The New Wordpreneur Look

Written on October 29, 2007 – 9:49 pm | by Wordpreneur |

I just spent the better part of the day changing the site’s “theme” design, which took far more time than I thought it would. Which means I couldn’t get around to writing the stuff I was planning on writing today. Sorry about that.

But let’s see if we can salvage something “educational” from today’s experience.

First, if you’re running your own info website (or want to), whatever it is, you should seriously look at building it around the basic “blog” architecture. Why? Because they’re just so darn easy to maintain, update and “tweak.” I’ve worked with HTML for more than a decade now, from hard coding to using tools like FrontPage and Dreamweaver, so I know that what I managed to do on my lonesome today would have probably taken me 1-2 weeks (weekends included) the old way.

Second, no matter how easy the software makes it, for redesigns and similar site work, multiply your initial gut time estimate 5X (at least) to get closer to how much time you’ll actually eat up. Although WordPress (my blog software of choice) and other blog applications make the bits and pieces way easier and faster to deal with, there are lots of bits and pieces….

…which should tell you that technically, I’m really not done. There will be a number of things that I have no doubt overlooked, and there will be issues that will pop up only through use, so do please bear with me over the next few days.

Just in case you’re curious, there was nothing inherently wrong with the previous theme design. I still use it with a number of my other sites. In fact, as far as themes go I consider it to be one of the better ones technically, requiring hardly any tweaking, working with just about every application I threw at it.

But something was off, It just didn’t feel right — never did — not for Wordpreneur.com anyway. Don’t ask me what it was… I don’t know. It was just one of those things: It just didn’t fit.

Maybe we’ll have better luck with this new look.

Like this post? Maybe you'd like to buy me a cuppa joe! It'll help keep me awake to write more, of course. Thanks!

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    1. 3 Responses to “The New Wordpreneur Look”

    2. By Will Bontrager on Oct 30, 2007 | Reply

      Good job, Eldon. I especially like the 2-column look.

      And the “Recent Comments” is a nice touch. Maybe you had that before and I just didn’t notice.

      Wordpreneur.com really is an abundant source of information and links for freelance writers and those who yearn to freelance.

      Will

    3. By James Chartrand - JCM Enterprises on Oct 30, 2007 | Reply

      Nice look. The right-hand column stands out attractively.

      One suggestion? Your banner color selection fades your “Wordpreneur” name out - it’s easily overlooked. I’d change the green font you’ve chosen to something lighter for easier reading, or go for a dark font on a light background.

    4. By Wordpreneur on Oct 30, 2007 | Reply

      Hi William — The Recent Comments list was there before but a fairly new addition. I think this does illustrate, thoughb, that the new design is better at drawing attention to the sidebars’ content, I think.

      Hello James — Thanks for your suggestion. Will take it into consideration.

      ees

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