Benefits of a Blog Redesign
Two A-List bloggers have recently overhauled their site design in big ways. Both Problogger Darren Rowse and Dot Com Mogul John Chow went new from top to bottom with their designs. While both bloggers received mixed reactions from their fan base, there are a few perks that come with almost any new design. So, with two high profile examples at my disposal, I figured now would be a great time to discuss the Benefits of a Blog Redesign.
Before we get too far into things, let’s take a look at the designs in question. First up is Darren’s incredibly popular Problogger. He had announced that a redesign was coming and even offered a sneak peak of the new logo but I don’t think anyone was quite prepared for this dramatic change:
Before:
After:
Next up is the still fresh, JohnChow.com redesign. John hadn’t, at least in my recollection, hinted much at wanting to redesign the site until earlier this week when he posted a screen shot of a portion of the new header. While it did offer a glimpse into the new design (for instance I knew right away he was going for a wider design), again, I think most of the readers were shocked when they saw the final product:
Before:
After:
As I mentioned earlier, both new blog designs were met with somewhat mixed reactions. For example, on John’s site, many people felt that the header was now way too busy and didn’t put enough emphasis on the content. On the other hand, many others gave the new look rave reviews and one reader even mentioned they were so impressed they had already contacted the designer about redesigning their own site. Now that we’ve all seen these snazzy new designs, I’m sure many of us (including myself) are considering giving our site’s a facelift. What are the benefits to be gained? Well I’m glad you asked…
Buzz
When you visit a website on a regular basis, chances are you’re a fan. When that website then does something as dramatic as a redesign, that’s going to get you talking. These two examples have been perfect examples as both sets of readers have been analyzing, critiquing, and discussing the new looks. People who normally read the content via RSS feeds are making a point of clicking through to check out the new look and feel of the site. Bottom line, after a redesign, whether good or bad, there’s a lot of buzz. Obviously you’d like that buzz to be positive in nature but you’re never going to please everyone.
Linkbait
In the online world we live in, buzz almost always translates into links. While these two redesigns we’re using for examples certainly weren’t done with an eye on linkbait, they’ve turned out to be just that. I’ve read about both new designs on multiple other blogs. Whether people love or hate your new design, chances are they’ll link to your site to when letting their readers know that they love or hate it. Shoot, even this post is an example of this. Again, you’re hoping that the bulk of the links are from positive reviews and people raving over your new look but in the end, the search engines couldn’t care less. In the offline world there’s a saying that there’s no such thing as bad press. Well ladies and gents, I’m here to tell you there’s no such thing as bad links. (Note: I really don’t want to get into an SEO debate here, you get my point so roll with it.)
Renewed Ad Exposure
One thing that happens naturally over the course of time is ad blindness. Frequent visitors to your site know where the content is and they’ve probably already seen the ads on your site hundreds of times. Another benefit of a redesign, albeit a somewhat short lived one, is renewed exposure for your ads. It will take a while for your readers to become acquainted with your new look or layout and that means there’s a better chance of your ads catching their attention. As I said, this benefit won’t be all that long lasting but more attention placed on your ads, even for a short time, likely means a quick infusion of cash in your pocket.
Refreshing
Similar to the previous benefit, changing the appearance of your blog can have a very refreshing effect… on you! I don’t know about you but a few days after I put a site up (sometimes quicker) I start to see the little things that I want to change or a few things I’m not real fond of. It’s a bit like painting a room in your house. At first you love it because you’ve got the new color on the walls. As time passes you start to notice spots you missed or didn’t cover well enough. After a while, those little things start to annoy you and a while later they start to drive you nuts. The same thing applies to your blog. You probably loved it for a while but after a bit even the little things can drive you nuts. If you’re struggling with blogging burnout or just can’t stand to work on your site, a redesign might be just what the doctor ordered.
