It’s a brand new year. On my previous post, I’ve shared a short summary of my 2008 as well as my goals for this year — in case you haven’t read it yet. Promise, it’s worth it.
I’m currently on the process of removing clutter in this blog in almost all aspects, from the technical slash geek side down to the content. I’m planning to do this project for the entire month of January. I intended to dedicate that much time because I don’t want to set an unrealistic goal as I always did for the past few years. Those unrealistic goals just brought me disappointments to myself, and I don’t want that to happen.
In this post, I’ll be sharing my insights on my initial stage of the big revamp. I hope you’ll share yours, too.
Paid Reviews; those were the days
While reviewing my old blog posts (mark the useless ones for deletion), I’ve realized that it’s been a very long time since I made a paid review. It was still dated April 17, almost 9 months ago. To my last count, I made 10 of them. From those eleven, one signifact thing I learned aside from having my Pagerank penalized by Google was that I make superb reviews. To further strenghthen the statement, let me boast my success in a local review-writing contest.
Those were the days. I earned a lot from them but it costed my blog’s Pagerank and credibility. To date, I don’t have any plans to continue writing paid reviews for stuff I haven’t really tried. I’m planning to focus more on making good and credible content.
Poor Layout
Lately, I’ve been reading web design and web development websites. I sure grasped a lot of good lessons and ideas from the experts. Reviewing the layout of my blog, I saw a lot of aspects I’ve overlooked; as follows:
- The search form was not that visible right away. When users get lost, they usually look for the search form. My search form before was stuck on the middle of my sidebar making it hard to see. I decided to relocate it on the most prominent part of the sidebar, the topmost area.
- The area above the fold was a total disaster. The area above the fold refers to the first area seen after pageload. My initial remedy was to remove the big advertisement block. I’m planning to reduce the height of my top horizontal navigation bar soon.
- What’s clickable, what’s not? On some areas of the blog such as the top horizontal navigation bar, it was unclear which part was clickable or not. Initial action taken was to put an underline below the clickable text.
- Advertisements were everywhere. Yes they were. Remedy was to put advertisements only on profitable posts.
A Better Theme from scratch while maintaining a same old feel
I’m thinking of making another theme for this blog while maintaining the same old feel. Maintaining the feel would be hard but as much as possible I’d try to. 
Interesting topics?
Let’s hear it from you. You suggest any topic to be discussed here, who knows I might be interested on writing something about that, too. It’s okay if it’s not a geek stuff, I’ll try my best to put a geek touch on it. (laughs)
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wag ka na mag change ng theme
patuloy mo nalang pag optimize mo ng ufc 93 then 94.. hehe
jehzlau’s last blog post..Jehzlau Concepts Evolution
Honga, maganda naman ang current theme mo. Hehe. Pero I’m sure, mas maganda ang binabalak mo na bagong theme. Abangan ko ‘yan.
Fitz’s last blog post..Organizing and Keeping Financial Records and Personal Documents: How and Why
Yep, this theme is great Mikko
Pano ba magjoin sa Blogbank? And how did you put the Adsense ads inside your posts?
Rommel’s last blog post..Happy New Year!
Topic? I suggest you write a post about relationships once in a while. Tsismoso talaga noh? hehehe. Ang angle eh from the point of view of a geek blogger? Geek pa rin ba, o na- shed off mo na iyon? Or a post about time management – how do you juggle competing and equally demanding aspects of your life. Malay mo matulungan mo mga sabog mag-isip na tulad ko.
jan’s last blog post..7 Accomplishments of a Month Old Blog
oks naman them mo mik…no nid to change it but since New Year naman..pwede na rin for a new look and touch.
Other interesting topic? hmmmm…bakit ka nga ba naging geek aside from teh fact na galing ka sa Pisay…
hehehehe…
exan’s last blog post..Opening of the Year with Idleness
@kuya Jehz: I’ll think about it again.
@kuya Fitz: Sana nga mas maganda..
@kuya Rommel: Edit mo yung WordPress theme para makalagay ng ads sa loob. Pwede rin sa loob mismo ng post. BlogBank: http://ads.blogbank.com.ph/publisher/beta
@kuya Jan: Hirap nyan ah. Wala pa akong serious relationship, muntik lang. Wahehehe.
@kuya Exan: Hindi ko nga alam. Wala pa kaming computer, interested na ako about high-tech stuff. Tas nagkacomputer kami, 9 years old ako, tinuruan ako ng pinsan ko ng HTML. Sunod na ung totoong programming with BASIC.
We learn from our mistakes, yet there’s good stuff will happen…
Lyndsay’s last blog post..Nha Trang’s Best Food Place
Hah! I’ll buy this layout from you if you’re just gonna discard it and replace it with a new one! =D
Joeben Buena’s last blog post..I Can Haz Web Design for Krismaz?
You write very well, ha. It’s so nice to bump into this site of yours.
I am also in a sort of a revamp. Simply put, I deleted everything of my blogs and just started two days ago. I know that idea sucks but I love doing that.
For the posts, I can’t see myself putting them all at my website. It appears to be so messy to me. Although I wrote all of them naman, I still find it un-ME.
Your layout is way cooler, I guess, than your old ones. Am pretty sure of that. Being the CS student in you, I have no doubt that you are really the GEEK.
Be reading more later. Just hafta eat. See ya.
Keep it up.
Keep in touch.
Paurong.
Paurong.com’s last blog post..Enrolment and first read novel.
Hi Mikko!
I agree with Jehz. This is a good theme, as it is. Clean and crisp.
Happy New Year from a faithful subscriber!
bariles’s last blog post..Spotlight on General Santos City’s Tuna Handline Fishing Sector
The current looks good. pero mukhang may binabalak kang mas malupet e. hhehe
@Lyndsay:
Nosebleed.. Joke..
@Joeben Buena:
You don’t need to buy it. I’ll give it to you, for free!! I’ll only give it to you once I finish my replacement for this, of course.
@Paurong.com
You are flattering me like hell. Wahehehehe.
@Jox:
I’m pressured. ODK (O Diyos Ko!)
What?! OMG! Na-late ata si Santa ng dating! Waah! (>^.^)>
Joeben Buena’s last blog post..I Can Haz Web Design for Krismaz?
[...] [tags]: Blogging Supposedly, this blog should be on its final leg of revamp. Unfortunately, I hardly found time to work in out. The result, an unfinished theme I can’t [...]
paramdam ka naman!