I am very pleased to announce that TraderMike.net has finally received the design it deserves. Ever since I bought this site from Mike in January I knew that it needed a cleanup, and since StockTradingToGo was in the market for a fresh overhaul as well, things fell into place.
So, what do you think?
The primary goal of the redesign was to make a visual bridge between TraderMike and StockTradingToGo. I wanted visitors to know that these blogs belonged together and make the transition between the two as simple as a single click.
Making my grand idea a reality was not going to be an easy task, so I hired one of the best WordPress designers currently in the business, Rafal Tomal of TomalDesigns. Rafal is the lead designer for CopyBlogger Media and has done designs for several A-list bloggers including CopyBlogger, ProBlogger, and ChrisBrogran. I can’t recommend him enough.
The goals for this design revamp were pretty straight forward:
- Bridge TraderMike and StockTradingToGo together.
- Clean up the homepage and overall layout.
- Focus on the content. The easier to read, the better.
- Make the site social friendly with Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus.
- Speed up page load times (the blog is now run by the Genesis Framework).
While there are still some small areas to be hashed out in the coming weeks (if you see anything strange please leave a comment or email me), overall the launch went very smooth.
Alongside the new design I am also excited to share that comments will now be enabled for every market recap moving forward. If you have something to share, I want to hear from you!
This blog is what it is because of you, the readers. With over 9,000 subscribers and counting, TraderMike has an extremely dedicated following. Every one of you readers deserves the best experience possible, so I hope this new design is enjoyed by you as much as it is by me.
Comments are enabled and looking good. I hope you use them!
Looks great. I like the new logo. Cheers.
=^.^=
Looks good; I like the font used in the Titles. It will be interesting to see how traffic is going forward. Would love to give my own blog a more professional look but don’t know how much of a difference it makes…
Declan
Thanks Keith! What I love about the new logo is it maintains its original TraderMike font and appearance. Feels like home
Declan I am definitely going to be monitoring traffic. Hopefully visitors cross read a bit more. Obviously I am in the camp of redesigns making a big difference but that is just me. The way I see it is this is a business and it deserves the best look possible!
i don’t understand why u don’t change the name of the site since it is obviously not Trader Mike writing anymore, and since people come here primarily b’c of Trader Mike and not some other guy, why do u keep the name? i would understand if “Trader Mike” is a brandname or something but it is not, so keeping the old name misinforms people.
Great question which I debated for many months after acquiring the site in January. The decision to keep the name was made b/c TraderMike is a brand identity, not just a trader. Subscribers continue reading because the content has stayed relevant. The site has hit several records this year already and those levels may not have been reached if I ditched the TM brand name. So for now, TraderMike.net lives on.