New Site Design!
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I’m far from done with the overhaul, but when I checked back on the old site the other day, I saw that I’d broken it far more than I’d originally intended. So I decided to push myself to get it to the point where it is good enough to switch the template over, even though I still have a lot of work left to do in the background. That meant two things: making sure the links are the way I want them to be for the main stuff, and making sure the style is the way I want it to look. Even if I tweak it more, it shouldn’t technically break anything. While I’m somewhat disappointed with myself that I won’t have this absolutely perfect when you come look at the new site, I couldn’t have the broken site remain in its current state much longer. That being said, you’ll be able to notice quite a few changes already!
The old website desperately needed an overhaul.
The last time I gave it a new look was around 3 years ago, so technically this is my third website “look.” With the first design, I was eager to just get something up that looked good. This was before I even got into writing needle felting guides, let alone selling anything. It looked like a typical contemporary landing page, the kind with giant banner photos but actually limited in content (looks more like an online photo album), and I was really new to the back-end design stuff. The back-end was both easier (I mean, it was mostly set up if you didn’t want to change anything) and overwhelming at the same time- and honestly in some ways still is. I really do enjoy using Squarespace, and it’s a reliable hosting platform, but finding all the styles for tweaking things is a nightmare. To the extent that it might take me a bit longer to set up the dark mode capability for this one than I originally intended. Back to the first design - it was up, and it worked well enough for a while.
As my blog started to grow, the template and design I started out with wasn’t user friendly for the type of blogging I was doing. It was fine for basic blogging of a more newsletter-type format, but it wasn’t easy for finding and referencing older content. I tried listing the archive in the footer, until the footer took up half the screen if you scrolled down. It was ridiculous. Also, I hadn’t even considered how I could use a separate a page to format how my blog looks on the site. I learned that by chance thanks to the second re-design. When I redesigned it, that’s what I was paying attention to - the best template designs for content-heavy sites.
If you’d been visiting my site for a while, the second re-design was what you were used to seeing - I’d say I switched over to that one two years in (for the record, at the time of writing, I’m approaching 5 years on this site). I loved the category layout on the front, because it made it easier for my readers to find the posts they were looking for. But… my habit of trying out categories and then phasing them out when they didn’t work for me created a huge mess on the back-end. I also really liked the side-bar that some blogs have (that thing you see now on the right) - and that template didn’t have an option for that. Then, when I moved from Etsy to selling on here, I really wasn’t a fan over how little control I had over the design of how the shop looked - that is until I realized during this redesign that I found a lot of options in the style guide that I wouldn’t have seen without actually going into the style guide while in the shop page.
Another major change happened to the site on the back-end was that I now seem to have unlimited pages at my disposal, though that was also partly due to the upgrade I made about 2 years ago to the business plan so I could move my things off of Etsy (after I’d already redesigned it of course). When I first started, I was limited to ten pages. Generally speaking, each separate link is a separate page. That’s actually why I used the blog format for creating guides (rather than creating those separately while just keeping a blog for updates), because an entire blog counted as one page. It was like a magical bag of holding for my content. Anything outside of that, including things like my paid tutorials - those added up very quickly. I finally feel like I have more room to expand. I’m not sure when the change happened, but I’m grateful for it (apparently it was on the legacy personal plan, but even that now says limit is 20, and I distinctly remember 10). They still have limits, but I don’t expect to reach those anytime soon.
Of course by rearranging a few things to improve usability and make things right long-term, by renaming links, killing off some pages, and unpublishing some old posts, I’m sure I temporarily screwed up my SEO. But it had to be done, and in the long run I think it’ll be much better than it could’ve been had I not done major spring-cleaning on the back-end.
What’s new?
First, what isn’t? Yes, the old guide posts still exist! When I initially set up this website and blog, I had no idea what I was doing. It was all created rather spontaneously and haphazardly. Which means that blog had the “blogmain” in the link rather than something that makes sense (ugh, so generic). So, if there are any shared links from outside of the blog that are still up (which I will absolutely try to hunt down the ones I can, like on Pinterest, and fix them if possible), you’ll get my fancy new 404 page you'll be fine. I did the best I could to make it clear on the 404 (code for missing or broken link) that in the process of restructuring, I broke a lot of links, but they’re not all gone. I haven’t found any way to do redirects on this site, so, it is what it is. Nevermind, I did find it, and it was much easier than I thought it would be. I had to rip off the proverbial bandage to fix that link before I grow my blog any more than I already have, but as soon as I’m done fixing all the SEO stuff and invite the bots over to reindex my site, it should at least fix things on the search engines. I should be done breaking all of the links now. I will go back and check to see if I forgot to relink any of the broken ones. That part still remains - I am still going to go and fix any broken links on here or other sites and update them, but I'm definitely not as worried about it now. Or I'll at least unlink/delete any of the posts I'd taken down. I guess I can go fix the 404 page again. About half the time of updating a website involves a lot of back and forth as I think of something else to add or fix...
