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Makeover

By bowler1996p

There must be something in the air. Bloggers everywhere are redesigning and transforming their blogs. And many of the blogs that I follow have jumped on the bandwagon. Some include:

Perishable Press – Got rid of their fully-featured dark theme and opted for a simpler lighter-colored theme. But within days, he reverted back, with the option for users to choose the simpler theme.
Franklin Bishop – Went from a light theme to a blue and yellow adaptation of the Thesis theme.
TechCrunch – Just went through two rounds of changes. In the first round, the kept their overall look and feel but did a bit of reorganizing. And just recently, they completely overhauled the top links of their blog.
How To Blog – Made a drastic change from a brown theme to a light-colored white and gray theme.
A Blogger Blog – Completely overhauled blog. Went from a red and brown theme to a blue and gray theme, reminiscent of John Chow‘s theme.
Tips From A Network Marketer – Kept the same overall color scheme but moved to cleaner, wider, more fully-featured theme.

And these aren’t all of them! …nor does this include the many bloggers that have made smaller tweaks to their themes.

So what’s up with the wave of blog transformations?

Well, most bloggers haven’t mentioned why they made the change, but some have. The reasons included:

Accessibility. Some themes cannot be comfortable used by many visitors. Perhaps the colors make the text hard to read, or maybe the font size is too small…
Search Engine Optimization. Believe it or not, some themes are better suited for search engine optimization than others, and have been known to improve the ranking of blogs.
Speed. Some themes are faster than others. And with Yan reminding us the we only have 10 seconds to impress our visitors, speed is a great reason to switch to a lightweight theme.
Features. This is probably the most common reason for switching themes. Some themes, for example, have lots of innate functionality that make managing a blog easy and more efficient.

What about your blog? Are you thinking of giving it a new look? And is this based on feedback from users or something else?

