Setting sail into The Great Unknown

Some people make weird decisions sometimes. They decide to sail into The Great Unknown. It must have been like that for Christopher Columbus when he set sail to the west. To the west, to discover a new route to ‘The East’.

Map of the Atlantic Ocean by Toscanelli

Just try to get your head around this: At that time (1492) there was no real knowledge about what the world really looked like. People thought the earth was flat, instead of sphere – shaped.

For all Christopher knew he would fall off the earth when he reached the end of it. Falling over the edge. All he had was a map, dating back to 1474 by Toscanelli. Toscanelli had discussed the whole issue with Columbus and Toscanelli thought finding a new route to ‘The East’ by going west ‘feasible’. Feasible! Maybe you can see on the map that there are ‘a few important parts’ missing there.

Columbus tried it anyways. Even if he would fall of the earth, he wanted to give it a try. Sail in the great unknown.

Well… A couple of hundred years passed since then, a few wars and colonization of ‘The America’s’ was a fact. The rest is all… Erm… History.

The Great Unknown

Writing, maintaining and developing a blog is hard work. Hard work but very satisfying. It helps bloggers keen their sanity. Well most of the time anyways. After months and months of work,writing, promoting, designing, coding, optimizing, adjusting layout and research you are done tweeking.

Done. Next hurdle ‘The Great Unknown’?

Then- one day – you step away from your freshly pressed blog, squint your eyes and you begin to wonder if this all is going the way you intended it to go.

Panic! You begin to wonder things like ‘Should I stick to my niche?’, the design just doesn’t feel right, or you are not sure anymore if the whole setup of your blog is still easy to maintain.

There are different ways to find your blogs ‘East’. Maybe try a different route? To the west? There are no blog – maps. Now what. Maybe this helps:

Over the months you have been working on your blog you have gotten used to the whole design of your blog. Do you still like the design? Remember that the design visions people have change.
Zoom out every once in a while to get the bigger picture. Is everything designed in a ‘logical’ way? Is navigation on your blog easy for people that visit it for the first time?
Do you really need 36209 plugins on your site? Remember not everyone has an ultra-fast internet connection. Work on the loading time of your page.
Does your content still justify the title of your blog? A blog about fishing with the title ‘New ways to plant Cucumbers’ does not work.
Ask someone you trust to give you their honest opinion. Listen to their opinion. (Important…)

Setting sail to a new destination

Most of the time you will get some pretty good advice that way. If everything fails there’s always the option to start over again. Dive in the great unknown, so to speak.

I have done so myself three months ago, when I decided to step over from ‘Blogspot’ to WordPress on a hosted site and I think that was the right decision.

So… Now it’s your turn.

Did you ever decide to redesign your blog and what made you do that? Things we should know? Lessons learned? Other experiences? Anything? Share them, if you want. We all might learn something.

Happy sail’ing
// Jan

11 comments on “Setting sail into the Great Unknown”

Brenda on July 4, 2012 at 10:12 PM said:

OMG, Can I just plead the 5th on this one LMAO

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Jan on July 5, 2012 at 9:21 PM said:

Lol, Brenda, the queen of change, but I have heard that’s a girls prerogative! So you’re off the hook…

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- Brenda on July 5, 2012 at 9:46 PM said:
  
  hehe if you say so. I just like switching things up and am always looking for a challenge!
  
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  - Jan on July 5, 2012 at 9:58 PM said:
    
    That’s for sure! Never a dull moment @ Brenda’s place. Maybe I’ll do a revamp once, just to see what effect it has.
    
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Vanita on July 5, 2012 at 2:03 AM said:

i knew you’d be happy on wordpress
as my blog grows, the design changes, sometimes within a space of months, sometimes within days. just as you grow into adulthood your style changes…the way you dress, the way you decorate, what you listen to, what you read, what you watch on tv, heck, even what you eat may change. so goes it for the blog. as an extension of you, as you grow, as it grows, things change.
Vanita recently posted: Trapped

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Jan on July 5, 2012 at 9:37 PM said:

You were right back then! True, I see some little and some not so little changes on your blog once in a while. Re-thinking the design can be a good experience in trying to figure out what your audience likes.
It’s something like me having a mustache for 12 years, shave it off, look in the mirror and ask myself “Wow, is this really me?”…

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Lisa on July 5, 2012 at 2:19 PM said:

Looking back I wished I had started right on WordPress (hard to switch from one to the other midway) but since I learned so much by doing both I really can’t complain. Everything new is a learning experience. We can’t grow if we don’t learn. I’ve been trying to eliminate some plug-ins along the way, don’t like being dependent on them.
Lisa recently posted: What Inspires You To Shop Online Today?

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Jan on July 5, 2012 at 9:40 PM said:

Same here,but you’ve done it!
Plus you got me thinking now… what di I really need on my page? Alexa ranking widget? NO. Visitors counter? NO. There are other means to get information plus… Does it do any good to the visitors / readers? I don’t think so. So. drop them (I was just listening to my own advice…)

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Mayura on July 6, 2012 at 2:18 PM said:

Hey Jan,

Yes… I’ve redesigned my blog couple of times and some things changing everyday. Mine is totally different from what I had first (If you remember) and moving on. New pages, changes to flow of the blog, trying new plugins, assess performance, finding trending content… Oh my gosh There’s more to do in one single blog.

Asking fans or friends is really helpful. I’ve tried out ‘em several times and I think we should respect the feedback of readers just before jumping into MAJOR changes which affects to user experience. Honestly, I’d love to make some major changes without asking anyone ’cause it’s my blog Anyway I DIDN’T for which affects on readers. You know ‘em all as a programmer. Aren’t ya?

However I believe design or customization reveals our personality in our blogs. Mostly we can predict does he/she neat, organized, creative or what qualities have by just looking at design and writing formation. no? I can say you’re fast and organized, ’cause this site is SUPER fast…

Thanks for suggestions mate and you’re great initiator Columbus end up on blog at the end of post…

Cheers…
Mayura recently posted: How to Disable Text Selection on Your Website

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Jan on July 6, 2012 at 4:28 PM said:

Hi Mayura.
Thanks for letting me know the site loads fast. I was looking for performance and that’s why I decided to loose some of the ‘not really needed’ plugins. That helped a lot. It can be a bad experience for the viewer / visitor, because there are not very many patient people out there anymore.
I agree with you, that a blog should represent (at least) the content of a blog and it’s *very* ok to spice that up with things one really likes in blog design.
There is always room for improvement. Not only visuals but also in navigation. Maybe I’ll switch to a ‘static’ landing page and make the actual blog an option in the header menu. I don’t know yet, we’ll see!
Have a great one!

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