After 12 years, it was time to update our website. It was also a chance to rearrange some pages, now that we know what we want people to notice. We’ve also paid attention to how things appear on mobile devices, since so many people use them for the web.
We’ve given more space to ads, because they help keep us in business. The top banner is significantly bigger than our previous version, while not dominating the homepage. We have more space for side ads, which will be able to rotate. These ads remain effective spots at extremely low prices. With the economy frozen due to COVID-19, we knew this wasn’t the time to increase prices.
We created three orange buttons on the homepage to promote our most popular and important pages: where to get Free Copies, Subscribe and Advertise. Where to get free copies is also linked at the bottom of the homepage.
The top photo on the homepage is meant to be from the issue that’s online. It won’t be the Current Issue that’s out in public, because we need people to go to our advertisers to get their free copies. That shows our advertisers how people respond to the magazine and gives them another reason to keep advertising with us. This “What’s Hot” box leads to a post describing the features from the newest issue that we’ve put on our site. Further down the homepage, we highlight our four most recent blog posts. The big photo leads to our latest and greatest post.
We’ve also renovated our General Store. The products are displayed better, and we’ve added a shopping cart for your convenience. You can add products to your cart and view them before you “proceed to the checkout.” And we’ve added a credit card option for payment, in addition to our previous options of Interac, PayPal and cheque. Remember that if you buy a fandana, to send me a photo or selfie of you or someone wearing it, and we’ll publish it in the magazine!
Finally, we learned something surprising. We had been considering eliminating the About page, because we thought it was no longer necessary. We were amazed to learn that it is one of our most frequently visited pages! Instead of deleting it, we’ve added to it, especially some fun things having to do with Mike. Do check it out.
What do you think of the site? And by the way, Hellebores are in full bloom these days!
