06 May Website:Chloe Dobinson
Here is my website which I have developed over the last couple of months with five screen-grabs highlighting the best sections and features of the site. Overall the website can be viewed in full for more features and content here.
1.) Theme: My theme Expound has a minimal yet attractive navigation, which allows users to navigate the site easily. The flexibility in features contribute to a distinctive blog by modifying the plug in’s and overall appearance. The home page gives a welcoming impression to the users with the subtle grey background colour inviting users to navigate through the site, providing a casual reading experience.
Expound Theme
The theme also caters accordingly to a multi-platform viewing experiences being adjustable to mobile, desktop and tablet devices as show on a tablet device. The drop down menu organises all my content into categories creating an easier navigation for the user. Overall the content can be broke down, through the use of menus and categories, with users most likely to come back to the website. I updated the home page with a new header giving a personalised approach to the website seeing as it is the user’s first impression of the website. The header includes an image and a downloaded font of Droid Sans, which offers a clear and comprehensible first impression of the site compared to other websites with fonts being limited in choice through Adobe Photoshop.
Tablet Version
2.) Reviews page: My reviews tab includes my personal journalism work and the career I would like to go into of the journalism field of events. The job application of which I have applied for of ‘Graduate Conference Content Researcher’ applies to my skills and experience which involves attending events, networking and representing the company for future projects. The required proficiency for the job role have been applied to me through previous internships and through the degree course with my website showcasing the skills learned. The special features integrated on my website include the star rating and interactivity through the use of social mediums, such as Instagram and Twitter, presenting a positive outlook to the visitors by getting them engaged with the content.
Reviews Page
3.) Galleries: The galleries offer a multimedia experience adding elements to the site generating a narrative for the users. The visual impact breaks down the website and information, not over-whelming the user with a content heavy layout. The use of each gallery relates back to the initial theme of the website being event based where users can view a slideshow of images from the gallery. The plugin which I used was ‘Photo Gallery’ which can be modified to a timescale of three seconds per image allowing the user to view content catering to the quick and digestible news consumption of the readers online habits. The theme also modifies to the gallery order, which galleries are featured and the selection of photo’s featured.
Photo Gallery
4.) Sidebar: The sidebar features include recent posts, archives and categories keeping content and overall layout organised and comprehensible for users. The built in structure offers a smooth and professional outlook to users accentuating the content and flexibility in options.The sidebar is for secondary content helping to navigate the users to gain more attention to meet content of the site. The sidebar was featured on the right which most websites commonly position their sidebar allowing the posts to override the categorization of content.
Sidebar
5.) Social Media & SEO-tagging– Through constant updating of the website and promotion of the content through social media such as Twitter and Scoop.it, incited traffic towards the site. The use of social media management tools, such as Hootsuite and Buffer, schedule posts throughout the day for when users are most active in viewing content. Social media is great communication tool for receiving instant feedback on posts, layouts and the overall website design. The widget Ultimate Social Media Icons is used for my overall social media following and sharing of content. The availability of social mediums each caters to the users preference by being featured in each post and in one section of the sidebar.
Social Media
The Jetpack plugin used determines the website views and overall site stats breaking down which posts are receiving the most attention and where in the world they are being viewed. Therefore gaining an insight of which posts to further promote and to target the audience with for future content.
Site Stats
The use of SEO-tagging and the grouping of categories, such as reviews and multimedia, increased the overall traffic and engagement to my site. The use of categories balanced the choice in options available while giving the user a choice they are searching for. The keyword related back to each individual post by covering information discussed in the content creating a functional link to between the reader and content. The SEO by Yoast plugin was installed which focuses solely on optimizing the articles and archiving the pages on my website. Alternatively revising posts and adding tags which are relevant or newsworthy to the topic and which can attract readers to your site.
SEO-tagging
