Total Followers 132,503
Hello there everybody! This will be kind of community post, where I will tell again my intentions with website and things like that to keep ball rolling.
Maybe (no, really!) you noticed 1stwebdesigner site has got completely new look! I was working for a while to that design, tried many different color schemes, did a lot of testing, talked with my friends about best solutions and finally came out with this version.
I promised new look some time ago actually, but it is really hard to keep up with regular and big posts, a lot of social networking and in meanwhile creating new design. I hope you noticed posts are becoming much more frequent and hopefully article quality is just becoming better and better!
There are also few questions which must be answered here:
Honest answer is – such tutorial and freebie creation takes a lot more time then usual list posts, but if I want to try deliver new content daily I need to keep up with not so creative, but more resource type posts.
But don’t worry I am really not planning my site to be one of the bunch similar list article site featuring same things over and over again. You’ll see more tutorials and freebies in next few months I promise!
Yes, that’s true I’ve added more BuySellAds banners on the site thinking about advertising in non intrusive way. I am starting to be full-time blogger, but to continue I must get something back too. And one more thing – I am hoping to get new sponsors so I can hire and actually pay to guest writers to really cover much more wider field and I’ll get more time then creating new tutorials, working on freebies and actually put more value in blog at all!
As you may know now I only can offer exposure (and it’s pretty good now ~360,000 monthly uniques) , full credits and friendship if you choose to write here, though I really want to pay guest writers, so yes, my plan is to get that money from advertisements.
Actually if you are designer/blogger yourself I will be more than happy to get contacted with you, maybe we can arrange interview or you could write something here in future? Really in our days it’s all about networking and to get known over the blogosphere you must really put some big effort!
Feel free to e-mail me to dainis@1stwebdesigner.com , add to Gtalk to chat directly or tweet me about your purposes, suggestions, I just love to find new friends sharing same niche!
In short – with this design I wanted to show people, I am really serious about this blog, previous design was horrible, funny but I didn’t find time to recreate it for a long time more focusing on social networks and actual articles.
I was looking for new theme and found the best fit to be Justin Tadlock’s Hybrid new theme with is fully customizable with really good support for a very low price.
Now this site is getting nice comment reply function, which I really love and will use regularly to reply to your beautiful comments!
I must say sorry, I wasn’t replying everybody, I really appreciate your comments and good words, will try to change that from now on!
And by the way my author comments will be now a lot better observable, they are now light blue, while other user comments are simply gray.
Now on the right top sidebar you have these two buttons, I decided to take of all Stumbleupon, Digg buttons, because they really don’t matter. The most important thing is RSS regular subscribers and Twitter is really good for community.
Now RSS button is a bit bigger and more observable, hopefully it will encourage more people to subscribe to feed and follow on Twitter. I will watch how these buttons work and then add counters too, now I took off them.
Also now you can check Archives page too, to gain access to little bit older articles, I am planning to add more popular stories with little images on footer in future, but I need to still figure out how to do it in good way. Yes, I am still thinking how to create footer area much more usable.
Finally I wanted to mention soon 1stwebdesigner will be 1 year old and I will reveal this year timeline then and soon I will start e-mail newsletter, which will be sent to e-mail subscribers telling what I am doing, planning to do so You really can know what’s happening behind the scenes and hopefully take part of it.
Today I am also celebrating my 21′th birthday and I worked to this design until 3 AM, so I am considering this as present to myself and you all, who enjoys this blog and want to see it growing!!
Please inform me about what you’re enjoying and what seems to be missing in this design! I will really appreciate every opinion and comment!
Cheers!!
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Dainis Graveris is 23 years old blogger and designer, founder of 1stWebDesigner, now more silently managing everything behind the scenes. He usually hangs out in Twitter tweeting design related links and chatting with people. If you have any questions or feedback that's the best place to start! Cheers!
Friday, August 5th, 2011 04:38
I love reading top blog list to be inspired. I also love to contact them for guest posting and finding out if I can help them in any way.I just have a few top blog that i read, if not I will spend the build of my day reading and not implementing. There are too many things to read out there.I also love reading some top post to learn not things and improve in my knowledge.Thanks for sharing.
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 12:59
thanks, I hope so! Web design is also my passion, so in any way effort is paying off :)
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 12:56
Thank you! Happy you like it – but yes, language is not my strongest place here.
Saturday, August 15th, 2009 10:08
There are really some new stuffs that I like here :D Good content organization and beautiful colors combination. Also that huge first letter in every beginning of excerpt is cool!
