Moving the furniture around my website

Krey20

Senior Member
Hi all,

Just thought I'd post a thread to get some opinions on my website update. It's not a redesign, more of a re-jig. Less a redecoration, more like moving the furniture around. It's all very feng shui!

kenreynoldsdesign.co.uk - Home

Thanks to Andy (TBWCF) for his help on the development side of things. I connected with Andy through DF and we've been working together on a few projects over the past year or so on and off, which is great.
 
Looks like a good re-jig to me, though maybe a few too many articles per page... or too much of an extract from each one... not sure which would be the better way of solving this :) (out of reducing the number or reducing the extract length)
 
Thanks for your thoughts. I guess the page length could turn into a problem. I want to leave enough space just in case the advertising things works out well and leave myself the possibility of expanding the ad spots further, obviously not too much. I just want the option.

I think I'll just keep the exerpts quite short, this makes the page look livlier as well.

If anyone is intereted in a link exchange get in touch, as I'm looking to expand my blogroll. (that's BLOGroll before any toilet based humour ensues! :)
 
I don't like it, sorry.
IIRC, visiting your site lead to the "Finding an Ace Among the Jokers" quote; I thought that was very original and invited me into your site. Other than that I see very little difference, I'm not even sure if you had a sidebar before, but it looks fine now. The footer however doesn't really appeal to me and from a usability standpoint I would think people would prefer the categories/archives somewhere in your sidebar. I also agree with Mark that the articles come over as an onslaught of information, and do you really need this below every post summary?

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And I don't remember those poker chips at the bottom of your services page. It's a nice personal touch which ties in with your quote, but I think you could integrate it more subtly.

So, sorry, I'm not really digging this.
But it's nice to see that you're integrating ads on your blog, I think you will definitely find some advertisers but good luck either way :)
 
Thanks for your thoughts Onartis, sorry you're not digging the re-jig.

I agree that the original home page was successful as a piece of graphical communication, That's why I'd never think of abandoning it completely. It' still there for anyone that is genuinly interested in hiring me.

The fact is I don't get an awful lot of work as a result of people looking at my website, so in a way, as pleasing as the old heirachy was, it wasn't all that successful on a business conversion level.
My thinking behind altering things is based on making the most out of the parts of my site that have proved most successful, which results in making my site focussed around the blog.

This was a tough descision, and one I struggled with. But the fact is I had more possibilities generating income through my site by utilizing the blog than I did through hoping clints would react to the original content.
I'd also like to think that the content of the blog articles themselves work as good promotion of my services, and acts as an insight into how I work.

I think you are right about the repeated text you highlighted and it's soemthing I'll certainly look into.

Once again, thanks for taking the time to have a look and let me know your thoughts, it's appreciated.
 
I have always liked your site Ken, and the my life as a cartoon has always made me smile! But I have a concern.

How are you going to control the advertising content? Your site has always had a very clean look to it and professional look to it and if someone comes along with a web vomit 2.0 ad for one of your spaces, what do you do?
 
Thanks for your thoughts Mike,
The quality of the adverts is a concern for me too. I knew when I decided to set up advertsing space that I would have to make a few aesthetic compromises, it's just the nature of the situation. From the time I decided to accept adverts, my self-imposed brief was try and make it happen without it affecting the overall look,feel and usability of the site as much as I could.

The main step in this process was deciding how to manage the advertising space. I researched into a number of companies and decided the best choice for my design niche was BuySellAds. I looked at the blogs that currently work with them and was generally happy with how the adverts looked. They are a bit web 2.0 but that again is one of the compromises I'm going to have to make.

I also have total control over deciding if I accept the adverts before they are published. If I think an advert is just too terrible and really would be bad for the look of my site I would be prepared to reject it.

The most important thing from my point of view is that the content doesn't change, and if anyhting gets better. Hopefully that will make up for any dissapointments some of my current readers might have as a result of the changes.
 
Cheers Mike. There's no worries at the moment about adverts! I still have to work on the amount of traffic the site gets.
 
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