What's New On The Blog

Notice anything a little bit different? Well, a lot has changed here on the blog in the past few weeks! From a big blog redesign to some new social media tactics, I thought I'd quickly share some of the new things going on in my little blogging world. 

New theme // I have seriously been thinking about redesigning my blog theme for the longest time. If you've been reading along for a while now (and I mean like two years a while), then you'll remember way back when I had a green and purple theme- even before my most bright blue theme (if you could even call it that). I'm honestly not the most artistic person, but both themes prior to how it is now were designed by me. In a sense, I'm proud of having taken on that role in my blog, but I knew that I needed a sleeker, more "professional" look. 

Luckily, just as I had been thinking about redesigning, I saw a tweet pop up on my feed from Serena of "Pretty Wild Things" offering blog designs. I browsed through her portfolio and absolutely loved her work. I immediately emailed her with my ideas- simple, classic, and a color scheme that was neutral but not black. She completely delivered on all fronts! I love that I still have blue in my theme without it being too bright and aggressive. It definitely feels like the sort of theme I can grow into as my blog grows! 

New header // I suppose this goes along with the whole new design situation, but having a new blog header has made a huge difference in the way my blog looks. I love how it reflects my interest in travel (and writing about it of course!) as well as my two homes- the US and the UK. I think Serena did an incredible job taking into account what I wanted, and going back and tweaking a few things that I wanted changed. 

New ways of promoting my blog // Ever since starting my blog, my main driver of traffic was always Facebook because I would post the link to my blog up there every week. I know that a lot of bloggers actually don't share their posts to Facebook out of fear of being judged by their friends or family. And while I've never really had that fear (#noregrets), I also have noticed that Facebook has some very sneaky ways of manipulating what comes up in people's feeds. At the moment, my feed is no longer showing me posts from my nearest and dearest, but simply tons of videos one after another. 

So because of Facebook's sketchy formulas, I've found that it actually isn't the best platform for me to get the word out about my blog anymore. Since realizing this a few months ago, and debating on how I wanted to proceed with promoting my blog, I've stopped posting every week to Facebook. Instead, I've really upped my Twitter game. Now that I've started using Buffer to schedule my tweets, I've seen a significant boost in my pageviews (and most importantly, unique viewers). And while I know that blogging isn't about pageviews or followers, it's nice to see my blog being read by different people. 

September always feels like a fresh start to me, so this seemed like the perfect time to revamp my blog. I'm so happy that I went with a redesign and have been changing the ways in which I promote my blog. And more than anything, it's nice to be able to come to this space every week and be truly proud of every aspect of it.