The Winds of Change
Posted by Stropp on March 24, 2007I've been giving quite a bit of thought to the format and structure of Stropp's World lately.
As you might have noticed, I haven't really posted a huge amount about World of Warcraft in recent times. The reason being that I simply haven't been playing it. I've been playing the Lord of the Rings Online beta when I can, and have been checking out other MMOs as well. I've even been tempted into some offline games from time to time. Gears of War being one of them.
Since my focus has been widened a bit, it's been on my mind that perhaps the current theme that I am using for this blog might be a little too focussed on World of Warcraft. So, I'm firstly looking at doing a redesign of the site. I've got a few ideas of what I'd like to do, but I'd like to ask you some questions on what you would prefer.
- Would you prefer the site to keep the dark colour scheme that is currently being used, or would you prefer a light scheme? Maybe something in between?
- Some blogs present articles on the index page in a truncated format, with a 'read more...' link that take the reader to the complete post. This has the advantage of keeping the index page shorter so the reader doesn't have to scroll through huge pages. It's good if the blog has lots of very large articles. The downside is that some people don't want to click through to the full article. What do you think, should Stropp's World use this format?
- Do you like the format of the sidebars? Would you prefer more or less links, categories, etc? Are the sidebars to busy for your taste?
- One of the things that I will be doing is tidying up the categories list. A few months ago I thought I could use it to emulate a tags style system, but it just ended up looking very messy. Do you ever use the tags panels in other blogs and web pages to find content? If you do, I'll look into a proper tags plugin.
- Is there anything else you would comment on about this site?
I would really appreciate it if you could provide some feedback on these questions. The easiest method would be to leave a comment here, but you can also use the contact form to send me an email. And don't forget that I am always happy to receive any feedback on the site that you want to offer.
Ah Stropp I can sense the change in you!…when I began my blog, I wanted a place I could post about whatever was making my life interesting(or a pain!) & I knew if I just made it about one MMORPG there would be a day I stopped playing or the game folded. So it’s good to read that you want to spread your content wider.My opinion is you may lose a little bit of readership from WoW players but the readership that you have that like innovation will hang around.I have been told it takes 6 months to a year to be establihed as a ‘blog force’ & I can believe that. I recieve about 200 hits on average a day but my active readership is still on the low side. It looks like you started a month before I did, how would you say your readership is…active or passive?
Hey Dm,
I think my readership might be a bit like yours. I use slimstats (the wordpress plugin) and it shows I get approximately 250 – 300 visits a day, but not many comment. I get a most of my visits from google, which I rank pretty well in a couple of searches, but I’m not sure how many actually stick around.
You’re right about the six month startup period too, that’s what I’ve read the rule of thumb is. I guess it depends on the topic. However, I haven’t really been actively promoting the site lately, which is something I want to change too!
Promotion is a funny thing for me as I don’t link to ads on my site & I don’t have a’blogroll’ visable in the sidebar. So I’m not ‘giving’ like many other blogs do. It’s my choice of how I want to blog.Most comments come from fellow bloggers, the readers alone are hard to keep & hardly comment.
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