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 12:53
Thank you, Johnson!:)
I hope new design will do ok at least for next 6 months or so:)
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 14:52
Great re-skinning of the site! Suggestion for the Google Ads, maybe put them inline after the second paragraph of the article? That actually may be harder than it seems but I tend to reach for my zap plugins bookmarklet if I see google adsense at the top of an article (nothing against you =)
Happy belated 21st birthday and perhaps one day I will try and work with you writing for this site!! Congratulations on the success of this site your time and commitment will and is paying off!
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 12:54
Frank, I’ll consider options yeah, but I don’t know how to do it easily on all of the posts..
And thanks, would be great to have you contributing sometimes here too :)
Thursday, August 6th, 2009 19:24
I really like the new design, good work Dainis. Regarding content, I agree that original content is more appreciated and I hope that roundups are just a necessary phase of your blog.
Happy birthday and keep up the good work!
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 12:56
Thanks for the support, Janko!
I am hoping on the same, but truth is – everybody is doing roundups because they work..tutorials is only alternative I think while blog is not so popular!
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 11:29
Nice Redesign… the old one was ok but due to the number of categories you had it oversplit a bit.
When I have re-sized my browser to a 1024×768 window your design is too wide to fit in without scrolling…
I agree with the other chappy – I dont see the need to do web roundups, I have a dozen in my RSS Reader that I skim read but never visit often, where as when you do your unique posts, I at least visited your site and read it (which is what you want)
Best of luck to you chappy :-)
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 12:59
Orca I don’t know I resized it,but it looked okay for me.
But still truth is – those roundups work a lot better than unique posts..and in starting phase serious blog cannot live with such roundups.
Still in future..site will grow and it will do just better and better with article titles too.
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 10:26
Why do you feel the need to publish a new article daily?
It’s a hell of a workload even writing the lists that you do. They really do take up serious time.
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 15:42
I just want my readers come to this site daily, that is my goal – and you may now how serious competition is in our days, it’s very hard to stand out..
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 10:18
I really love it man, is really clean awesome and well design, i can see chat you told me about working on the design blog, it really worth it, and this new look is more elegant.
I see you are going really far if you keep working in this blog, you have grown a lot, thanks to the excellent content and with the new design it’ll be better.
Congrats!!
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 15:45
Thanks, Luis! I am so delighted to hear such words, didn’t know how people will take new design, though it is definitely better than previous.
I really hope your words will become true in future!
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:02
Congrats on the new design Dainis, loving it! Good luck on going pro with blogging too.
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:53
Trying my best as always – I am glad there are people who really appreciate my efforts! Thanks, man!
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 14:49
Happy Birthday :)
Want to say thank you for you blog. I don’t read it every day, but I find it very useful. And I think you achieved a lot for just one year. Great job. Ones more – congratulations!
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 15:43
Thanks, Nastia:)
It’s okay, I think there isn’t what to do every day still, but I am working hard to change that! I always appreciate kind words!:)
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 14:29
Actually I think it’s good that you don’t post everyday. And there are 2 reasons why do I think so:
1) If you do it ones or more a day you lose quality of your post. It’s difficult to observe Internet for useful information and find something new everyday.
2) People read a lot of sites (RSS or tweets or others sibscribtions) everyday, and I think the less you write the more probability that your posts will be read.
It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t write everyday. If posts are interesting, visitors will read it anyway.
But from the other side – if I missed something and I look through my RSS and see a lot of information, I understand that I won’t read it, because I just don’t have time, and finaly I delete it all without reading. But if I see some of it, I read it.
May be it’s just me, I affraid of huge values of information ;))
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 13:03
Nastia – I am not planning myself doing more posts, I am hoping on guest writers. Of course, it’s very hard to keep quality writing very often.
About second point I don’t agree since you forget about search engine traffic and rapidly growing competition. And search engine traffic is also very significant.
Still people who are interested in topic will be interested in receiving quality articles regularly – at least they will know where to search that information if they read at least title :)
It’s not just you – I cannot keep up with information overload every day either..
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 04:49
It’s like reincarnation; a serious improvement over the old site. Thanks for the continued pursuit of designer ideas!
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:49
Yes, actually I hoped to achieve exactly that feeling to show my serious plans and give much more professional design!
Thank you too for staying with us!
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 02:49
Hey, you have a very nice design. I like the dark blue color design:)
by the way, happy birthday to you!
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:48
I played a lot with that colors until decided to leave these ones :) Was pretty hard decision:)
Thanks, cheers!:)
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 01:30
Dainis you put alot of effort in to this blog so i hope all the best to you.
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:39
Thank you, Max! It’s great to hear such words from you – I really respect you as designer.
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 00:17
Hi Dainis – I love the new header, it’s leaps ahead of the last one! As a long-time reader via StumbleUpon, can I say that the adblock just underneath the post titles is very distracting. I always find that particular placement takes away from the usability of the site by pushing the content out of the way.
