The New MorganLinton.com – Love It? Hate It? Let Me Know!

Hello and welcome to the brand new design for MorganLinton.com. This design change was prompted by feedback from users that the blog was getting hard to read and a bit too busy along with a number of other suggestions. For those who visited yesterday you saw things in the works as we hit a few compatibility issues with the latest version of Thesis, but now we are rocking.

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So I want to share the changes made based on user feedback, and open the feedback loop to include even more people. Here’s what was changed:

  • Moved from Standard Theme to Thesis 2.0 – while I liked my brief stint with Standard Theme I found it to be quite limited when it came to customization. Thesis 2.0 is just about the most customizable badass WordPress theme on the planet, albeit a bit crazy to learn how to use since it really is different from any other theme out there. Now that I’m using Thesis I can make any customization you can think of so whatever is suggested here can easily be added.
  • Solid White Middle Section – I had the most amount of feedback around the transparency between the content, ad, and header sections. People said this made reading the blog distracting. Priority #1 for me is and always will be readability. As you can now see, the whole middle is now white with no gaps to distract!
  • Font was a bit hard to read – a few people commented about wanting a serif-typeface which seems to be easier to read. While there is a lot of debate on whether serif really is easier to read I wanted to give it a shot and see what people think.
  • Focus of the blog clear for new visitors – I have a lot of new readers and while about 90% of my posts are about domain names, 10% are about other things like WordPress, SEO, and programming. The new logo now states “Blogging about domains since 2007” to make this crystal clear. As many of you know I love startups and I do blog about startups on Startup Nook but I got clear feedback last year that my average reader really doesn’t want to hear about startups and venture capital, they want to hear about domains, and that’s why 90% of what you’ll find on my blog is domain-focused.
  • Wider column – last but not least people felt that the left-column could be a bit wider so they don’t have to jump down lines quite as often. I made this a bit wider but can still go more if people think this would be a greater improvement.
  • Animated ads – people aren’t a big fan of animated ads on my blog, I know this and will be working with advertisers to move to static ads however this transition has not taken place yet. I have a lot of amazing sponsors that make amazing products or services and keep renewing every year. As many of you know I regularly turn-down advertisers on my blog even when a spot opens up if I don’t think that they are a good fit for my readership.

One last note, there will be a new horizontal banner going at the top of my blog for NameFind, a service from Buy Domains. I have had a lot of positive feedback about this service and it has been the most-clicked banner on my blog for some time now. If you haven’t tried this service out make sure to check it out, very cool stuff!

Those are the changes made, plus one of the changes that is on the way. Now it’s your turn. Let me know what you love and hate about the blog, as Dr. Frasier Crane says, “I’m listening.”

Photo Credit: Kristina B via Compfight cc

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton