At last, my new theme is up and running how do you like it?
Read on, and see how you can get freebies, by leaving your comment! Your feedback is very critical!
The Old To the New
My old theme simply was too plain, and to be quite honest was rather ugly. It had a picture of me standing there like I was performing a magic trick or something, hehehe.
The new theme is much crisper, more web 2.0 oriented, and gives a more professional look.
Whats New with the new Theme?
Well besides that its a completely revamped look heres what some of the new features to the new blog theme.
*Added RSS Subscriptions Options
*Added Sponsors To The Navigation
*Improved The way users are able to leave comments.
*More Enthesis on CSS and DIV
*Cleaner Coding (I coded from scratch)
Freebies For Your Comments
In light of my new theme, I will be giving away some freebies for constructive blog comments.
The prizes
2 Free 125×125 ads on the Sponsors.
2 Blogroll Link for 1 month.
The two best commentators will choose, one prize from the above prizes. The 2 remaining prizes, will then be awarded through a random drawing of all the blog comments.
To Qualify for one of the giveaway prizes.
1. Leave a meaningful blog comment post with a minimum of 25 words. *Required*
Some Suggestions
1. Be as honest as possible, negative comments, positive comments, all qualify.
2. Try to give suggestions, or bugs, improvements such as new color suggestions, new font suggestions.
Deadline
The deadline for the giveaway is Sunday, February 3rd, 11:59 pm Eastern time.
Where is the Blog headed
My personal blog has never really had a REAL direction, until now. As you see with the title tag under my name it states, “An Internet Entrepreneur and College Student.” And that is where my blog is headed. I will be concentrating on blogging away about my personal life, and even more on my web experiences.
I will share my failures, and success with my online ventures, with you the readers. I will try and break down what has worked for me, and what has not, etc, and try to create real value for you the readers. It is similar to the way that my friend Tyler Cruz does it, except that it will be of my own style. My main source of income DOES comes from my websites, 80 or so websites live, but not all of them are monetized. So definitely subscribed to my blog, and stay tuned as it transitions into realm.
Final Conclusions
I am fairly happy with the new design, its been quite a transition from my old theme, and even with the new theme, I made several changes, since I had wanted it to be a drastic improvement.
I hope you leave your commentary, and share your thoughts!
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Oh hey, if you coded from scratch, nicely done! I like it and a big difference from before… much more professional!
Here are some quibbles… Your top navigation… I’d prefer if you didn’t have those placeholders if they aren’t available yet. It gives the users the impression that you’re not finished - so why announce it?
The top right hand comment square… it’s not clickable. The bottom right hand Read comment link… When it’s at 0, there’s no comment to read
so change the label to Add comment or something like that.
I’m not a topography expert but I’m not too sure about your JeanCosta logo. Run it by others as I’m not sure about the difference in the fonts between the Jean and the Costa.
And one final thing, the right margin of the article… I just notice it’s not the same as the left so the text looks glued right to the edge. I don’t know if I’m explaining myself properly…
But even with those minor items which I would assume are extremely easy to fix, it’s an awesome job if you did it yourself!
Now to redo my own blog… I actually bought a blog makeover from Affiliate Lounge but I have yet to submit my ideas… whenever I have time because I have a plain one too…
Hey Mariam, thanks for your comments and compliments.
You make a good point about the top navigation, I have had a few remarks on this, most of them supporting what you say.
Great point regarding the top right hand comment square. Previously, I had the number being linked, I suppose I forgot all about that. Now that I think of it, I would like to link the whole box itself, but that would be harder to do.
You also are right about the margin on the right side, inside of posts, it is something that I will have to fix, hopefully by tonight
As far as your blog redo, personally I like your logo, and although your blog look is rather simple, it is elegant, and easy to navigate around. I can’t wait to see what your new blog theme looks like when it is finalized
I think this looks great. Much better than before. The first time I visited your blog, magic tricks did actually come into my head
Hmm, I’m really not a type expert as I meant typography not topography
I like it. Nice and clean. No ads though, how are you going to manage that ?
By ads do you mean Google adsense ads?
If so, I have no plans to integrate Google adsense, or similar ppc ads or my personal blog. I am a strong believer in monetization comes later. I want to build a strong readership first, and then later, slowly start monetizing the website.
Great theme! I really like the nice clean new look, makes it look very professional. Also the improvements feature wise are great, the navigation of the site is now much easier. Great job.
Very nice! It looks much nicer and vibrant with some colour. The new sidebar subheading also stand out much more and make it easier to navigate!
Love the new theme! Very professional looking.
I hope mine looks this great when I finally get my new wordpress blog completed.
To Your Success!
Hey Ej,
Thank you for your comment.
I did notice you have a new domain, and a new bog theme to it. I am looking forward to seeing your finished product
I like the changes that you have made. A big improvement from your old theme, even the footer rocks. The only thing that I am concerned about the new theme is the font on your navigation buttons. You could try looking for something that will blend with your other fonts (like the ones in the sidebar) or the whole theme itself. Other than that, i give your theme a two thumbs up. Congratulations on your new theme and did I mention that your footer rocks?
Hey Jean!