On the subject of list posts versus tutorial posts, tutorials are always far more welcome. The resources are great, but offering more tutorials and techniques would create more worth on your blog. Resource posts are a dime a dozen, and I rarely find myself going back to them whereas I constantly revisit tutorials that have helped me out in the past.
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:57
Thank you, Gerard!
I understand you about that Adsense placement, but it is really the one, who brings most of money to this site for now, in future I could think of someway replacing it though.
I got your point, I return sometimes to useful resource posts, but really yes, tutorials bring much more value to people and I am hoping to get more guest writers, so I can spend time creating quality tutorials for you to enjoy! In very close future!
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 00:04
This is really awesome. Splendid work done buddy. Btw happy birthday bioy, may you also get those things in your life which you don’t even deserve. Keep rocking.
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 00:14
Thank you!! I really feel so happy today, so much good words and things happening I never believed will happen!
Splendid greeting!
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 05:21
LOL – love the blue and green combination and it is very eye appealing and clean.
Great job ; D
You do wonderful work.
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 05:19
Happy Birthday!!!
Thumper ‘s is the 3rd.
I cant want to see the new design.
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 02:27
You really rock….this site is very helpful for all the designer.
Thanks for posting all your goody.
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:45
wow, thanks man! Sure, will do even more in future!
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 01:08
oh, yeah – damn, thanks! at the end looks like didn’t place it correctly! will be fixing tomorrow! Sure!
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Dicky
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 02:49
Hey, you have a very nice design. I like the dark blue color design:)
by the way, happy birthday to you!
Dainis Graveris
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:48
I played a lot with that colors until decided to leave these ones :) Was pretty hard decision:)
Thanks, cheers!:)
David
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 04:49
It’s like reincarnation; a serious improvement over the old site. Thanks for the continued pursuit of designer ideas!
Dainis Graveris
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:49
Yes, actually I hoped to achieve exactly that feeling to show my serious plans and give much more professional design!
Thank you too for staying with us!
Zach Krasner
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 03:48
Great redesign!
Dainis Graveris
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:48
thank you a lot!:)
Danny
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 02:27
You really rock….this site is very helpful for all the designer.
Thanks for posting all your goody.
Dainis Graveris
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:45
wow, thanks man! Sure, will do even more in future!
Dainis Graveris
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 01:08
oh, yeah – damn, thanks! at the end looks like didn’t place it correctly! will be fixing tomorrow! Sure!
Bunnygotblog
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 05:19
Happy Birthday!!!
Thumper ‘s is the 3rd.
I cant want to see the new design.
Dainis Graveris
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:52
Thanks! Cheers!
Bunnygotblog
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 05:21
LOL – love the blue and green combination and it is very eye appealing and clean.
Great job ; D
You do wonderful work.
Dainis Graveris
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:53
I appreciate your words! thank you a lot!:)
Max Stanworth
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 01:30
Dainis you put alot of effort in to this blog so i hope all the best to you.
Dainis Graveris
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:39
Thank you, Max! It’s great to hear such words from you – I really respect you as designer.
Gerard McGarry
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 00:17
Hi Dainis – I love the new header, it’s leaps ahead of the last one! As a long-time reader via StumbleUpon, can I say that the adblock just underneath the post titles is very distracting. I always find that particular placement takes away from the usability of the site by pushing the content out of the way.
On the subject of list posts versus tutorial posts, tutorials are always far more welcome. The resources are great, but offering more tutorials and techniques would create more worth on your blog. Resource posts are a dime a dozen, and I rarely find myself going back to them whereas I constantly revisit tutorials that have helped me out in the past.
Dainis Graveris
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:57
Thank you, Gerard!
I understand you about that Adsense placement, but it is really the one, who brings most of money to this site for now, in future I could think of someway replacing it though.
I got your point, I return sometimes to useful resource posts, but really yes, tutorials bring much more value to people and I am hoping to get more guest writers, so I can spend time creating quality tutorials for you to enjoy! In very close future!
Bariski
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 00:04
This is really awesome. Splendid work done buddy. Btw happy birthday bioy, may you also get those things in your life which you don’t even deserve. Keep rocking.
Dainis Graveris
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 00:14
Thank you!! I really feel so happy today, so much good words and things happening I never believed will happen!
Splendid greeting!
Nastia
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 14:49
Happy Birthday :)
Want to say thank you for you blog. I don’t read it every day, but I find it very useful. And I think you achieved a lot for just one year. Great job. Ones more – congratulations!
Dainis Graveris
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 15:43
Thanks, Nastia:)
It’s okay, I think there isn’t what to do every day still, but I am working hard to change that! I always appreciate kind words!:)
Nastia
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 14:29
Actually I think it’s good that you don’t post everyday. And there are 2 reasons why do I think so:
1) If you do it ones or more a day you lose quality of your post. It’s difficult to observe Internet for useful information and find something new everyday.
