Thad wrote:The blog design is a means to an end, ultimately. And that end is for me to blog about things.
IMO, blogging is a means too. I am just not sure what your
actual end is, even though you wrote it and I'm quoting it.
Why I Didn't Comment on "Content"Most of your content bores my shit right out. But that's okay. I'm not into comics the same way you are.
The non-comic stuff is mostly a mental travelogue / stream of consciousness thing, not topic-constrained, so I wouldn't personally subscribe or keep tabs on it.
Like you said, scratching your own itch.
General Site ImprovementsI can only really help with the meta- stuff.
I am an impatient mother fucker and have kicked a couple tires on the web. I can't make your content relevant to me, but I can help you organize it, dress it up, and in some cases, commit to it (in the case of the audio books).
I've weighed in on the layout because it interests me. I
couldn't find content relevant to my interests conveniently enough to weigh in on it, and I'm not convinced I'm your target audience.
Then again, I'm not convinced you
have a target audience.
Anyway, shit to fix:
PresentationMaking posts / blog index sexier:
- Fix your fucking URLs so they don't include index.php. This isn't 1996. "index.php" is noise and it will cause URL clipping in search result listings.
- Use featured images. Header images break shit up and make it look sexier. Theme lack support for it? Hack it the fuck in. I'm pretty sure that if FoundationPress didn't support it out of the box, I edited it in easily enough.
- Consider just showing excerpts instead of the full posts on the archive pages. It makes it a lot faster to skim for something of actual interest.
- Use subheadings every 2-5 paragraphs, depending on article length, because of how people read on the web. Bonus: good SEO.
- Break content up with elements of visual interest. This usually means images, but it can be pullquotes or other shit. Side-align images to appear beside paragraphs. Or you can do what cracked.com articles does (centered, w/ caption). But do something to break that sensation of drowning in a wall of text. Go poke around popular articles on medium, NYT's long form articles, or check out other sites and see what looks good to you, then start mimicking it. I'm sure that you read HN and that you can find well-formatted articles that "made it" there, too.
Content (Organization) StrategyOrganize your content. Figure out who your prospective audience(s) are and how your site's content/layout can get them to relevant shit ASAP.
Case Study: Audio Book SectionAudio book section. Do you want to actually sell these?
- Make a damned audiobook page instead of linking to a WP tag view in navigation.
- On that audiobook page...
- Lead with some paragraphs that sell people on your narration. "Focus on your unique selling point," if you want it in marketing jack-off terminology.
- Follow with a section for each book. The sections should include things like: cover picture, book audience, summary of the book, base price, and other info.
- Close with some sort of blisteringly fucking obvious feedback section (and/or have it in the sidebar). This would let people make suggestions, requests, ego stroking compliments, inquiries, etc..
- Turn the individual audio book posts into pages that are children of the main audio book page. Link to them appropriately from the aforementioned audio book page. On the page for an individual book, sell the fucking book. "My favorite of the three I've done so far" isn't enough to make me buy anything, unless you're already an artist whose work I enjoy and/or taste I deeply trust. Being that you're not yet Stephen King, George Martin, etc., you don't have that luxury.
- Market the books by connecting with relevant people in the field. When you've got the page looking up to snuff, start linking people to it and giving them a promo code for a free download and/or attaching the book for free. You have to get some initial interest/reviews. Figure out where people write about audible books or books similar to the ones you narrated, and send them your shit for an honest review and/or a way they can give their readers some kind of discount. Bonus offering for them (content, if they like your book, and a giveaway to readers); bonus offering for you (traffic); win-win.
Make a fucking portfolio page to serve employers / peers. Feature interesting personal projects and any previous web shit done for work that you'd like to show off. The next-closest-thing right now sucks. It's
the work WP category and the first thing I saw was
Job Spammers are the Worst which is almost certainly not relevant to their interests.
Obscure tech stuff might be an exception; people who it's relevant to will come in from Google long-tail searches. The other people tech would be relevant to are employers/peers who are trying to quickly assess whether you're smart, coherent, and not a twat. Again, see that bit about making a portfolio page. Employment is probably like online dating; you probably don't want their first impression to be you complaining.
P.S.
FIX YOUR FUCKING URLs(and promptly 301 the old ones)
p.p.s. i might edit this later
p.p.p.s. if this sounds aggressive, it's a matter of having fun. i'm not actually irritated; i just like saying "fuck"