The Future of Blossom.nu

A while back I mentioned that I’m in the process of redesigning Blossom.nu. The fundamental basics are in place, it’s just a case of tweaking everything (I say ‘just’, but I’ve got plenty more hours to put in) and putting it live.

The main problem was that Blossom.nu was a hangover of Star-Girl.org, which was a hangover of KuteKitten.com. I started KuteKitten.com when I was thirteen or fourteen years old. Blossom has been updated in parts but still carries a lot of old legacy content. Obviously, I’ve grown up a lot over the past ten to twelve years, but my site hasn’t kept up.

The Downfall

It all started to go downhill in my first year of uni. Before that I was averaging about 50-60 comments per post; I think the highest was about 90 or something like that, and I was posting every couple of days as well as updating the site. In my first year of uni, I had a huge issue of not being able to upload anything via FTP from within campus (which is where I was living), and I also, in part, chose to neglect it (because hey, I was at uni and there were other things going on). Of course I regret it, and it wasn’t a conscious choice. I had a lot more free time then than I do now, but no motivation. Now I have the motivation, but hardly any time.

For the past year or so, my thoughts have flitted to what to do with the site, and how to make it grow up. The old content is still popular, and ranking well, which is a big problem in terms of moving forward because I can’t just delete it. Additionally, I’m now part of different circles within the web. I’m not just a blogger talking about my life, which is what blogging was in 2001. I want to talk about design, SEO, marketing, business and a lot more. But I also don’t want to alienate the people who still read my blog faithfully, even though the entries are sporadic (I love you guys). I also know that there are people who spy on me via this blog, and I’d hate to disappoint them by not talking about myself

The Solution

Anyway, I eventually came to the conclusion that there was a simple way to solve the problem: dividing Blossom.nu’s posts into two main categories 1) the web and 2) me/the site. They’ll be clearly labelled and presented on the homepage, so people who are interested in reading about me (you crazy cats) can easily see the latest posts, and likewise people who are interested in reading web tips and articles for their own benefit can see those instantly too. I’ve set it up in test form with the help of Joe and some snazzy WordPress loops, but I’m still working on the styling so it’s not live yet. In terms of content, I am actually going to be ditching a lot (I’m talking to you, Neopets pages) and replacing it. My plan is to get a lot of stuff written and then schedule it out slowly so there are actually regular updates. With useful content. I know, I know, I’m going all-out here.

For the old, popular content which I grew out of a long time ago, I’m going to create a semi-hidden ‘Archived Content’ section. It will have internal menus so that people coming from search engines will be able to browse through it seamlessly, but it won’t interfere with the rest of the site (I hope). I get a lot of traffic to those pages from StumbleUpon, which means I have a horrendous bounce rate *shakes fist* so I may completely kill them in the future. We’ll see.

Moving Forward

Appearance-wise, Blossom.nu isn’t going to change that much. It’s still going to be ‘just another WordPress blog’. The homepage will be slightly different appearance-wise, the content will be better (in terms of quality and amount), and there will be more updates and blog entries. Not as many as the old days, but way more than a one or twice a month guilty ‘Oh crap I should blog at Blossom’ post. I still see the potential in Blossom as I see the potential in almost everything. I still like the name – although knowing now what I didn’t in 2004, the extension does suck – and I’ll be sticking with it for the foreseeable future. But I’ve recognised that designing a new theme and reorganising some of the pages won’t solve the problem, or help me be motivated to blog. I need something more drastic. This site should be the truest reflection of me, and at the moment it’s kind of like a teenager’s messy bedroom (minus the door slamming and crumpled posters). I have a lot of projects on, and an insane amount of stuff to do, but I love being busy. It may take a while, but now Blossom.nu has a new direction and fresh purpose and I want it to be good again, and in a sustainable way.