Thinking of completely recoding my blog...

[kthdsn]

Hi guys,

I blog about how to be a happier person at http://kthdsn.com. I designed the site around a custom blog script that was written for me by a friend. I really loved the design and layout of the blog when I first started it but now I feel that it's getting tired and could use renewing.

I'm considering revamping the whole blog, rewriting the scripts and giving it a fresh new look.

I would really appreciate some feedback about the blog as it is now, what people like and dislike about it, what could be improved, what should stay as it is etc. I would love advice about all aspects of the blog, the design, the layout, the ad placement, the content, anything you can comment on.

Thanks for taking the time to help me out, hopefully I can do the same for some of you guys too.

Kate xx

[ses5909]

Well first of all, I like the pictures and the colors. When I'm at your blog, I get a sense for your personality. You say:

I'm considering revamping the whole blog, rewriting the scripts and giving it a fresh new look.

Are you going to write your own or use an existing? I would recommend using an existing platform as there are some great ones out there which would free up your time to develop other aspects of your blog!

[Jelena]

You should definitely use an existing platform since some of them have such a great support for plugins.

It would be cool if you publish at least a paragraph of your entries on your blog page. Right now you post only titles of the posts. You might gain more readers if you let them see at least part of the content on the index page.

[kthdsn]

I prefer to write my own scripts, I enjoy the learning experience.

I can show a snippet from the posts, that would be a nice change to make, thanks for the suggestion.

[gosfgiants]

i can't load site, did you already take it down?

[kthdsn]

No, I had some trouble with my server, there was a bit of downtime while my DNS updated. You must've tried then.

[TVs Worst Adverts]

I prefer to write my own scripts, I enjoy the learning experience.

I can show a snippet from the posts, that would be a nice change to make, thanks for the suggestion.

Hey Kate,

I'm with the others when they say why not try an existing blog platform. Wordpress in particular gives you great functionality as standard and thanks to it open-sourciness really lets you develop your PHP skills if you want to...

...however if you really want to recode you own site though (and I think that it's a pretty good blog "as is") I'd suggest a couple of things.


Add a excert of the post on the blog home page - You've got some very clear post titles (which is good) but it would be useful some times (as a reader) to get more idea about a story before I click through.
Put the post title below the navigation - It took me a couple of posts to realise where the title for the post was displayed.
Make it easier to navigate between posts - It's really useful to have the related posts but to go through all your entries you have to go in and out of the posts each time. A "Next" and "Previous" button would just make it less click intensive.
Finally ;) Add a commenting system - some of your posts are really thought provoking and I'd have loved to have shared those thoughts.


Hope this helps.

Cheers,

[kthdsn]

Thanks Ian, your suggestions were really helpful.

I am a bit swamped at the moment with client work but I'm really hoping to get my blog revamped before the new year, a fresh start so to speak.

I really appreciate you all taking the time to check it out.

[chew-jitsu]

Hey Kate,

The blog looks pretty good. As a designer/developer, I have to agree with everybody that you may want to look into WordPress. I developed a blog system for an employer and it took alot of time to make a fully functional platform. I wouldn't do it again personally since I can customize every line of WordPress if I need to.

WordPress allows me to focus on my designs.

Those are my $.02.