More ROOOOM
The last benefit I’m going to discuss is the one that’s most obvious. While you can’t see it in my small screen shots above, both the “after” designs are wider than their predecessors. As technology improves and prices drop, more and more people are viewing your site on larger and larger monitors. Not long ago, 800 pixels was the maximum width for your website if you didn’t want your readers to have to scroll to the left or right (and believe me, NO ONE wants to do that). Now, screen resolutions of 1000 pixels wide are common place if not the standard. You should always check out your stats before blowing out the side wall of your design and adding on, however, chances are you can give yourself quite a bit more room to work with. Now, whether that means more ad space or an extra row of navigation or just more room for your content, that’s up to you. Whatever you do with it though, extra space is always nice. Just look at the increasing size of our houses, I mean who doesn’t want to spread out a bit?
So there you have it. While it’s always a good idea to improve your site when you decide to take the plunge and begin a redesign, these benefits accompany just about any new look, whether it’s good or bad. As I mentioned the redesign bug seems to be going around and as you might have guessed, I’ve apparently caught it. I’ve been very happy with the theme from BloggingPro but I feel it’s time for some improvements. A new design is in the works and it will include (finally!) a Blogging Experiment logo as well. I’m not 100% sure when it will roll out but the target is the middle of next week. Now that I think about it, maybe I should make a big event out of it and push the new look out with the post announcing the winner of the Complete Blogging Package contest. We were up to 133 subscribers yesterday but have fallen back into the 120’s today. The goal of 150 is mighty close but if you’d like any of the extra prizes time is running out!
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Comments
Erik Karey August 23rd, 2007
I’d really like a new design as well, but I’d like to get a professional to make a fully valid xhtml template for me that’s unique which will cost me some $$$. Cant wait to see your new design!
New TV August 24th, 2007
CSS is a designers friend, and Erik – if you aren’t able to design or program yourself – there are resources out there that are available for free.
Keith August 24th, 2007
After reading your article, it somehow motivates me to get down on working on redesigning my site here. After all, I do agree it does give readers a fresh image and content.
John Rohan August 24th, 2007
My name is John Rohan, and I operate the Shield of Achilles weblog.
My site has a very “narrow” look due to blogspot’s template. I also considered going with a wider design, but here’s something else to consider: yes, people are getting wider/higher resolution monitors these days, but at the same time a lot of monitors are now smaller. Much smaller. More and more people are surfing the net on web enabled phones, treos, iphones, palm pilots, Sony PSPs etc, not to mention the new ultra portable laptops that you can hold in your hand. So there’s the dilemma: go wide and please most people, but also make it much more difficult for portable users to view your site without scrolling. Another solution is to set up two versions of your site, one for widescreens, one for small screens but that’s a lot more work to maintain.
So bottom line is, I haven’t figured out a good solution yet.
Unique Blog Designs August 24th, 2007
Great article! I predict that more and more people will start redesigning their blogs to further market and brand their blogs!
Adam Dempsey August 24th, 2007
I’ve been playing about with my theme a bit lately trying to tweak it a bit, think I’m going to stick with the same design just modify to suit my needs more.
Harris August 24th, 2007
Am I the only one who sees these designs as full of wasted space, increased loading time, obtrusive ads, and unoriginal content? Something else to remember is that many web surfers do not want to have their browser maximized to view pages, so even if their monitor is high resolution, they’re not going to dedicate every last pixel to finding out what kind of car John Chow likes.
Metagg August 24th, 2007
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Vero August 24th, 2007
How true that a redesign (on a reasonably high profile blog) creates some great buzz around it.
@John Rohan: There are a few different solutions to dealing with smaller screens. An 800px layout, unless very fluid, will still cause problems to a viewer on mobile. This leaves the designer with a few options:
a. A different CSS file for mobile, used based on User Agent
b. A different CSS file for mobile, which the user picks manually (what we’ve done for http://www.taptu.com/blog)
c. If the designer hasn’t been kind enough to provide a small-screen-friendly template, the user still has the option of using an RSS reader to get to the content, without the styling.
My personal preference is somewhere between B and C, all depending on how well designers can handle the lightweight CSS needed for mobile.
Nice article Ben.
Anand August 24th, 2007
I completely agree with you on the Ad-Blindness part. One of the advertisers on TechCrunch had recently admitted in a forum post that the click through rates were so small that the company was as such not even looking at an ROI after their campaign. Visitors of TechCrunch just do not look right at all!
