The site is now beginning to take shape, I think.
I don’t care what the 12-year old millionaires might be telling you, content is king but the King does need somewhere comfortable to sit. It’s taken me a while because setting up the structure has been neither straightforward nor obvious. You can tell it’s neither straightforward nor obvious because nobody is showing you how to do it.
You can find loads of sites where people go to great lengths to tell you:
- the difference between a page and a post,
- the difference between a website and a blog,
- the need for a menu that allows visitors to find what they want.
They don’t tell you why or how.
And … in most cases, it’s clear that the information presented has been harvested from similar sites. Articles are being compiled from old dictionary definitions and from watching Jim and Ricky on YouTube. At this point, I should say that I have nothing against Jim and Ricky. I actually think that they have this stuff nailed but if I can listen to them, why would I want to read an article written by someone who has listened to them.
I’m looking for inspiration. If you’re reading this, I think probably you are looking for inspiration too.
Sorted the Menu
I have sorted the menu. I have written a post on sorting the menu, so you can follow my thinking. It now looks like this:
It pretty much looked like this before, but now I have shuffled stuff and deleted stuff, and now it makes more sense. I didn’t worry about it too much before because there wasn’t enough content. I thought that I would leave the thinking about the menu until after I had something to think about. I thought that writing and publishing the first few posts and pages would probably set the framework for the site. I thought I would allow the structure to evolve, and I am quite happy with the way it’s turned out. There will, of course, be tweaks as we head off into the future, but I think I have caught the essence.
I would say don’t spend too much time on the menu if you are just starting, just do some writing and let the framework reveal itself.
Google Analytics opt-out
Yesterday, I wrote about opting out of Google Analytics, especially in the early days of website development. I thought this would be a good idea because my Google Analytics stats are being overshadowed by … me.
I’m not talking about opting out of the whole of Google Analytics. That would be silly. I just want to prevent my own browsing activity from reaching the Google servers.
I don’t really need to know what I am looking at. We all browse our own sites to make sure they are working properly, and we don’t really want that to hide the visitor stats. When we have big visitor numbers, we probably don’t care, but in the beginning, we probably do.
I have now blocked the data being sent from my Google Chrome browsers. I added the add-on to Google Chrome on the PC and as if by magic, the same add-on has appeared on the Mac.
Technology is a wonderful thing.
I have also done the same on Firefox and Safari.
My Google Analytics charts now look a bit flat, but at least I know they’re honest.
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Let us tell you what’s happening.
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