Five Reasons You Need to Upgrade Your Blog Design

It peps up your blogging mojo

You know that feeling you get when your hair is done and you're in a shiny new outfit? It makes you feel like a million bucks. You get the same feeling when you give your blog design a new look!

You've grown as a blogger

Maybe you've decided to be a more dedicated blogger. In the past, you may have blogged recreationally. But now, you're goal is to blog three times a week. Step up that look, honey!

Your readers deserve it

Spoil people that read your blog every day. Let them show up to your special space and see something just for them.

You have a new strategy

Did you decide to step up your social media plan? How about blogging frequency? People will notice something different about your blog when they come back.

Just because

In the last ten years, I've done about, oh I don't know, 18 redesigns. Maybe more. Many of them happened for no reason at all, but made a big difference in the look of my blog.

---

If you're thinking about doing a blog redesign, I hope you'll check out my shop on Etsy! I create pre-made themes for Wordpress, and have several services that help move the process along for you. Each theme looks great on the desktop, tablet or a cell phone, and they're all less than $40 each. For more information, check out the site!

My Most Productive Blogging Tip So Far

I tried to be a good wife. We’re on our honeymoon and we are supposed to unplug and enjoy the week. But seven days with no internet can be really tough. We only have free wifi in the lobby, and it is slooooooow. Slower than slow. So slow that I can’t even open my email on it.  Josh said something so simple, and it was brilliant: Just use Word/Notepad.

I’ve read this in other blogs before, but I’ve never really needed to use it (or so I thought). Even when I've used the notes app on my cell phone, I figured it accomplished the same thing. My blogging routine has always included typing directly into my Wordpress editor and adding photos as I go. But this time, I had no internet, so a desktop publisher was my only option.  I tried it for an hour, I knocked out almost eight full posts. This never, ever happens to me when I have Internet access or a television nearby. It gave me the opportunity to focus on my writing while omitting the distractions that always suck me in on the web. 

See, I start writing a post. Then I check in on Twitter or Facebook. Then I create a link to a product on the post. Then I start to notice other products. Then I look for more music on Spotify. Thirty minutes later, I have four sentences written down. I'm working longer, not smarter.

Here’s what I did: I started writing blog prompts as large headings, then filled them in with my thoughts. When my mind wandered and I thought of a new idea, I buried that at the end of the page, and added my thoughts on the topic. (This part is definitely a mind-cluttered mess, but my A.D.D. always get the best of me.) Nevertheless, I got plenty of work done, and wasn't distracted at all! In the future, I'll turn the wifi off on my computer for an hour and just write.

Want more blog tips? Head over to my guide for better beauty blogging!

5 Ways I'm "Downsizing" My Blog

In the beginning of the year, I thought about things that I could do to speed up my website and make it less clunky. I was scared to drop some of these things, but in the end, it's not really that bad that they aren't around. Here's what I ditched.

I Dropped Disqus.

I really liked Disqus, because it was a formal content management system. But my blog was really, really slowing down, so I opted for the Wordpress basic commenting system. In the end, it hasn't really helped me generate or lose more comments then I was getting before.

I Stopped Posting Theme Days

Mondays won't always be for FOTD's and Friday's won't always be for fashion. I want to post what I want, when I want. I tried to stay on a schedule, but some days I was just getting bored. I want to live a little.

Super Simple Sidebar

I have my social media links, some subscription widgets, my blogher ads, and that's basically it. I'll be adding a few more items, because the sidebar really is precious real estate that I could be doing more with. But I really like how clean it is

More Call To Action

In the past, I didn't really want to do the whole "please subscribe" thing on Youtube. But you know what? There's nothing wrong with this. If you want something, ask for it. I've put the "subscribe to Youtube" button  and a Facebook widget on the side, and I have seen my stats go up significantly every since.

I Made the Blog About Me

In the eight years prior, I have constantly fought over making this blog more "lifestyle" oriented. But I thought it would be more exciting to make it a beauty journey and diary, also including pretty much whatever. I've done a few posts here and there. I'm not totally sure that I can keep it up, but we'll see!