But is a frequent design change advisable? In my view, No. Because, design changes that are totally different from the previous one can have a fallback on the visitor’s interest in the blog in itself. It’s like losing touch with the blogger who you previously held very close. I would always prefer an incremental change in the blog design and layout…
HMTKSteve August 24th, 2007
What kind of hosting are you using because you are on the digg front page and your blog has not died from it!
South African August 24th, 2007
I’ve always used the 1000 width screen…but more because it felt like a nice round number than anything else! I prefer both the befores to the afters, but like you say there is a bit of value in the buzz which is created.
Kun Dang August 24th, 2007
You make a good point about how technology is moving beyond the standard 800 px screens, but setting up your blog to work with 1024 res screens will immediately lost a sizeable proportion of visitors.
You should check your visitors stats from your traffic analytics and that should give you concrete information on how many visitors actually use 800 width screens.
If you are unwilling to lose those visitors then consider using flexible width designs!
Thomas Hansen August 24th, 2007
Why not redesign then using the BMS in my sig.
.t
Karl L. Gechlik August 24th, 2007
We just redesigned http://www.askTheAdmin.com and within two weeks our readership has increased to almost 1700 uniques daily and almost 100 rss subscribers!
Make your content easy on your readers eyes- and if they enjoy it they will come back!
Dad August 24th, 2007
It looks like problogger is moving his site design to look more like a pro-level website. By that I mean he is no longer showing full posts on the homepage but is instead showing the first few lines of each story. I do have to wonder why his content preview section is on the left side rather than the middle.
In John Chow’s case those “120 pixels” make a huge difference as seen in your screen shots. You barely even see any content on the homepage for John’s blog and newcomers will likely be put off by that.
mark August 24th, 2007
Redesign is time consuming. But motivation helps allot. thanks
Cristian Neagu August 24th, 2007
If you want your blog to be redesign please contact me. (http://candesprojects.com/?p=contact)
I’m web 2.0 designer with a great portfolio.
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jm3 August 24th, 2007
I’ve just recently done a redesign as well – however, traffic is pretty much status quo.
http://www.popculturepundit.com
Tubag Bohol August 24th, 2007
We never rest until we get the perfect look.
Sean August 24th, 2007
Nice server. =D
bandar August 24th, 2007
i redesigned my blog few months ago ..
i think it is the best look ever
noname August 24th, 2007
how about you stop using a popular theme first before giving us advice on blog redesign?
Blogging Experiment August 24th, 2007
@noname, first of all, I am not giving advice on how to redesign a blog. I am discussing the benefits of redesigning a blog. Those are two completely different things. Secondly, this is certainly not my only site and in fact is in a small minority of sites that I use non-custom themes on. Lastly, as I mentioned in the post, a redesign is in the works and actually I just saw the mock up and couldn’t be happier with it. I think it will be a vast improvement while still maintaining the character of the current site.
Sujan Patel August 24th, 2007
Congrats on making the digg front pages. This article you wrote is fantastic, and it does a thorough job explaining the benefits of a blog redesign.
Joe Clark August 24th, 2007
I’m not clear on why this posting and its commenters are pretending it isn’t possible or desirable to provide a liquid layout in CSS, preferably also including max-width. You all seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that your layout must be a certain number of “pixels” wide, and the philosophical discussion centres around which *exact* number.
subcorpus August 24th, 2007
am not sure if a redsign will help bring new readers …
but may being back a a few repeaters …
ReviewGirl August 25th, 2007
I do agree that redesigning (or as A List Apart said “Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign”) is beneficial as long as your visitors can easily find information.
Sometimes it’s good to keep common theme between designs though, familiarity and all that.
Here’s how my latest design looks: http://www.ReviewGirl.com
Steve August 29th, 2007
both lovely re-designs, personally find it can be hard knowing where to stop when it comes to redesigning, just keep on tweaking and tweaking etc
jon August 29th, 2007
Pretty much sums up what I believe, the trouble is you do have to weight up the cost of a redesign in £££’s or man hours verses what you’ll get back from it.