2) People read a lot of sites (RSS or tweets or others sibscribtions) everyday, and I think the less you write the more probability that your posts will be read.
It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t write everyday. If posts are interesting, visitors will read it anyway.
But from the other side – if I missed something and I look through my RSS and see a lot of information, I understand that I won’t read it, because I just don’t have time, and finaly I delete it all without reading. But if I see some of it, I read it.
May be it’s just me, I affraid of huge values of information ;))
Dainis Graveris
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 13:03
Nastia – I am not planning myself doing more posts, I am hoping on guest writers. Of course, it’s very hard to keep quality writing very often.
About second point I don’t agree since you forget about search engine traffic and rapidly growing competition. And search engine traffic is also very significant.
Still people who are interested in topic will be interested in receiving quality articles regularly – at least they will know where to search that information if they read at least title :)
It’s not just you – I cannot keep up with information overload every day either..
Dainis Graveris
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 12:56
Thank you! Happy you like it – but yes, language is not my strongest place here.
Dainis Graveris
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 12:57
I will, thank you! :))
Yolanda
Friday, August 5th, 2011 04:38
I love reading top blog list to be inspired. I also love to contact them for guest posting and finding out if I can help them in any way.I just have a few top blog that i read, if not I will spend the build of my day reading and not implementing. There are too many things to read out there.I also love reading some top post to learn not things and improve in my knowledge.Thanks for sharing.
Dainis Graveris
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 12:59
thanks, I hope so! Web design is also my passion, so in any way effort is paying off :)
Johnson Koh
Saturday, August 15th, 2009 10:08
There are really some new stuffs that I like here :D Good content organization and beautiful colors combination. Also that huge first letter in every beginning of excerpt is cool!
Dainis Graveris
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 12:53
Thank you, Johnson!:)
I hope new design will do ok at least for next 6 months or so:)
Frank Stallone
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 14:52
Great re-skinning of the site! Suggestion for the Google Ads, maybe put them inline after the second paragraph of the article? That actually may be harder than it seems but I tend to reach for my zap plugins bookmarklet if I see google adsense at the top of an article (nothing against you =)
Happy belated 21st birthday and perhaps one day I will try and work with you writing for this site!! Congratulations on the success of this site your time and commitment will and is paying off!
Dainis Graveris
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 12:54
Frank, I’ll consider options yeah, but I don’t know how to do it easily on all of the posts..
And thanks, would be great to have you contributing sometimes here too :)
Dainis Graveris
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 15:42
Hey! Sweet – thank you!
Mirko
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:02
Congrats on the new design Dainis, loving it! Good luck on going pro with blogging too.
Dainis Graveris
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 09:53
Trying my best as always – I am glad there are people who really appreciate my efforts! Thanks, man!
Luis Lopez
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 10:18
I really love it man, is really clean awesome and well design, i can see chat you told me about working on the design blog, it really worth it, and this new look is more elegant.
I see you are going really far if you keep working in this blog, you have grown a lot, thanks to the excellent content and with the new design it’ll be better.
Congrats!!
Dainis Graveris
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 15:45
Thanks, Luis! I am so delighted to hear such words, didn’t know how people will take new design, though it is definitely better than previous.
I really hope your words will become true in future!
Janko
Thursday, August 6th, 2009 19:24
I really like the new design, good work Dainis. Regarding content, I agree that original content is more appreciated and I hope that roundups are just a necessary phase of your blog.
Happy birthday and keep up the good work!
Dainis Graveris
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 12:56
Thanks for the support, Janko!
I am hoping on the same, but truth is – everybody is doing roundups because they work..tutorials is only alternative I think while blog is not so popular!
Orca
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 11:29
Nice Redesign… the old one was ok but due to the number of categories you had it oversplit a bit.
When I have re-sized my browser to a 1024×768 window your design is too wide to fit in without scrolling…
I agree with the other chappy – I dont see the need to do web roundups, I have a dozen in my RSS Reader that I skim read but never visit often, where as when you do your unique posts, I at least visited your site and read it (which is what you want)
Best of luck to you chappy :-)
Dainis Graveris
Thursday, August 27th, 2009 12:59
Orca I don’t know I resized it,but it looked okay for me.
But still truth is – those roundups work a lot better than unique posts..and in starting phase serious blog cannot live with such roundups.
Still in future..site will grow and it will do just better and better with article titles too.
Andy Walpole
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 10:26
Why do you feel the need to publish a new article daily?
It’s a hell of a workload even writing the lists that you do. They really do take up serious time.
Dainis Graveris
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 15:42
I just want my readers come to this site daily, that is my goal – and you may now how serious competition is in our days, it’s very hard to stand out..