The new look: With my old design, I went with whatever the template had set up and didn’t really tweak it beyond just the website layout. This time, however, I really spent a good deal of time trying out various fonts, making the posts easier to read, even researching best fonts for dyslexia (apparently sans serif is the way to go) and trying to pick one based on what’s available to me. I time the font-testing at the end of the day so I could figure out which ones were easiest for me to read. I don’t have dyslexia, but I do have ADHD, and I can be a bit sensitive to a bad font even if I can still read it - meaning if a website picks a font that’s difficult for me to focus on (including color/size/line weight/etc.), I will click off. Maybe that’s another thing I subconsciously started hating about the old design. I think this one is much easier on the eyes. I also spent a lot of time picking out color schemes by looking for photos I love and picking out the colors from that. The website now has a warm white background. The color of the copy is now a deep blue (at 80%) to make the type less stark. As you see me updating the thumbnail photos on the site, they look more contemporary as opposed to my older ones which had a strong “generic craft site” vibe to them - and yes, I am updating all of them. It just takes time to go into each post and change them. I was finally able to get my actual logo to look right (I never could on the old site, which is why I used a text logo), so the branding is better. It follows you as you scroll so it’s easy to get back to the home page. And if you accept the cookies (bar on the bottom), there’s a nifty progress circle that shows up on the bottom left as you scroll so you know just how wordy I was with a particular post (which I am trying to work on reducing) - in my decision to make the legally required cookie notification as unobtrusive as possible, it hides the progress circle. It was a trade-off between that and an annoying pop-up (and you can still read the content with it - you’re not forced to accept the cookies, it just doesn’t help me as much as accepting them would). Probably why some sites do the pop-up, to force you into accepting the cookies to read the content.
The new homepage: It’s much more clean now! Instead of landing right on top of a blog like you did before, it looks like a proper home page and helps direct you to the content you’re looking for. I’ve essentially improved my virtual curb appeal.
The new blogs: The mix of categories in one blog just wasn’t working for me. It became a nightmarish mess. I think over the years I’ve created nearly 30 categories, most of which I don’t use anymore. So I got rid of anything that wasn’t fiber-arts related from the main blog, split the content into several blogs - like Mental Orts for posts like these updates, and Homeschool Diaries for my homeschool posts. After switching over to the new template for you to enjoy, I’m going through the main blog with a fine toothed comb, fixing the SEO that I had no idea how to do before (not that I really cared at the time either), including making much nicer SEO share images so the link actually looks pretty if anyone shares it to social media, and cleaning up the categories. I am definitely taking a far more organized approach to this.
The donate buttons: If you’d been on my guides, you could find ko-fi links for people to help support my website (you’ll still find them on some until I take them out). Honestly, it’s a really bad design practice to direct people away from your site any more than you need to. I am not taking down my ko-fi profile (in fact, I will probably start sharing things on there as well) but it’ll be treated as another social media page. I’ve now set things up so people can donate to me directly through my website if they wish, and you’ll find the donate button around the site (it’s in the side bar on the right for blog pages).
In the process of setting those up, I came up with a really fun idea! I want to make sure that you get something of value for your donations - so for donations of $50 or more, supporters have the option of sponsoring a free needle felting tutorial on my blog. The more you give, the more involved the tutorial can be. Not only would you be prominently credited on the tutorial as the generous sponsor, you also get to suggest what tutorial I should make. I think this is especially fun for anyone who has their own platform they’re trying to boost, because I’ll link to you. That being said, you can just have your name on there, or the name of a loved one, or do this as a gift for someone (and either surprise them with a tutorial made especially for them with their name on it and a gift message from you, or have me reach out to them and ask them for a tutorial suggestion they’d like to see). You tell me what you want me to do. There are a few minor rules with this: I won’t link to certain types of sites, the tutorial and sites I link to have to be clean and business/child friendly, etc. - if you’re unsure, you can reach out to me first to see if it’s something I’m okay with creating and/or linking to on my website because it’s still my website. I don’t expect it to be an issue, but it needs to be said so that it doesn’t become one. It’s like a commission, except that instead of making one thing for you, I make a tutorial on how to make the thing and share it with the world so lots of people can make the thing, and they can thank you for the support and suggestion. You don’t even have to have a fiber arts thing, because all of us creators should be making an effort to support each other, regardless of our medium of choice. Imagine for a moment a really cute tutorial on how to make cupcakes which link to your bakery? Here’s a cupcake I made years ago for a needle felting exchange and posted on Instagram, which was then liked by Jason Hisley and Frost Me Gourmet! Dream with me! This could be amazing!
Needle felted celestial cupcake I made for an exchange back in February of 2017
Of course, you can still continue to make suggestions (especially if you donate), which I will absolutely take into consideration, but the 50+ donation option is a good way to make sure it happens, it happens soon, and you get credit for it. Other suggestions get put on a running list to get to eventually.
