You guyssssssssssss!
I am more than excited to introduce you all to our new design. New design, meet our virtual friends. Virtual friends, meet our new design.
And she shall be called, Kate. Because if I ever have another baby (really, Leslie – will you JUST decide already) I think I would name her Kate.
Kate is catchy. Hi Kate. We’re talking about the site here, folks. Not another baby. OH, you got that? Just checkin.
Can I walk you through the new look a bit? If you’ve been with us for a while, you noticed an immediate change. If you’re just checking in (hi!!) here’s what you’ll find.
Top of the site: simplified categories. (Finally, right?) With 6 overall themes (journal, kids, grief, health, style and kitchen) with categories under those themes + an about us page with info on the site, how to write for us, how to advertise, a little history of HVFH and details about all of our fantastical writers.
Cool new feature on the drop down menu.
(This is just a start. There’s ways to incorporate video, more images, etc.)
Below the fold (as the internet people call it) you’ll find our 6 categories broken down a bit more, along with local advertisers on the side and more direct links to all of our recipes.
HUGE thank you to all of our local advertisers and a big shout out to our March sponsor of the month, Ashley Furniture. Seriously you guys – this site isn’t about the money. It never has been. But without them, we could not be up and running and we definitely couldn’t pay our writers. So we are so incredibly thankful.
That being said, you’ll still find national advertisers, too. Reason: ditto what I said above. I’m trying to make it less IN YOUR FACE CLICK ON ME. I’ll continue to play around with it a bit to make it as appealing as possible.
In the posts: I think I love this the most. An image of the author writing the story pops up right away when you click on a post. That link will take you to every article they’ve ever written, with direct links to their bio and their own site/business. I say it often but not enough. This site is and always has been about the writers. They need to be highlighted as much as possible. You can also find a list of all of them under the contact section at the top.
And speaking of our writers, (all 100+ of them!) we are going to be featuring one each week! You’ll find a direct link to that as well on the bottom right hand side. Kathy (Kissing the Frog) was our “debut” feature!
And at the bottom, you’ll find another spot for local advertisers, more info on how to follow us, subscribe to our newsletter, and a little video section from our YouTube page. Right now it’s just me explaining a little bit about the site. I hope to get our writers involved and I would love to do our weekly coffee chats on video, etc. More plans for video to come in the future. Cause, duh – it’s 2015.
There you go! A quick little tour. Do you love it? Me too. Thank you for everything, friends! Let me know what you think about Kate, will ya? THANKS!
[adrotate banner=”105″]