Sunday, March 28, 2021

Blog Layout and Design

Today, I'm outlining the upcoming major changes in my journey to update and rebrand my blog.  As I've mentioned many times, something that I've really wanted to do for a very long time was to update and personalize my blog.  When I started back in 2013, I knew absolutely nothing about building a website, coding, HTML, or anything blogging related.  All I knew back then was that I enjoyed writing and telling stories.

When I started blogging, I wasn't even sure if it was something that I was going to do long term, or if it was just a season in my life.  I never imagined that I'd really enjoy it and still be going strong 8 years later.  If I'd known then what I know now, I probably would have taken more time to set it up properly back in the beginning.

I've learned a lot over the past 8 years.  I've read so many different "how to blog" posts online.  I have a secret Pinterest board that's filled with blogging links.  It appears that everyone has an opinion on the "correct" way to do it.  I've learned a lot through these posts, but the greatest thing I've learned is to go with my gut.  So that's what I'm doing.

After a lot of waffling back and forth, I've decided to stick with Blogger.  Some people change to Word Press but I've been really happy with this platform.  According to people who "know" more that I do about blogging, Word Press will give you more customization options, more flexibility, etc. but this blog is a passion project, not my full time money maker.  Maybe if I was more serious about it, I'd want to look into other options, but for what I'm doing, this is working.  Plus, it's easy to use and navigate.  As nervous as I was about updating my blog, Blogger has made it easy and stress free.

Plus, I haven't actually looked at all of the options at my disposal in years.  When Eliot and I were working with Elissa on her new blog, I realized how many options I really had.  When I started my blog, I simply went with the website layout I liked best, and I made a few changes at the very beginning.  I never went out of my way to change the background photo or the colors.  I added a few gadgets, but left it at that.

While playing around with my blog in an effort to try to use it as an example to help Elissa, I realized how many options I had to customize layouts.  While she played around with different options for her new blog, I explored the possibilities of layouts, colors, fonts and more to update my own.  When I started my blog, I didn't spend any time looking into the possibilities.  If I'd known how many customization options I had at my disposal, I probably would have done something much sooner.

I'm happy with the way my blog is laid out for the most part.  I don't really see that changing very much as I'm happy with the text layout and sidebar.  After posting my first blog update post, that same night I started to tinker with updating my sidebar.  A few minutes later (and after almost 8 years) I can finally say my sidebar is wide enough to accommodate the images without cutting them off on the right side!  If only I'd known how easy it would have been to fix it.  That's been driving me crazy for years now.

There are a lot of other things I'd like to tinker around with as well.  I've wanted to add pages and to streamline the labels on my posts for a few years.  When I first started my blog, I was willy nilly with the labels and I often used way more than I needed to in each post.  (That's using Etsy rubbing off on me.)  In order to help people find what they're looking for (including myself) it'll be easier if I update and streamline the labels.

I'd also like to add some pages to my blog.  Most bloggers have a separate page for a longer "About Me" page and I'd like to do that.  I've also always wanted to add a page introducing our friends and family that I frequently reference on my blog.  In addition to that, there are a few legal pages that I want to add in order to start doing the affiliate marketing that I plan to start doing over the next few months.  Plus, I'm hoping that I can use the pages feature to make it easier to separate some of my reoccurring and segment posts.  I'd love to have a quick way to find more of my posts like DIY, style and Disneybounding, our house, merchandise, small shops, traveling, and holidays.

Finally, the part that I'm most looking forward to is updating the design of my blog.  I went to college for interior design and I love color so this comes as no surprise.  I'm looking forward to changing the background photo from the blurry window view.  I am also really excited about updating the colors and maybe even the fonts.  It's amazing how different it already feels even though I've only updated my blog header photo so far.  My logo was with me from the very beginning and I've grown attached to it.  But at the same time, I'm ready for a new look.  And it's time to freshen up a bit!

If things look a little out of place over the next few weeks, please give me a little bit of grace as I'm not sure how long it will take me to make these updates and changes.  I'm not sure exactly how I want the final look, so I might play around with a few different combinations while in the process of getting there.  In the end, I'm hoping it will be more streamlined, modern, easier to navigate and that it will feel more like me.  °o°

2 comments:

  1. You are so impressive...I love how you are always learning new things and trying new things. I always look forward to your blogs (jv)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks so much! I've always loved learning and I try to keep learning new things all the time. I'm excited to see how it's going to look when I'm finally finished with all of the updates! :-)

      Delete