The new shop: The shop isn’t that much different, but it’s far easier to navigate now, with the categories prominently displayed on the left. Yes, I did take the kits out a few weeks ago, and I’m not sure if/when I’ll add them back in, but all the tutorials are still up. I added the sponsor-a-post as an item too, so it can be “purchased” through the shop rather than through a donation (I don’t really have a preference as to how that’s done). If you take a peek at the tutorials page (which I did clean up), you’ll notice that there’s a new tutorial-to-be up in there. I had decided against completing the fall hanging basket one, because it really could be improved upon. It’s a bit hard to explain, other than part of me just didn’t really like it. I don’t want to post something I don’t like. As it is, I had to restrain myself from unpublishing the posts I used to like, but now don’t, because they’re still useful to some people (thanks to those pesky cookies, LOL - see, if I didn’t track what people do on my site, I might get rid of something you want me to keep). However, in my blog clean up, I noticed that I’d gotten pretty close to completing my corals tutorial, which is not a video tutorial like the others, but one with tons of photos. It’s also not a project, so much as a how-to, so you’ll be able to make your own coral reef however you wish. As soon as I’m done with the most important overhaul stuff, I hope to get that tutorial completed and posted in the next month or so.
Gallery pages! How could I forget? I’m not putting all of my photos up in galleries, but I picked a few of my favorites and created gallery pages for them. I may opt to rotate them in and out, or create another way to display them in the future. During the overhaul I spent a bit of time exploring the various features available to me, and for some reason I never tried that one (maybe it was the page limits). Not only that, but apparently I can embed videos in those too?! So now the Green Man one has the work-in-progress videos embedded in the gallery in the link, so you don’t have to go to Youtube to watch it. That seemed pretty cool to me.
New static pages: I have one new static page up so far, in which I had moved the directory for BIPOC farms out of the blog post I had it in originally and gave it its own page in the menu (which I shared last week on Facebook). I thought that it would be of greater benefit to those farms to separate the directory from “my stuff,” make it more prominent (thus easier to find and more likely to be shared), and less likely to be buried as the blog continues to grow. Racism didn’t go away when the protests ended, or when we elected a new president. The world didn’t magically get better when the news stopped reporting on it. Lunch is still cancelled. Nothing’s changed yet.
What I’m working on going forward:
As I mentioned above, this site is still far from the perfect I envisioned. In fact, I still have a rather long to-do list in my Trello board, which is what I’ve been using to help me keep track of all the things I need to update, blog posts I want to write, and my website style guides. (It’s a free site that’s really useful for organizing projects, and probably my favorite due to how visually fun you can make it.)
Fix the SEO: I’ve been embarrassingly bad at implementing good SEO practices, which is why it’s so surprising to me that certain keywords rank me as high as they do on search engines. If I had to guess, it’s probably because for those, there really isn’t any other information out there, but it’s only a matter of time. That’s really what it’s about - the person with the best SEO wins. Once I fix it, you should be able to find the specific post on my site just by searching for it in your search engine of choice.
More static pages: While I do plan to keep the original felting guides up in the blog, I’m also creating static pages to be found in the menu so you don’t have to dig very far to find the guide that you need. Again, this makes it far less likely that they’ll get buried in the blog itself, even with the categories up. I haven’t decided if I’ll make static pages for all the guides, or just certain ones. I will definitely start with the basics: the needles, the bases, and the beginner guides.
Clean up the categories: I’d already started this process somewhat, however this is a bit more complicated than just deleting the old categories, because some of the posts need to be re-categorized. Deleting the categories won’t delete the post, it just makes them disappear into the nether archives. So I plan to do this before the thumbnail update below - that way as I’m reviewing the content, fixing SEO and updating the images, I can recategorize the posts that got screwed up.
Update the thumbnails: That includes the social media share images this time, which before I had no idea was a thing. I thought it just cropped my thumbnail. I’d already gone and created all the updated thumbnails and the share images, but because I’m fixing the SEO and looking over each and every post to correct/update it, it’s taking me longer than just going and updating everything. It also gives me a visual as far as which posts I need to check. The ones with the new looking thumbnails are the ones I’ve revisited, updated, and fixed the SEO.
Clean up social media: Scrolling back through things like my Instagram posts, I realized it’s not really cohesive. My past posts have been a random mishmash of things I felt like posting at the time. So I will be deleting a ton of old photos off of there that no longer fit (and honestly, never really did).
Eventually: way down the line of the to do list (because fixing what I’ve broken first is most important) is to update the graphics on some of my posts - like my hand-drawn felting needles guide. Yes, I draw good. I would hope, several years later (and with a bit of practice), I draw better. I would also like to add more graphics like these to my other posts as well! They’re really fun to make, and that one seems to be really popular to share - though I would really appreciate it if people stopped cropping my name off the graphic and then sharing it because that’s stealing! Why was that necessary to do? I’ll just make the better ones harder to steal. Insert all the shame gifs here.
Whew that’s a lot… I’m happy you get to finally see the progress I’ve made on this site! And, with the click of the publish button, good-bye site design of the last few years, and hello new look!
