I’ll be back on Wednesday
- Filed under: Wpdesigner.com
I’m taking a short break and will be back on Wednesday, August 1, 2007. For several reasons, first one is my cousin’s wedding on Saturday (tomorrow). I’ve been helping her with the wedding for the past several days, which explains the recent lack of new content.
Second reason is I just need a break to think things through. I’m very unhappy with how Wpdesigner.com is progressing, with its current design, and with the status of my ebook on how to create a WordPress theme.
Growth-wise, this blog is going to get its first 40,000 uniques month; July will be the highest traffic month. Although that’s a good thing, this blog is nowhere near where I want it to be. My goal is to push Wpdesigner to #1 on Technorati and at least #500 on Alexa, by the end of the year. Yes, those are ambitious goals, but they’re doable so why not?
Content-wise, there’s not enough good topics to write about if I keep sticking to WordPress and WordPress themes. Recently, other than posting WordPress themes, I’ve been struggling to find topics to write about. I need to sit down and reconsider my niche, whether to expand, and where to expand to if that will be the plan.
Design-wise, this blog is a pretty face. Beyond that, I think it’s difficult to use it. For example, the front page has no one specific area that you can immediately focus on. What do you think? Is this blog’s design too complicated? Are the navigations clear enough? Do you use the search form at all?
About the tutorial ebook on how to create a WordPress theme from scratch, I haven’t had anytime to work on it. At this point, I’m thinking about starting from scratch to refocus the book on a lighter version of the Wrath theme, which was based on Sandbox. The reason is I want every would-be reader of my book to develop a strong foundation. And, what better way to do that than to create the tutorial around the structure of a theme based on Sandbox? I’m not going to use Sandbox for this book because Sandbox is a theme for themers or theme authors. It’s not meant for beginners.
Lastly, what would you change about Wpdesigner? I will be reading your comments and suggestions over the weekend and on Monday and Tuesday.
I like WP Designer the way it is. It would be nice if you can include WP Plugins or Widgetizing techniques as well.
I like themes that have the content before other section of the page.
SP, I don’t think your niche is big enough to make it anywhere near #1 on Technorati and/or the Alexa #500 (which isn’t an accurate measure anyway). There simple aren’t enough people interested in WordPress themes or how you can customize them.
If you change your topic on WPdesigner you might have problems with a) the name “WP”designer and b) losing a lot of your established, loyal readers who aren’t interested in a broader niche/topic.
Wish you all the best with your goals though!
Celebrienne – Losing loyal readers is my main concern. The domain name… not so much
.
Take your time, we’ll be waiting
I’d say stick to what you’re doing. I’m an art director who’s obsessed with wordpress, and learn a lot from your blog. You have a great eye for design and the ability to program which is a major plus. But you write a way that makes the programming part seem a lot easier than it normally seems.
If I was to request something, it would be more posts on doing things with wordpress that arent’ blog related. Turning them into magazine sites, css galleries or social networks like your last post on making a css gallery. There are still a ton of people out there that don’t realize all of the possibilities with wordpress. And there are lots of people out there with all the ideas, but no idea how to make them a reality. I think you can really help them. And me.
take care and keep it up.
As far as the aesthetic of your site, UI and navigation I think you’re in the clean. This is a crisp, clean, 2.0 aesthetic that’s very pleasing to the eye. There’s nothing complicated about it.
I think Celebrienne nailed it, though. You’ve established yourself as a WordPress-related site/blog. If you want to break free from that (yet still provide WP content), go grab a new domain. You’re a pretty savvy guy; it shouldn’t be too hard for you to start redirecting visitors to your new URL. Sure, you might lose a few visitors in the process, but ultimately it’s not about hits – it’s peace of mind.
If you take the time to do it right and give visitors ample time to redirect and bookmark, you should be in the clear and much happier.
Good luck and thanks for all of your help,
Jesse
Hi SP,
Your site is top notch in design. It’s anything but complicated. I use the search feature often but it may not be necessary to have it in it’s current placement. You could swap it out with Tutorial announcement on the right side.
My thought is to use the space currently being used for ‘search’ as a spot to feature whatever it is you are featuring at the time. Of course you would need to do it in a manner so as it does not look like a site description. Other than that your site is perfect and very easy on the eye.
It’s nice and even quite refreshing to focus on getting your visitors to utilize the search function but it really doesn’t need to stand out bigger than the site itself (if you know what I mean).
I think Celebrienne is correct in regards to the ratings on technarti and alexa. You probably get there with WordPress topics alone. So expanding your niche is definitely a good idea. At least to the point of covering more related topics like was mentioned earlier.
Another thing is maybe you should do more networking and collaborations. I’m not sure what you’ve currently done in that respect. Something like getting additional writers for your blog. Others, that are doing different things related to wordpress. Perhaps have weekly guest contributory posts. That might spice things up a bit.
You just might find you can end up pulling in people that have never heard of wordpress before. You can do this by getting the full potential of wordpress known to the rest of the world. Having other writers join in with their own following might be the way to making it work.
Just some thoughts I thought I’d share with you.
Lika
your themes are very nice. But yeah i keep coming back at your tutorial section hoping that i could find tuts for css navigation style just like yours. be back soon
WordPress is a good niche. You can talk about plugins as well, and how to intergrate plugins with themes. Perhaps you are personally to close to your blog and just need a break away from it to feel fresh again and see more possibilities.
