress, started a redesign of my blog, and I just uploaded a new theme.

I’ve still got lots of tweaking to do, a logo to add etc, and believe me it can be frustrating when you not only have to take care of things on the technical side, but also check copy (because formatting may change a bit with imports), check for bugs, edit CSS, and upload and activate plugins. These are just a snapshot, and we haven’t even got to writing more content and promoting your blog. I mean with all the hard work you have to put in, you’d love to see traffic right?

Like I said, I literally just started tweaking the theme etc, but feel free to pop across and leave comments.

By: Shawn Jooste

Shawn Jooste — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:59:44 +0000

@CatherinL: Save some trees and rather bookmark it ;-)

By: CatherineL

CatherineL — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:53:05 +0000

Great post. I’d been looking round blogs to get ideas on improving design – but still feeling v stuck. And this explains it all well.

Definitely another one to go in the printer queue.

By: Shawn Jooste

Shawn Jooste — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:29:27 +0000

Dan and Ben, I see how Ben did it, and I prefer it to the plugins. As Ben says, with the plugins you have very little control.

By: Josh Hall

Josh Hall — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:56:14 +0000

sometimes code scares people away from design. If you can’t get someone to help you design, AT LEAST get someone’s feedback on the design.