Changes Coming to FMF: What's Your Opinion?

Not sure if you'd noticed or not, but I recently had Free Money Finance reviewed by ProBlogger readers. Here's a summary of what they suggested and my thoughts on each of them. Note that these recommendations aren't from regular readers, so I'm not going to do anything until I give regular readers a chance to chime in. That said, here we go:

A number of ProBlogger readers found the number of strong colors and shades in the design (green, yellow, red, black, white and blue) jarring and dissonant, and that the logo looked a bit like a DIY job.

Ha! It looks like a DIY job because it is one!

But I do need a new logo (the name and tagline will stay the same) and I am thinking of limiting the main colors. Which do you like best -- my green, yellow, red, something else?

Few reviewers had a bad word to say about the content. It struck me as very clear and concise. However, I probably wouldn’t want to read it on the site as my screen’s resolution is 1680 x 1050 and the content area stretches very, very wide. Consider fixing the width of the site to fill the screen at 1024 x 768, but allow for whitespace or a background on the sides at higher resolutions.

I've been toying with this idea for some time. What's your take on it?

In regards to the color of the excerpts (FMF had wondered if red was working) I would suggest switching this to an easy to read gray. A number of readers pointed out that red is more eye-catching than black and thus excerpts are emphasized more than the author’s content. In the context of some critiques on the amount of colors utilized in the design, it makes sense to strike red off that list by switching to gray.

When I quote a person or article, I've been putting that quote in red to make it stand out (just like that paragraph above.) Do you like this or do you think gray (or something else) would work better?

Use post excerpts on the main page with a Wordpress ‘More’ tag. This will encourage readers to navigate to the post-page to keep reading. When they click their browser’s social media buttons, they’ll be voting for the specific page, rather than the site as a whole. Specific blog posts tend to do a lot better than whole blogs.

What do you think of this idea -- basically having a summary of the post on the home page and the rest of the post on another page? Good idea? Bad idea? Doesn't matter?

Use more descriptive and inspirational headlines. As seen in the ‘Best of’ list in the sidebar, post headlines which tapped into reader aspirations (being ‘Rich’ or a ‘Millionaire’) have tended to do very well.

If anything, I think I'm often over-the-top with my headlines. Thoughts here?

Develop the habit of adding images to posts. Social media users browse the web very quickly and rely on visuals to communicate with them initially. An eye-catching image can mean the difference between a visitor who stays on your blog and a visitor who leaves the way they came.

I have opted for a more "clean" content area. Any thoughts on images versus no images?

Consider writing longer, thematic posts or resource lists. Short posts rarely do well on social media unless they’re incredibly profound or very useful. Longer, value-packed posts tend to be a favored format.

Yep, I need to set a goal for this (such as one per day, etc.) 

A number of readers suggested placing some form of advertising in-post, as these tend to perform better in comparison to ads in sidebars.

I have two issues here: 1) Typepad isn't the most friendly option for adding ads in the content section and 2) I'm not sure how readers will respond to ads in the content section. Your thoughts?

There is an incredible amount of stuff packed into the sidebars on either side of the content. There are some really important elements in the sidebar coupled with a lot of unimportant elements, and I think a lot of what’s important is probably getting lost in the clutter.

This is true. I have way too much on my sidebars. When I changed it last time, I wanted enough on the sidebars so they went down fairly far with the posts. But Now I'm thinking "less is more." The only questions are 1) what stays and 2) where does it go. Some of their suggestions.

• Move a Feedburner subscription icon above the fold.
• Move up and emphasize: reviews (good social proof from sources who’re authorities to your target audience) and ‘Best of Free Money Finance’. People want to see the best very quickly when they first visit your blog.
• Remove: recent posts element (it’s easier for users to just scroll down), recent comments (”person I haven’t heard of” commented on “post I haven’t read yet” — not so exciting for a new user), simplify your category list down to 10 - 15 (it’s so big as to be intimidating), move the blogroll to a separate page, remove lists of posts from the sidebar or put them on a separate page.
• Move your About and Contact information above the site sponsors on the right. Your About page must be easy to find because new visitors will often give up if they can’t get quick and concise information on what your site is about.

What are your thoughts on these?

I'm currently deciding what actions to take, but there are changes coming. I won't be able to incorporate everyone's suggestions (nor would I want to -- I have to decide what works best for me and the majority of readers), but I do want to give everybody a chance to be heard and comment before I start a re-design. After all, this is "your" blog too. Your thoughts are welcome and appreciated. Thanks for your input.

Comments

[Cathy]

I also read Problogger and disagree with many of their suggestions. I subscribed to your blog because I *like* the many short posts. Other finance blogs that use long, introspective posts are on the "read if I have time" list, and I rarely have time.

I also disagree with the recommendation for images, because I know from doing my own blog that it takes a fair amount of time to find a meaningful image. I'd be concerned that you'd cut back on content as a result.