By the way, I really need a book on creating WP themes. So, you create it, and I’ll buy it.
I love your blog, by the way.
I think expanding your current niche is a good way to go. Without knowing the reasons behind the #1 technorati goal it’s hard to say which route you should take. For me I would expand the site to include plugins , not so much a directory of every single one but plugins that YOU find useful / interesting.
Also getting guest writers or Theme off competitions. Finally I think the thing you do best is being able to expand our understanding of unique ways to make WP work for a ton of projects and ideas.
Just keep pumping out these beautiful themes and I’ll be a happy man.
Hi SP,
the first time I came here, I found it very confusing, but I got used to it… Personally I prefer much simple designs.
Everybody is used to look for a search box when they need it, so maybe it doesn’t have to be so big.
I loved your tutorial!
Hey SP, since you’ve me out, trying to return the favor per your request …
I think wpdesigner has a very nice/bright/clean layout, but it isn’t geared towards functionality/usability – the blog entries, the reason I come to the site, are pretty far down and so I find I have to just skip over the fairly tall (in terms of height pixels) search box and featured themes (which I for, some reason, never look at – maybe it would be good to have those sections show for new users, but use cookies and some scripting to not show them for return users or users who have returned a certain number of times?).
another comment about the search box is that, while I think it looks better to use the wordpress search (in terms of aesthetic appearance of search results), when I actually want to FIND what I’m searching for, I use google site search (site:wpdesigner search terms) to find it – for instance, I wanted to track down your post about the plugins your site uses – I searched using your search box and didn’t see it (at least not on the first age of results) – I did the google site search and it was results number one – I think it would be better to integrate the google-offered site search code (can also be monetized) into a design layout – so to improve the part I don’t like about the google results (the appearance) and include the part I do like (the actual, you know, search results) – I need to do this for my own site as well – maybe there’s a way to leverage both the google results and some of the stuff a wordpress site knows about its own structure to get even better results – I’ll have to look into that, although my impulse is to guess that, unfortunately, google is just flat out better
gotta run now – will drop some more thoughts later
Thank you to everyone for pointing out which part of the current layout is lacking and what to do about Wpdesigner’s niche and content.
It’s tempting to expand beyond just WordPress so I could have more topics to write about, but like most of you have suggested through comments and emails, I will stick with WordPress.
And to solve the lack-of-topics problem, I’ll have to create my own sub-niches and weave in blog design, in general, for more frequent postings.
I just actually started reading your blog like 3 weeks ago,
I was asking around on digital point forums where to get some cool skins that were not full of crappy sponsor links and someone recommended me to come here,
I actually really really like this site,
My first thoughts when I saw the design and layout were “wow” seriously, I own several websites and blogs ( Using prosense theme, I found here ), and this look is great
I just hit the enter key by accident, thats why I am posting again, seriously not spamming….
But what I was saying is that this blog layout you have here looks cool, I would not change it ,
I get like you as well, sometimes I think that my sites aren’t growing fast enough etc etc, like you were saying above and then I do takes breaks as well and just think back to were I was a year ago and then I see, how far I have really come.
As for the topics, stay on course , Not only talk about themes but how about blogging seo
Like stephen spencers new title tag mod for wordpress, stuff like that
Well My name is Joe , btw
Thanks for letting me comment
Your WP Plugins or Widgetizing techniques very good..
thanks
I also just started reading within the last month, and do think sticking with WP is the way to go. That being said, I think there’s a lot about themes that you have yet to get into. (without digging through the archives to check).
I know I have a mental list of things I’d either like to see or need to get to writing about. (There’s not near enough technology bits on my own blog though.)
Take a good look around the official codex: it’s wildly outdated in some spots, and there’s loads of theme tricks in there that you could easily expand on here in the blog. You could cover all kinds of wild and wacky things that themes authors can to with their themes – if only someone would write a clear, updated tutorial how.
Have you considered guest authors? (I’m heavily into WPMU myself.)
#1 on Technorati might be a little lofty, but I can see top ten being doable for you.
I’m currently #7 on Technorati, well, unofficially #7
.
I guess you’re well on your way then.
(My other site is in the top 5K. Sighs.)
Check this link, SP, seems like they are using a function php to secretly place advertising on blogs that are using one of their themes, including some of yours.
Thanks Milo. Some theme authors, including myself, have been steaming about those TemplateBrowser thieves. Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about them.
Well, I don’t think so, if we (the theme authors) stick together and report this site, then action can/should/will be taken.
One report will not solve this problem. Some of what they’re doing is perfectly legal under GPL and Creative Commons licenses. I think it has to be delt with, case-by-case.
Although something can be done, it takes time to get the theme authors together and it takes time to deal with those problems case-by-case.
Well, informed around ten of the theme authors, see what happens,
on the other hand I had several issues with a russian Themes site and another US one, after a few mails from my lawyer and myself ALL of my themes were taken off both sites.
^hahaha. That’s great! I’ve never came across a theme author that took action to protect their work before. Maybe I should start doing that too.
Do that, it’s your work, a piece of you and it’ll stay online for a while (til CSS3 is out =)).
And why not taking action?
Allowing others to scrape your work? GPL and Creative Commons license does NOT allow everything .
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