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Tags: blogs, color scheme

18 Responses to “Does Your Blog Need A Makeover?”

On January 28, 2009 at 9:03 am,TechZoomIn wrote:
Change required but not very often. Change is always good when you have good amount of people looks daily.
On January 28, 2009 at 10:24 am,Wei Liang | Earn Money Online wrote:
Thanks for mentioning ABB revamption. I guess my design do have something in common when looking at John Chow’s one. I like my current design and it makes my blog looks more professional. Not to mention that it actually have an impact with getting blog advertisers.
Wei Liang
On January 28, 2009 at 10:34 am,Kim Woodbridge wrote:
I’ve also noticed so many sites switching to Thesis – it’s like a cult
Perishable Press redesigns frequently, I think, but then that’s what he does for a living. I’m not familiar with the other sites that you mentioned. Maybe people are redesigning for the new year …?
On January 28, 2009 at 11:21 am,Velvet Blues wrote:
@TechZoomIn: Indeed. Some of these changes were for the better. In many cases, the blogs were made more user-friendly and in response to feedback from visitors.
@Wei Liang: Yes, your new design looks very professional. The previous design was more of a hobby theme, ie. the pet project of a blogger. But now, it looks like so much more is going on. And yes, being able to get advertisers is a big thing.
@Kim: Haha. Cult. Yes, so many people use it. SimplyBlog, HowToMakeMyBlog, etc…
And yes, Perishable Press is always up to something. But I am glad that he decided to return to his previous theme because it is very soothing. The theme alone makes me want to visit.
On January 28, 2009 at 2:47 pm,Jonathan Muller wrote:
Thanks for mention HTB. What is your opinion of the new blog theme? I think it looks more professional, and the brown didn’t really look like blog in my opinion. I’ve love to hear what you think though.
On January 28, 2009 at 3:26 pm,Velvet Blues wrote:
@Jonathan: Yes, this theme is definitely more professional. And once you get those advertising spots filled, it will be complete.
The other blog theme was nice, but a whole lot of prime page real estate was consumed by the large focus on ‘subscribing’. This new theme, also has subscribe in a prominent location, but the focus is more on the content…
I also prefer lighter-colored blog themes… So, you’ve won me over.
On January 28, 2009 at 6:07 pm,Jen wrote:
Thanks for the mention. Nice to know someone noticed.
I changed my theme mainly because of the sidebar. The widgets didn’t fit right and looked all weird. Plus I wanted to put some advertising blocks in.
I will say that changing a theme isn’t just about changing the background. You have to change around some plugins- as mentioned in your earlier post- and change your formatting a bit. I am still going back through older posts and revamping them to look better with this theme. Very time consuming. At least for me
I still may not be done though…. still a few things I want that this theme doesn’t have.
On January 28, 2009 at 9:05 pm,Nihar wrote:
Good post…
My blog theme is for almost 9 months now. I have to check out some other themes. What i need is to reduce the bounce rate.
On January 28, 2009 at 10:12 pm,Velvet Blues wrote:
@Jen: Hopefully you can make a few tweaks to the theme to increase functionality, because after all of this work, I doubt that you want to switch to another theme. What do you want that this theme doesn’t have?
@Nihar: Do you think that changing the theme will reduce the bounce rate? And what kind of theme do you think that you will switch to?
On January 29, 2009 at 9:59 am,Dennis Edell wrote:
I equate a lot of them to simply, “new year, new look”.
Some minor changes coming to mine soon as well. The overall theme is staying, as it has everything I want, but the different sidebars will have a new feel soon.
On January 29, 2009 at 11:37 am,Kurt Avish wrote:
I wanted to switch template last December and move to a magazine style but after testing the new template for many hours… I realised I love mu current template a lot and as sucj I didn’t divorce with her and is still in a relationship with my current template Not planning to change so soon.
On January 29, 2009 at 2:20 pm,Velvet Blues wrote:
@Dennis: Yes, I guess people put things off and when the New Year comes they have a burst of energy and do all the things they procrastinated on… I am still waiting for my burst of energy.
I’ll stay tuned for your changes.
@Kurt: Yeh, it is difficult to change. Every time I make adjustments, no matter how minor, it takes a while to get used to them. And sometimes I revert back.
On January 29, 2009 at 3:18 pm,Raju wrote:
awesome post Shirley! Those 4 points captures the intent of blog redesign completely!
On January 30, 2009 at 3:17 am,Ajith Edassery | DollarShower wrote:
I want to move to a better SEO optimized and super light theme (something like daily blog tips). I also need to rebrand it a little bit with a new logo etc.
Can somebody (1) provide a free review of my blog along these lines? and (2) suggest a good free theme that suits my blog (:lol: Money is the problem here and hence I have to make the changes myself and only the logo designing will be outsourced)
On January 30, 2009 at 2:43 pm,Velvet Blues wrote:
@Raju: Yes, and lately, it seems like accessibility is really gaining ground.
@Ajith: Well, there are all sorts of great themes within the WP-database. I usually build my own custom themes, so I can’t really recommend anything… But as I go around the blogosphere, I’ll make note of anything that looks promising.
Are there any special features that you are looking for in your theme? Or do you want something completely basic?
On February 1, 2009 at 10:17 am,Ben Pei wrote:
I would say if it isn’t spoilt, don’t fix it! Just make sure your readers know what you are doing..
On February 2, 2009 at 5:52 am,Velvet Blues wrote:
@Ben Pei: Indeed. Sometimes, I am horrified when bloggers change their themes. What many people don’t realize is that people don’t like change. And when readers get used to something, it is hard for them to accept something else. So I typically suggest gradual changes.
And yes, user feedback should be an important part of the process.
On February 19, 2009 at 2:46 am,Web Design Bureau of Mauritius wrote:
I am currently working on a new template for my blog. There are many reasons for changing the theme as you’ve mentioned. On my part it is first of all to give the blog a unique look as well as to increase its speed and SEO and to be able to code some of my ideas into it.
I have decided to make use of the theme as a means of proposing online tutorials in CSS and wordpress theme building. It might at least be of use to other people.