[Duane]

You are doing just fine. I wouldn't mess with a good thing. Images in the post are trendy, but add little real value.

[Duane]

One other suggestion... if you make any substantial changes you may wish to set them up on a test site so that your regular readers can preview it before you go live.

[Kristi]

One thing I don't think ProBlogger mentioned is having the article links that are scattered about your blog open up to a new window. This allows the reader to pickup where they were in your post after quickly clicking to check out the linked article. Right now you are essentially directing readers away from your blog.

Please don't do "read more..."

Your site is a little hard on the eyes. I'm a fan of gray vs black.

As far as your left nav bar: removing some of the ads and scattering them throughout the posts wouldn't bother me any. How about just listing the headers (career, investment, insurance, etc) instead of listing a bunch of titles underneath them.

A pic here and there wouldn't hurt. You could actually have a cleaner look with pics than you do now. Just increase the "white space" around your text; all the text is quite overwhelming.

Other than that, I love the content of the blog, wouldn't change a thing on that. I also like that you link to other blogs. I feel that it saves me time from scourring through all of them to find good info.

[fivecentnickel.com]

I'd like to echo what 'db' said (and I've brought this up to you before)...

When I reach the end of the front page, it's a dead end. There's no link to continue taking me back into the archives, page by page. Your previous response when I brought this up was to tell me to scroll back up the page and click on the current month in the sidebar, but... That's incredibly inconvenient (and also isn't very effective early in the month). And when I finally get to the full month archive, I then have to scroll back down the page to find the last post I was looking at so I can continue. While this might be a limitation of TypePad, it's a *very* user-unfriendly way of doing things.

[Carol]

I agree with Anne's first comment. The other things I think:

* It's okay to have a lot of sidebar in order to have it "follow the post down" - but I do think it could bear some reorganizing, and perhaps even a little more "whitespace" to separate out distinct areas. Having the same sort of things showing on both sides of the page is a pain when I'm looking for something in particular - I have to watch BOTH sidebars as I scroll down looking for it.

* I don't like the red. Yes, it makes the quote stand out, but it is distracting to me. And I have to focus on keeping straight who is saying what (my intuition says red is you). On the other hand, it does make it easier to pick your posts out in my jumbled feed reader. :) I've noticed that I form an opinion on new blogs more quickly when there is something "different" about them - like the way paidtwice bolds certain sentences in the prose.

* I have no problem with the current logo. Keep it or replace it, whatever makes you happiest. :)

* Anne said it, but I will too anyway, because it's the most important to me: DON'T use the "More" button! I skip over the remaining content more often than not if I have to browse to a separate page to finish it. I'm sure they are correct about its benefits to you, but it is a real inconvenience to readers like me.

[Douglas]

Even thought I love the blog, I have to in some part agree with Anne's first post. Again this is only as constructive criticism.
Regarding colors, ...more, pictures. As many people has said I'm here for the content. But I guess you have to think about those things as the hook to lure people who don't know the content yet.
Screen - I don't know about numbers but I know that your blog fits both my work and home computer, which are diffent in width. I do like it that way. I don't like not being able to use all the real state on my screen. If not, what did I buy the wide screen, if not to see it as wide as I want?

Adds- No Thanks.

One thing I've been meaning to tell you about.
My city's newspaper (Houston Chronicle) has a feature in the comments section. Every post (comment) has a voting icon at the end, where you can recommend the comment, and it simply adds the recommended hits per comment. What this does is that in days posts like this that have 75 comments, if I don't have time to read them all. I might just read the recommended ones. Or if I don't have time to write a comment, I still have my opinion heard by saying that I agree with somebody's comment. I find it very democratic. I hope you don't get tired and actually get to read this one.

Good luck.

[bargainbtch]

I read many PFP blogs and also Problogger (for the day I finally have time to start my blog) and have to say I don't agree with a lot of the Problogger comments. Maybe just the side bar and a "few" pictures. I prefer more content then fluffy pictures though. Please don't do the title..."click here for more" thing. I dislike clicking a lot and find if I can't lean back in my chair and be comfortable I won't spend a while on a site. Your color's don't bother me but I could see how they might irk others. And I read this blog on 4 different monitors, it's fine on all at this resolution. On a side note, I think its great you are seeking feedback from your readers before implementing any changes.

[Cindy Rae]

I've just gone through a major redesign on my blog and spent a great deal of time reading about the design/content issues you're asking about. Here's my two cents worth:

On what content to cut from the sidebars:

Are you tracking what links are clicked on your site?

You could then check how many users are actually clicking on those sidebar links, keeping the popular ones and ditching the ones noone ever clicks on.

On headlines:

See copyblogger. Search for "headlines". Good stuff!

