Forced, Kicking and Screaming, To a New Blog Design

You may have noticed something slightly different upon landing here today. Yeah, that's right, I've got a new blog design.

This was not entirely my choice. I've known for quite some time that my old design looked dated and it is one of my goals for this year to update it and redesign it. But 2015 has been a whirlwind, and I'm now working on rewrite #2 for my agent, and THAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER. So in my thinking, the blog re-design could wait.

But the Google Gods had other plans for me. Apparently, by the end of this month, if you have a blog or website that is not responsive (i.e., not configured to be easily read on a tablet or smartphone), you are going to the bottom of the Google search engine heap. And Google has always been good to me, so I didn't want that to happen.

In truth, I would have been blissfully unaware of all of this, were it not for my most amazing and wonderful VA, Elizabeth Jackson. (VA stands for Virtual Assistant. Its the best invention ever. Elizabeth lives in Spain and I live in Portland, but we work together nearly every day.) Somehow, she knows this stuff. And then she figures out how to deal with it and save me from the wrath of Google.

So here we are with a new design. I will tell you straight out that it is not my favorite, but it will do for now. Once I have a chance to sort things out in my brain and figure out what I really want, it will change again. But that won't be for awhile.

What do you think? Like it or hate it? Are you changing your blog design to be responsive?

Image by Dan4th.

Tagged blog, blogging, Google, mobile, responsive theme, smart phone, table

Charlotte

Charlotte Rains Dixon mentors creative writers from passionate to published. Charlotte is a free-lance journalist, ghostwriter, and author. She is Director Emeritus and a current mentor at the Writer's Loft, a certificate-writing program at Middle Tennessee State University. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Spalding University and is the author of a dozen books, including The Complete Guide to Writing Successful Fundraising Letters, and Beautiful America’s Oregon Coast. Her fiction has appeared in The Trunk, Santa Fe Writer’s Project, Nameless Grace, and Somerset Studios and her articles have been published in Vogue Knitting, the Oregonian, and Pology, to name a few. Her novel, Emma Jean’s Bad Behavior, was published in 2013, and she is represented by Erin Niumata at Folio Literary. Learn about her annual writing workshops in Europe at letsgowrite.com, and visit her blog at www.charlotterainsdixon.com, where you can find all kinds of tips and techniques on writing and creativity.

0 thoughts on “Forced, Kicking and Screaming, To a New Blog Design”

Don
04/06/2015 8:49 am
It’s clean, it’s modern, and looks good….. what’s not to like?
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Charlotte Dixon
04/06/2015 9:29 am
Oh yay, I'm glad you like it! I guess I just have a hard time adjusting to the new.
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J.D.
04/06/2015 11:10 am
It looks great! Now if I can only uncross my eyes.
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Charlotte Dixon
04/06/2015 11:18 am
I think that's a compliment. I'll take it as such.
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Zan Marie
04/06/2015 3:52 pm
Looks good, Charlotte! I’m not looking forward to redoing mine someday. I’m on blogger and have pages for my website. It works for now. I fully expect to be told to get myself on WordPress someday. {{{hugs}}} for the growing pains. ;-)
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J.D.
04/06/2015 4:57 pm
It is a compliment. Very eye catching now. Nothing drab. My favorite spot on the web.
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Charlotte Dixon
04/06/2015 5:20 pm
I've resisted going to WordPress for years. I like being on Typepad. Maybe I just like being different, who knows. But since Blogger is owned by Google, I suspect they will make it very easy for you to migrate to a responsive page. I hope so. And I'm blessed to have my VA to do this for me. Would have taken me hours.
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Charlotte Dixon
04/06/2015 5:20 pm
YOU ARE THE BEST. That's all there is to it.
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Sandra Pawula
04/06/2015 9:34 pm
Hello Dear Charlotte,
As you say, I think you have a good basic design and when you have time you can work on making it your favorite.
I’m on WordPress (I’m so glad I finally gave up my resistance!) and I have a Studio Press design so it’s automatically mobile. So no worries for me! I used the Design Palette Pro plugin to customize it.
Sounds like a busy time. Good luck with all and much love!
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Charlotte Dixon
04/07/2015 2:52 pm
Thanks, Sandra! I know there are benefits to WordPress but after eight years with Typepad it is really hard to think about moving! I’m glad you like the new design okay. We’ll see what I come up with in the future!
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ColorJoy LynnH
04/07/2015 4:24 pm
On my iPod touch 5 it’s clean and readable. My blogs are in WordPress with mobile-friendly plugins.
But ACK! I have multiple hand-coded HTML pages. Somehow I forgot that when you first brought this up.
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Charlotte Dixon
04/07/2015 5:19 pm
Yeah, I have a friend in Wales who had to go through each of the pages on his site by hand and re-code them. He's a computer geek who likes doing that kind of thing, though, so I think it was okay. Thanks for checking out how it looks on the Touch.
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Dyoung
04/07/2015 8:47 pm
At first I thought there was something wrong with my iPad. Or my server. Or both. Glad to know it was intentional- even if not by personal choice:)
It looks good, Char!
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Zan Marie
04/08/2015 5:45 am
I had a buddy check mine out on a mobile and it looks good. I guess Google/blogger thought of that. ;-)
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Charlotte Dixon
04/08/2015 6:45 am
I know–surprise! I'm really pleased that everyone seems to think it looks okay. I do think its a bit easier to read, at least.
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Charlotte Dixon
04/08/2015 7:03 am
I bet so!
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