June 16, 2016

MY NEW RESPONSIVE BLOG WEBSITE TEMPLATE

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Well would you have a look around here! Yep I have gone and done it! I have updated my blog template!  I had been thinking about it for a long time, but I so loved my 3 column all singing all dancing template, I designed it myself, tweaking it here and there over the years and had never really tired of it....well that was until this year!

What with us moving house, I have managed to fill my days up quite easily with home chores and a bit of crafting and gardening, so I have not been blogging as much as I would like too!...I still think in stories though!...everything I do, I think to myself that would make a good blog post, but I never seem to get around to it!

So I thought... what would make me fall in love with blogging again!
...and hopefully get my blog traffic surfing to new heights as although my original design (below) was lovely, it was not responsive and also had too many widgets, not to mention lots of broken code, which meant bad SEO!

So a new design it had to be!

So I started investigating on Google (like you do!) and realised that blog templates had come a long way since I first created mine!...HTML coding has changed quite a bit too and what with me not getting any younger...I thought i would try and find someone to do the hard work for me.

I first started thinking I would change my blogging platform over to wordpress! As bloggers on that platform tend to have a better designed blog...you know a more modern look...so I researched day after day, pondering, questioning and procrastinating...where was a gal to start? I got some help from my old friend Cathy from Avalon Rose Web Design...Now there's a gal that can code!  She  told me that is was best to stick with Blogger and also advised me about my website (I want to update that too!) She recommended SHOPIFY for the website side of things...but that is a whole other story!
Thank you Cathy x
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For me personally I always liked designing the graphics...the template coding was always confusing, but I taught myself quite a lot and could recognise code and could code my blog and also went on to design other peoples blogs too, we are talking about 5 years ago now.  I just wouldn't have the confidence to do it now though, as I have said times have changed so much, I feel this new advancement in coding has passed me by now.

Anyways, after a lot of research I decided it was best that I didn't migrate over to wordpress, you see it's ok if you are new to blogging or you are just about  to start a blog...but if you are an old timer like me with a lot of posts (I have nearly 900!) then it can get complicated.  Apparently when you move over...all your posts 'go wonky'! and to be honest I didn't feel like amending each and every one of them!

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So here I am, still on Blogger, but with a shiny new design by the delightful Heather from GeorgiaLou Design...What a Brilliant gal she is and so lovely to work with, my design is all responsive and everything...I could of just bought the template as Heather provides detailed instructions on how to install it...lol! I read those instructions for about 5 seconds and thought to myself that i would rather her so it all for me hahaha! Shows you how far detached I have become from designing my own blog! Thank you Heather.

I did once call these two column template's 'The Plain Jane's' because there was a trend that seemed to be spreading like wildfire...just a plain white background, two columns and a very plain header...and there was no way I was going to have one of those!  

This template however, goes far and above the 'plain jane' look...and of course I still have my pretty pictures to spruce the place up a bit and my new logo.

So...here I am in my new surroundings...A New House and A New Blog Design...(but thankfully not a new baby lol!) So I am hoping this will be the start of a new relationship with blogging...

Wish me luck peeps...