On images:

I think it depends on the site and the material as to including images with your posts. In my case, I really need to add images of what I discuss, like pictures of chickadees to my chickadee profile or pictures of balcony wildlife habitats to those posts, as a bigger draw for enthusiasts.

In your case, however, I think that pictures are not as relevant. If you're reviewing a book, an image of the book cover would be helpful. Also, charts of figures or partial screen captures of spreadsheets would also be helpful, especially if you're talking about calculating rolling averages of expenses over a 12-month period in Excel.

On whether or not to have a "More":

I've read conflicting information from expert bloggers on this one. Personally, I think that if you write long posts, use a "more" (or, preferably, a "Click to continue" -- see Copyblogger). If you write shorter posts, just use the full post.

You can see this on my site -- my link posts have only short descriptions so they don't have a "Click to continue". The articles, however, always do, as they are generally long-winded. :)

On color:

I am horrible at choosing good colors. What really helped was playing with color choosers like the one at http://www.siteprocentral.com/html_color_code.html or the one at http://www.colorsontheweb.com/thecolorwizard.asp.

Pick a simple set of colors and use darker shades and lighter shades as necessary (darker for visited links vs unvisited, for example)

And keep the green -- it's associated with money, after all.

On resolution:

What you're really talking about is a fluid vs. fixed layout, where "A Fluid Layout is a website layout that expands (or compresses) with your browser window’s width. A Fixed Layout is a website layout where your website’s size doesn’t change as your browser window’s width increases or decreases."

The trend in websites, or at least blogs, right now seems to be a fixed layout (problogger, copyblogger, others are fixed so they're viewable at 1024x768), and most blog templates seem to be setup for a fixed layout.

I like your current fluid layout, but some people dont like sentences that stretch waaay across the screen (they like narrower columns with more lines of text, but yes, they can minimize the window).

Fluid layouts are supposed to be better for supporting mobile phones, PDAs, and desktops all together. You can read more by googling "fluid layout website".

Fluid layouts seem harder to design well, especially with various browser quirks. And a fluid website that looks great at 1024x768 may look horrible on a much larger monitor or much smaller handheld...

[Brandon]

I understand the fixed layout idea, but I think that it can be annoying as resolutions get larger to not have the ability to have content stretch larger.

Anyway, my main comments are these:
1. I hate sites that have small previews on the main page. It is so annoying having to click-through to more information. Compounding this is the fact that with the "value added" long posts, maybe the beginning of the article would be dry to you, but the latter part more interesting. You may never see this part if the beginning is not eye-catching.

2. Maybe I just keep missing the link, but I want to see a "Previous XX Posts" link at the bottom of the main page. I hate that if I stay away long enough for you to post more than a page's worth of posts that I have to navigate to the month to look for the ones I missed. Also, if it is right at the beginning of the month, I have to navigate TWO months to see the ones I missed. It would be nice if I could go to a page containing the prior posts.

I think the color theme and logo looks good.
I like the different color for quotes. I think gray might be too hard to read or hard to distinguish from black. Red is ok with me. Maybe black italics would still differentiate?
I like the full articles on the front page – I don’t want summaries only. The one thing I wish there was was a button to read previous posts at the bottom of the page. There is no way to go back and read a post from, say, 2 weeks ago unless you remember the title and search for it.
I think your headlines are great!

A small picture here and there, if it adds to the overall image of the site, would be nice. Not necessarily on every post, and not the tacky ones that I see some places, but they can add a lot and bring attention to your more featured articles.

I was thinking the same thing about the length of your posts. I sometimes think that you could leave out the shorter ones and focus on content for longer posts. However, I really like when something financial happens in the news and you just mention it with a link without much comment, which helps to generate discussion. So I guess when something interesting like that happens, I don’t mind a shorter post. Also, some of your posts, especially those from Marietta, are too long.

I don’t think you should add advertising in the posts – the sidebars are a good place for them.

Sidebars:
-I would also get rid of the recent comments section.
-Rather than listing the articles in each section (best of FMD, making money, career, etc), have each of them be a link to another page with all the related posts.
-Keep the blogroll

Maybe having a subscription to know when there is a new comment to a discussion would be nice.

[Arthaey Angosii]

"If anything, I think I'm often over-the-top with my headlines. Thoughts here?"

I think your headlines are pretty good. Even more sensational would undoubtedly bring in more viewers, though.

"What do you think of this idea -- basically having a summary of the post on the home page and the rest of the post on another page? Good idea? Bad idea? Doesn't matter?"

Bleh! I really don't like click-throughs. Whatever you ultimately decide on, PLEASE continue having the option for a full-text RSS feed. That's how I generally read FMF.

By being primarily an RSS reader of FMF, actually, I don't much care how the "real" site looks. Your layout is decent enough, your colors (especially the green) seem fine, my AdBlock extension keeps any ads out of my reading experience. I'm here pretty much exclusively for the content; I ignore anything else.