New Look New Mission

[technophelia]

So I have "showed off my blog" here a while back... but I have a really cool new look with a personalized widget a friend of mine made! So I wanted to let you all check it out.

I started this blog as an entry in an seocontest a while back, and though I though I think I will lose due to the recent spamming efforts of some, but that does not matter to me much because when the contest is over my blog will be all about:

SEO is for Girls

Here I am planning to continue writing about search engine optimization and marketing, and I plan on getting other women in the industry to participate on my blog if possible. I will be looking for guest bloggers and promote reader participation. Which is why if U COMMENT I FOLLOW! So check it out and let me know what you think of my new digs.

[Zhuli]

I like the design of the blog and the cute widget - I assume it's the little "hello hello" bear

However, a couple things if I may :

1) Your links are hard to see, you might want to pick another colour (instead of the light blue)
2) I would put the description of the bog at the top instead of below in the sidebar

Keep up the good work !

[technophelia]

Thanks for your suggestions. As I am going to be doing a MAJOR redesign in the next few weeks (likely moving my blog to a REAL domain and migrating to Wordpress) I am looking to hear what people have to say about my site. I want to keep the same "look" but I will be changing things around a bit according to my own ideas and especially in accordance with any feedback I get over the next few weeks.

Thanks again! I appreciate the time you took to check out my blog and to come up with suggestions!

[technophelia]

I took your advice and have made the changes you suggested. Again thanks! It looks great with hot pink links!

[Zhuli]

I don't see change in the HTTP links or... is it me ?

[Zhuli]

Oh... And can I suggest a last thing ? I'm not picky, just suggesting... this has nothing to do with the quality of your blog !

Your blog is very long and I'd be afraid readers won't scroll down as muchand therefor, might miss good posts. I'd archive weekly, or even daily... I've been doing like that on my blog for a while and people are never afraid to dig into the archives when they like the blog.

[technophelia]

I totally agree... but the ORIGINAL mission was to rank high for shopautodotca seocontest in Google and archiving was making me have duplicate content. I will absolutely having an archive and categories and a much better navigation. I want to have only part of the posts on my first page with a "read more" link to get to the rest of the post. And I want to have fewer posts on the front page.

To see the link change maybe do a ctrl+refresh?

Please don't worry about offending me or hurting my feelings. This is absolutely what I am looking for because when I get to have SO MUCH FUN doing my next week's redesign and migration, I want to have some good critical suggestions to help me!

[Zhuli]

Okay, a few more things then... I'm starting to sound like Colombo !

This is what I like in a blog, as a reader :

1) A clickable header
2) Easy to read fonts (Verdana is my favorite... TNR is good too !)
3) A favicon
4) A clean sidebar (dropdown boxes usually helps)
5) An original header (I like yours !)
6) A search box

These hacks helped me a lot when I designed my blog. Some might be for blogspot only, but most are generic.

[technophelia]

These are all "gems"... thanks so much. I agree with all of it, Colombo!

As I am more of into the technical aspects of website creation/promotion I tend to pay little attention to how things look and useability, so this is all really helpful. I mean, I can make sure that my site ranks well, and that there are no errors in my code, but as far as making it look good I am sort of clueless.

I have been redesigning my site pretty much as often as I change clothes trying to get it right... But when I migrate I want to be sure that I "stick to my guns" so I want to get it right the first time.

[chrissie]

wooo....Columbo is giving me some good ones too! ;-)

Great job, Danielle. It's about flipping time the chicks started taking over the SEO game...