Ben Cook August 29th, 2007
Holy cow, we’ve got a lot of Steve’s that read this blog lol.
Anyway, yeah you bring up a good point. There is always going to be something you can tweak or fiddle with. The key is to get it to a point that it functions well and you can live with the small things. If you have time later, come back to them but don’t do it at the expense of your content.
Emma August 30th, 2007
Great Article. Hmmm, maybe I’ll Digg it.
Why Redesign A Blog? September 22nd, 2007
[...] this isn’t the only reason. Among Ben Cook’s 5 Reasons For A Blog Redesign he has hit the nail on the head in one respect. Ben lists “Buzz” and [...]
Neil Duckett October 1st, 2007
So many of the `Big Guys` have had a make-over and they all look great in my opinion …i`ve moved over to WordPress now and love it.
Ben Cook October 1st, 2007
@ Neil, yeah, WordPress is pretty much amazing. Plus you can’t beat not having blogspot or wordpress.com in your URL
Sean October 5th, 2007
I really love the design of this blog, but I can’t say the same for John Chow’s new look. Until I start making some money from mine I’m stuck with a pretty basic generic template.
Brock Noland October 22nd, 2007
Have you read 26 steps to 15k a Day? Great article.
Ben Cook October 22nd, 2007
@ Brock, I have read the article and while most of it is good, I couldn’t disagree more with the “Keyword domains are out” statement. Keyword domains are instant brands not to mention sources of traffic all on their own. If more people had paid attention to keyword domains when this article was written (5 years ago), they’d be rich now.
Dr Wealth October 26th, 2007
I think Problogger was badly in need of a design more so than Chow was. Its a wonder how the site got so many links, it was such a turn off
Robert November 26th, 2007
I prefer evolutionary change over big-bang redesigns.
Big bang changes are danagerous because you might get more click, but you might also alientate your existing reader base who may leave en masse.
With evolutionary change you can see the results of each small change and go back a step if it isn’t working.
Steve! December 21st, 2007
I don’t like John’s new theme, but i HATE Darren’s theme. Its terrible. I do believe though, that a wide theme is a better one.
Homeboy's Skiing Blog January 8th, 2008
As I purchased your theme, I am expecting some benefits
Good article and with valid points. Thanks!
Have Them For Breakfast Before They Have You For Dinner! | Money Maker Boy January 17th, 2008
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John March 6th, 2008
Visually the old Problogger design appeals to me more.
Tom Ross March 11th, 2008
^ Are you serious? I was just about to post how disgusting it looked. Very unprofessional.
Stephen April 24th, 2008
Since the post was written it seems to me that a lot of bloggers are turning to Unique Blog Designs for a bit of Makeover, which for me means they end up looking very similar. Not so unique after all. I like the problogger theme though, and thats not a UBD.
George K. November 8th, 2008
I used to read problogger for years. The content was great (and probably still is). But after the site was redesigned I stopped reading. The positioning and navigation (in my opinion) was a step back. The colors were horrible. Most importantly, the fonts are terrible, they appear jagged on my screen and make the font harder to read (and more horrid looking). The design was that bad that I stopped reading after years. The original was clean, bright, well organized, easy to surf and the fonts were easy to read – and the logo showed some fun creativity. Now creative design flair seemed to have been removed and replaced with a more utility, generic look. Problogger’s redesign was a step backwards. Don’t get me wrong, I think the blog was great, but it got ruined by poor design.
I also read John Chow (have read it for years). Great content too, but in my opinion the new design is really good! While I think the blog header is a bit too cluttered, the rest of the blog design gave it more room. I also enjoyed that the new design had some creative flair – a spark – to it a bit of creativity. It looks like this blog gave their designers a bit of a free hand and listened to their advice? I continue to enjoy this blog.
Pei Profit May 12th, 2009
I disagree with John, I think the new design is much cleaner. I guess it’s different for everyone.
door knobs July 25th, 2009
i also believe that sometime redesign can help , i also have a popular example for MSN SEARCH -> BING