Well, perhaps that’s a bit grandiose, but over the last week or so I have worked a major overhaul on the site (much of which should be obvious to returning visitors) and feel as if I’ve moved up a notch in my understanding of how all this wordpress blogging stuff works. Doesn’t mean I can do half of it with any degree of expertise, but at least I know where to go for answers now.
The most obvious change around here is the new theme, the beautiful and very functional Thesis premium wordpress theme from Chris Pearson. It has a lot of great features under the hood that make things easier for me, considerable customization options, and great typography. It’s increased my enthusiasm for this site tenfold. Expect further tweaks in the coming weeks and months as I get a handle on how it all works.
One big change is I’m now using a feedburner account for my RSS feed — so if you have already subscribed to my feed please resubscribe, as you’ll have a better experience.
I’ve also spent a great deal of time changing my permalinks from the original ugly ‘?p=356′ type that I carelessly started the site with, to the more attractive and functional (and google friendly) links you see here today. A note to anyone that attempts to do the same — please do some searching on the web first and get the necessary plug in and details as to how to tweak your links, otherwise you are looking at a real mess.
Anyway, between trawling my site for old links and raking the html code on various posts and pages to eliminate detritus, to installing little niceties like the welcome message new visitors will see and getting set-up with google analytics and feedburner — even after all that tedium, I have to say this is actually more fun than I ever imagined. It is my hope that visitors will agree the effort was worth it.
And if you should see any glitches, 404s, or monsters-under-the-bed around here please contact me and let me know, it will be greatly appreciated.
All this activity, of course, also means I have bigger plans for the future than what you’ve seen so far here at BillWardWriter.com. So grab an RSS feed and keep your virtual eyeballs peeled for future updates.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I like the new look, Bill. Very clean and crisp.
Thanks KC, I’m pretty excited about it.
I like it Bill. Not only is it good for me, it’s totally you. On your scrolling cover widget, do you get to set the books you want?
I’ve been busy on mine today – I’ll give a holler when I’m through. Well, allow me to clarify that. When I’m through, not when the site’s through. I’m sure I’ll be straightening and cleaning for time to come.
Later. Oh, great answers, too, thanks.
Thanks Jason, glad you like it.
Yes, the widget is completely customizable — lots of fun. And all you have to do to update it is once its on your site is change things over at the amazon site.
Are you still planing to move your site?
yup, and almost done. I just have some links to rebuild and my custom headers to place. What is that widget name, so’s I can take a look at it, too, please?