Well, the previous version was certainly a bit ‘tired’ though I gotta tell you, I was on a call recently with Armand Morin and a photographer who goes to Seminars and takes pictures like yours (in action) for the big names, and they were talking about how important those were for adding to websites.
We know by your picture that you are a guy for one thing. Jean can go either way.
Active is better than static they say.
If you can get that as a solitary image, you really should add that back in somehow.
This site looks very nice yet it seems to be like so many others out there.
That other site, that was different!
I wonder if there is a way to integrate the best of both somehow? I’m certainly not one to tell you how to do THAT - my site is no beauty.
I would say that it IS different however - and memorable.
The battle cry of many I have learned from is ‘differentiate or die’ so maybe get something going here that does that for you.
I don’t mind that your nav buttons on the top aren’t linked yet. It’s better than them being clickable and going nowhere. IN FACT, I think they build anticipation for you!
I need to come back later to see what you added - I’d take it slow on that and keep building your ‘anticipation’ and leave ‘About Me’ for last - that is the FIRST place people want to visit (just learned that today on a webinar).
Don’t wait too long for these things though.
Maybe get one done a day. That keeps me coming back yet I don’t get too frustrated waiting.
Just some thoughts as they bubble up.
What else…?
The blog definitely has a very clean look - something I really like. It IS slightly sterile though - which I don’t think is too good.
I think you may miss out on advertising opportunities by waiting.
I had adwords up right away (they are built into a blogger blog so why not?!?) and I was getting periodic clicks for small amounts pretty darn quickly.
If your blog isn’t advertising right up front, you may create expectations in your visitors so when you DO advertise, they may be turned off by that. I had ads from virtually the beginning - anyone visiting can see that and they know to expect that.
It all depends: what are your goals for this blog?
If this is going to be a personal blog, no biggie, don’t sweat it too much.
You may want to check in with other experts in the blogging world. I’m a relative newbie still.
These are just my opionions based on personal preferences and some of the things I have absorbed listening to other experts out there - all in my own sphere though.
Good luck with it all the same!
Pam Hoffman
http://seminarlist.blogspot.com
I liked your old header better.
While I like the blues, the other header showing you was more personal and although the photo could have been of you doing something else besides that particular “I just pulled a rabbit out of my hat” gesture, the fact that it was YOU got my attention from the start.
I like the navigation buttons — those are very nice!
I see you’ve corrected the margins issued mentioned in an earlier comment.
Your footer is perfect. I like the slightly pixellated texture to it combined with the gradient — makes for great interest.
Not too sure about the combination of fonts between your first and last names that you seem to be using as a type of logo. By having the font used on your first name being a wider font than that used on your last name, you’re giving the impression that that’s the more important part of the whole as does using the white/grey gradient on it as opposed to the aquamarine/aqua on the last name — darker recedes to the eye or diminishes if you will.
Overall, it’s a step in the right direction, but I still feel like you have some more to do graphics wise before it’s a finished product.
I’m kind of with a previous commenter regarding ads. I think you will do better to have a few, well chosen ones from the get-go so as to not upset your readership when you do decide to go for the John Chow enchilada.
My .02 which, along with $5.95 will buy you a Starbucks
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Hey Jean,
Overall I like the theme much more than the other. I guess if you were to change something, I wouldn’t mind seeing the background of the post title changed a bit as well as the comment number background. They don’t seem to fit in with the rest of the overall design. Maybe more of a gradient feel for those two will do it.
The only other thing I would recommend is changing the default input box. Maybe change the border for it and use a “normal” CSS border instead.
Thank you Gary.
That’s a great suggestion in regards to the backgrounds of the post title, and the comment box. I will try to test out css with it, it should probably work better too, and give a faster loading times to the website. As currently the background is just an image background holder.
Nice new theme Jean, it’s easy on the eyes and it definitely beats the old one. I haven’t visited for a day or two and when I came back, I was wandering if I had typed in the right URL or not.
I have 2 suggestions of change on the new theme:
1) Well it’s not really a suggestion
but your search doesn’t work
2) The buttons at the top’s font size is perfect, just make it bold or “font-weight:bold;” in the stylesheet.
Hope it helps
UPDATE: remove the captcha!
The search function works fine for me. What browser are you using?
When I do a search, I type my search word, and then hit the enter button the keyboard. Are you doing it differently?
What do you mean by remove the captcha?
Nicely done, Jean! Contests are the single fastest way to create new readership. Make sure you keep cranking out the interesting content and how-to’s to keep people coming back for more.
How’s school treting you these days?
I definitely agree with you that this is a much cleaner theme, and I do like it. But I kinda like you standing their in “magic trick” mode, LOL. That was very personal.
However, this theme does make every aspect of your blog much more apparent and user friendly. That, in my opinion, is always the best way to go. If you want your readers to maximize their use of your blog, the options available to them must be readily apparent. You have achieved that with your look.
Lastly, you could use just a tad more excitement, some icon or picture that speaks to what this blog is all about. The old theme had that.
So here it is, I did miss it!
But here’s my comment about the new theme. I really like the simplicity. If it was mine I’d prefer it to have 3 columns. What I’d change is the gray background to a happier color.