Swift Media Redesigned

Mar 14

Brand New Well, i finally got round to the redesign of my weblog. I had been planning to redesign this blog for a long time and also had drawn a rough sketch of how I wanted the new design to look like but it was delayed due to many reasons. After i decided to comit to blogging professionally, i thought id was time that i invest the time in creating a unique design, and saught the advice and recommendations of the people who really mattered. Our Readers.

I took all of the recommendations into consideration, and worked on the new design for about a week and finished with it yesterday. I did extensive testing with it using Firefox, Opera, IE 6 and 7. Everything looks fine so far but I still have a few things to do like optimizing the CSS, removal of useless plugins and some other things to decrease page load time.

Some of the changes made in the new design

Switched from a 2 column to a 3 column for neater look
We are now making use of the popular and & recent posts plugin to highlight some of our best content
We have installed the Do-Follow plugin to reward users for leaving a comment on our posts. This means that when you comment, search engines will recognise your link and give you credit for it in their algorithms.
Installed MyAvatars plugin which will display an avatar next to your name when leaving comments. This only works if you are a MyBlogLog user and have an avatar uploaded to your account.
The design as a whole is slightly wider, and has incorporated a ‘web 2.0′ look as this seems to be popular at the moment, and i love the whole web 2.0 look.

I would really appreciate your feedback and what you think about our new design. Are there any areas you think could be further improved? If you spot any errors, please let me know that as well.

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Comments

1
Luxury Property // March 14th, 2008 at 7:06 pm

Andy - I love the new look. When I can afford you I will definitely be asking you to do my sites.
2
Andy MacDonald // March 14th, 2008 at 7:37 pm

Many thanks Mark. Yeah im really happy with the design. It came out just as i had hoped.
3
Robert Worstell // March 14th, 2008 at 8:17 pm

Great new design. Wish I could get Yes-Follow on Blogger - makes me want to host my own WordPress blog… There’s even a program called "Real Link Finder" which helps you find blogs that do give you credit (ie. don’t use ‘no-follow’) in their links. (And I wish I were an affiliate for that link - but it’s free and brandable, so knock yourself out…)

Robert Worstell’s last blog post..Miss your Niche? Try LSI branding to SEO-theme your website..
4
Andy MacDonald // March 14th, 2008 at 8:38 pm

Thanks for the comments Robert. Yeah unfortunately thats the downside with blogger. it is very limited in what you can do with it, but fortunately hosting your own wordpress blog can be very cheap indeed.

For example, i sell hosting accounts for only £3.99 per month, and you can even find cheaper hosting than that, so if you wanted to go with your own wordpress blog, it wouldn’t take too much to set up. If you need a hand let me know and ill be happy to help

Also thanks for the link to that program too. i didn’t realize such things were available.
5
Hafiz Dhanani // March 14th, 2008 at 9:34 pm

Looks great Andy!I love the cleanliness of the sidebar.

Hafiz Dhanani’s last blog post..16 Top Social Media Strategies for Success
6
Thomas Sinfield // March 14th, 2008 at 11:19 pm

I love your new design. It is so clean and easy to read. Designs that keep the focus on the content are the ones I like!

Thomas Sinfield’s last blog post..How Much Do You Really Want To Succeed?
7
Andy MacDonald // March 15th, 2008 at 12:30 am

Thanks Hafiz & Thomas. I appreciate you stopping by to leave your comments, and hope to see you around here again in the future.
9
Steven Finch // March 15th, 2008 at 11:15 am

This is a really nice redesign. It is simple and has all the key features you need. Well done.

Steven Finch’s last blog post..Spaz: The Best Twitter Adobe AIR App Out
10
Barbara Ling (aka Owlbert) // March 15th, 2008 at 11:21 am

Very clean, very professional-looking! I like it a lot; good job!
Barbara

Barbara Ling (aka Owlbert)’s last blog post..Kindly stop bleeding on your fellow students - Blogging Netiquette Lessons from Brazilian Jui Jitsu
11
Laura Thomas // March 15th, 2008 at 3:42 pm

Wow- I asboutly love your new design! and the features are icing on a cake:-) I hope to have a blog upa nd running someday and most likely will be callign on you! Laura of Purrinlot http://www.purrinlot and Castle Baths http://www.castlebaths.com .
12
Andy MacDonald // March 15th, 2008 at 4:56 pm

Thanks for your comments everybody. I really appreciate you taking the time to leave your thoughts about my new website. I am over the moon about this new design, and you guys have only confirmed what i hoped you would all feel, so thats great news, Thank you!!!
13
Zhu // March 16th, 2008 at 4:24 pm

Well done on the redesign! Love it, much better than the first "draft" which we reviewed. I like the small features and plugins, such as Commentluv, the dofollow, the WYSIWYG editor for comments etc.Well done!
14
Andy MacDonald // March 16th, 2008 at 10:07 pm

Thanks Zhu. Yeah the comments and feedback you guys provided is ultimately the advice i took, and hopefully i incorporated all your ideas into this new theme. It is having some great feedback, so i think ive done something right.

Hope to see you round here again soon.
16
helen // April 14th, 2008 at 10:12 pm

Very useful and interesting note! It’s cool!

helen’s last blog post..Busty Nubile Showing Off Her Curvy Body
17
seo solutions // April 17th, 2008 at 10:40 am

Hi guys,
new to this blog, nice design by the way. i’ve been lookin at wordpress to set a blog up, but not sure where to start, anyone give me any advice on how to create a blog for my site, or besides wordpress is there anyone else i can go to for help with creating the blog.
RB
18
seo solutions // April 17th, 2008 at 10:43 am

Hey Laura just had a gander at your site, can i ask who did that for you? did you use a comp or do it yourself?
19
Andy MacDonald // April 17th, 2008 at 5:28 pm

@ SEO Solutions: what are you talking about??
20
Internet Marketing // April 24th, 2008 at 1:54 am

I do like the look of your blog, BUT I never saw how it looked before, so I can’t say if it’s better or not It is quite sharp looking though. I really need to get a banner one day. I’ve been rocking minimalism style at my blog.

Internet Marketing’s last blog post..Market Health Affiliate Program
21
Samantha@ Repossession Diaries // April 28th, 2008 at 10:21 pm

@ Robert Worstell
You can take the no follow out of your blogger links, you have to go in and edit the html (include edit widget text) and find the bit that says nofollow and just delete it. I have managed it here: http://repossession-diaries.blogspot.com look in the source code of the comments - or post a comment yourself with a link and you will see! Is was a bit fiddly though to get it to work though, but I can’t stand nofollow - a link is a link isn’t it?
22
Sam @ Repo Stoppers (again!!) // May 9th, 2008 at 9:34 am

I just thought I better say, in addition to that comment of mine above - if you do take the no follow link OUT of your google blog, make sure you don’t make any more changes, because I have just found out that it you do google puts the NO FOLLOW back in!!!! I am not sure how long mine was like this, I have taken it out again now. How annoying!!!!
23
Basement Ideas // May 13th, 2008 at 11:39 pm

Looking good! Simple and not too much going on to distract the reader. BUT, I’m sure you will be ready for a new one again in a year or so!

Basement Ideass last blog post..Basement Carpet Color Ideas