Fall For Design

Introducing Business Plan Number…

May 20, 2013

I say “Business Plan Number” because I have so many things up my sleeve I can’t keep track of how many times I add something new!

This past weekend we were suppose to go to Nebraska, but Jeremiah came down with some kind of virus/bug. So instead I spent the weekend nursing my tendonitis in my wrist and wishing I had a proper computer desk. Oh, and I cleaned. A lot.

One thing that I did do was try to push through with my next part of my business plan. I’ve been working on this for 6 months but never got a chance to push this phase through. I could only do little bits here and there at a time while trying to grow other parts of my business. This is where I really wish I could afford to hire someone to do the web design part for me.

Let me introduce you to my splash page.

A while back some of you have asked me if I have received my clients by blogging about my work. I answered no. But, a couple of times lately some clients have came to me through pinterest. And pinterest has pins from my blog. I really wanted to give my business a website and still keep up the life behind the business blog.

The business part of my website is just a splash page, with a few other pages being used as part of my business as well. I use wordpress (and the theme can be found on my resources page) to design this website. I used the same theme, but I was able to create a new template in my theme for the business section of my website. Does that make sense?

Anyway, you’ll see that not all of it is complete yet. I did a faux pas on this one. I went ahead with the #1 of web design and rolled out an incomplete website. Why? Well, there’s more coming and it will take a long, long time to complete it. And I needed to get this phase of my website up to give my business it’s own identity, separate from the blog.

Now back to nursing this wrist of mine (and doing laundry, kids naps, cleaning, etc.)..

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How Colors Effect Blog Readers and Visitors

May 17, 2013

Almost two weeks ago I launched a test theme to see if color theory improves websites. My color theory experiment worked in my Etsy shop and it increased my sales dramatically, but it had a little bit of a different effect on my website.

In this graph, the orange represents the design I had prior to the change. The colors are my signature theme, coral and grey. The blue represents the new theme colors, which are blue and green. You can see two days before I switched the theme, that my stats didn’t change much. My website was already growing with the coral and gray theme.

You can click the images to see a bigger picture.

Another part of my segments was my return visitor rate. It dropped. My lovely return visitors don’t like change. Screen shot 2013-05-17 at 8.40.36 AM In this view, I still averaged the same amount of visitors every 10 days. My Unique Visitors grew, but it wasn’t related to the change in my theme. Google actually bumped up one of my pages to rank #1 which resulted in more traffic. So while my return visitors decreased, the visits stayed the same because I had more unique visitors coming to the blog thanks to Google’s page rank increase.

Screen shot 2013-05-17 at 8.40.54 AM

The new visitors also stayed on the blog a little bit longer, but they didn’t find what they were looking for, which resulted in my bounce rate to increase. Screen shot 2013-05-17 at 8.41.21 AM

The increase in Google traffic resulted in some more pages being viewed. Or, one page being viewed more than usual. Screen shot 2013-05-17 at 8.41.33 AM

My final conclusion is that certain colors that are used in marketing to increase sales do not have the same effect to increase blog readers and traffic. Readers will continue to read no matter what colors, as long as it’s easy on the eyes overall. And readers will stay if your theme is attractive.

That’s why I only did my color theory test for 10 days. Everytime I saw the blue and green logo, I hated it. I missed my signature colors. I also want to make the next move in my business plan and I can’t do that until my signature color returns. This is why the blog looks as it did before, but slightly better, and back to the original idea before I tried to separate business from life. I believe the new design keeps my brand alive, and it also tells the story of what goes on behind my business. For example, home and life.

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What I’m Up To Lately

May 17, 2013

Friday? Really? I don’t think I’ve had the chance to sit down all week and look at what day it is until today. Holy smokes! This makes me realize that I’m stuck in that situation I was almost a year and a half ago. Where I couldn’t handle it all, so I quit my job to be a SAHM. Lately I’ve been working 40+ hours a week due to a boom in business and it feels oddly familiar of one of the top reasons I wanted to be a SAHM! And that reason was because I hardly saw my kids, and I could never keep up with my homemaking duties, or cooking, or spending time with family.

I’m thankful for the burst in business, because we really need it since my husband is now self-employed too (read about our self-employment announcement here).

Other than working my tail off, I’ve been…

Suffering from tendonitis. No joke. My desk is not set up to be used for a computer. With working so much my wrist has been killing me all week. I’m adding a computer desk to my wish list that is currently inside my head.
Due to the pain, I’ve scaled back on a few extra projects and behind-the-scenes business stuff to give my wrist a break. So instead I’ve been trying to catch up on household chores, and things that should have been done since we moved into this house. Like cleaning the filthy windows. I haven’t been able to keep up with a cleaning routine so it’s a hot mess over here. I have boxes of junk and papers that need to be filed or tossed, clothes everywhere (that’s life with a family of four) and dirt. Yup. No matter how many times a day I sweep the floor, clean the counters, take out the trash… all I have to do is turn around and 5 minutes later there’s stuff all over the place. It’s never-ending, so it’s hard to keep a house spotless so I can see the stuff that really needs to get done (ie, spring cleaning stuff). Oh, and I’ve been wearing a wrist brace that helps a bunch. It’s my new BFF. It’s allowing me to tackle my “Spring Cleaning Agenda.”

Jeremiah’s been sick off and on this week. Which means I’ve been doing all the parenting. It’s not easy with two toddlers and to-do list as long as the Great Wall of China!

Oh, while I’m at it, these projects are still on my to-do list. I’ve been so busy they have been sitting on the back-burner.

Still working on my change of business plans. Ohhh yes, more things are coming.
If you follow me on Instagram, a certain white butterfly has officially landed. More on that soon.
I have the materials for Chloe’s comforter.. sitting in a bag in her closet. Haven’t had the chance to fire up the sewing machine, let alone cut the fabric!

What have you guys been up to lately? Any business plans on your agenda? Have you been back-sliding on your projects too?

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