I’ve been doing a lot of behind the scenes work here and I’d like to let you know about them. My aim was to make the site more usable, accessible, and clear – this blog has nearly 1,000 pages worth of content and I wanted to help with the overwhelm/frustration of not knowing where to start and having to poke around to find stuff.
The biggest change is the addition of three new pages:
- A New Here? page that has a more coherent and useful picture of the different recurring themes of this blog.
- A Products page that lists all the different products, programs, and events that you can buy or join.
- A Reviews page that aggregates all of my reviews and product recommendations.
I’ve changed some of the content on the About page – it’s now much clearer and more resonant about what this blog is and where it’s going. There will be a lot of changes in the second component of the About page, but that’s just about me, so it’s not that big of a deal.
I’ll be reworking my categories, as they’re not all that useful as they stand now. They, too, will slim down and help people navigate through the site.
I’ve been torn for sometime about what to do about book recommendations. As I mentioned in Effective Reading and the Bottom-Line Book Club, I go through a lot of books – most of which are very good. I can’t review all of them, and even thinking about cataloging of them is a bit overwhelming. But before I get carried away in figuring out how to do this, are you even interested in book reviews and recommendations?
I’d appreciate it if you’d come take a look around. Do you like the changes?
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Twitter: lovejodirenee
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: caffeinatedelf
November 12, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Charlie, this is great! I especially LOVE your ‘New Here?’ page. Chock full of AWESOME is what that is!
.-= Rachael´s last blog ..What To Do When You Just Don’t Feel Inspired =-.
Twitter: CharlieGilkey
November 13, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Thanks – the other thing I forgot to add is that we now have nested comments! Strange what you can find with a simple Google search. :p
Twitter: CharlieGilkey
November 15, 2009 at 10:12 am
Thanks, Rachael. I’m glad you like it.
I want more reviews, especially of red e-books. Yes, I definitely think there is a lack of red e-books around this place.
Twitter: CharlieGilkey
November 13, 2009 at 1:05 pm
You’re right – Naomi did just release a new ebook, didn’t she? :p Thanks, Tim.
Twitter: alihale
November 13, 2009 at 7:26 am
Charlie, GREAT stuff on the new look! The “New Here?” page is fab (one thought – possibly giving each article a one-or-two line summary? Lists of pure links always look a bit weird to me, and content isn’t always 100% obvious from a title).
The reviews page is fantastic: will definitely be reading through some of those, it really helps to have them all in one place. And thank you so much for the Staff Blogging Course recommendation!
Nice work Charlie. I especially like the New Here? page. I am kinda new here and it was a good intro to the site (1,000 pages?!? – wow.) Products look good too, hope they sell well for you.
.-= Brad´s last blog ..Don’t Read This Post – Go Outside =-.
Twitter: CharlieGilkey
November 15, 2009 at 10:17 am
Thanks for the feedback, Brad, and thanks for hanging out with us!
The blog looks wonderful! Great work, and great tips.
Twitter: CharlieGilkey
November 15, 2009 at 10:17 am
Thanks!
Book reviews: yes! I love them because the opinions of people I trust help me sort through what — in all of the literature and resources out there — will be most useful to me.
.-= Sarah´s last blog ..The best chocolate chip cookies =-.
Twitter: CharlieGilkey
November 15, 2009 at 10:19 am
Thanks for weighing in here, Sarah!
Very nice changes, Charlie! And congrats on all your hard work (988 pages is amazing)!
I’m with Sarah – definitely yes on the book reviews, for the same reasons she mentions. They don’t have to be long; often what hooks me is just hearing a couple of points about what the recommender found helpful (since I already trust you, the recommender). You’re someone who if you simply told me, “This book changed my life; it’s a must-read!”, I would gladly go read it.
Twitter: CharlieGilkey
November 15, 2009 at 10:24 am
This is very helpful, as I wouldn’t be able to go into a lot of detail for the reviews and create other content. I was thinking of just giving a few lines on what the key ideas were and who it’d be helpful for. I’m deciding between a monthly or bi-monthly rollup or a Squidoo page. I’m now leaning towards an on-site page simply because I don’t want to have the awkwardness of letting you know that I updated something somewhere else when it’s just as easy to update it here. (FWIW, Squidoo lenses are really easy to update, which is why I’m even considering it.)
You know, in all honesty I was going to say that having an “About” page & a “New Here” page was probably a little redundant, but after looking at the “New Here” page, I totally changed my mind. That’s a great idea and is extremely well implemented! And as someone (relatively) new here – I think I’ve been reading for a month and a half or so – I can see at a glance that there’s all kinds of goodies I’ll want to read.
I also vote yes on book reviews, if for no other reason than it’s hard to find good book reviews! A couple of sentences would be just fine.
.-= Michelle´s last blog ..Saturday Shoe Lust =-.