The new look, one week on. Thoughts? Problems?

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• James67 says:

  9 Mar9 March 07:09

  It all ‘feels’ good to me, have experienced no problems at all. I like it, thx Raffles.

• Hayden says:

  9 Mar9 March 07:52

  I read other blogs when I read yours, and yours involves much more clicking than others. I would much prefer not having to click the story to read it, and instead just be able to scroll down on the home page with each story in full (particularly since some are short). I gather your readers visit you daily, and since you post 3-5 stories a day it wouldn’t look particularly cluttered if all stories were fully on the home page. My 2 cents.

  • Rob says:

    9 Mar9 March 08:29

    This is a fair point, and one I have thought about. If there was 1 post per day, I would probably have that post in full and the rest as headlines. However, with 3 posts per day at the moment it isn’t as practical.

    The 2nd reason I like having 12 headlines showing is that it gives people who come via Google (which is now a big number – the number of regular readers each day is probably equal to the number who come for the first time via Google) a balanced view of what the blog is about. If every post was about Avios it wouldn’t matter as much, but some days there are no Avios posts. Or there may be 2/3 posts relating to Tesco! Being able to see 12 stories on the front page gives a fairer view of what the site is about.

    (PS. It is not about ad revenue! The ads are not paid by the number of views, so there is no incentive to make people flick through the pages!)

    • James67 says:

      9 Mar9 March 10:40

      Research has shown that most people are satisfied with a website if they can see what they want with three clicks or less. HFP generally meets this goal. We can see a good number of posts at a glance enabling us to quickly determine what is of interest. One click gets us to the full entry where a scond click usually takes us to a promotion, news or whatever on an external page wherupon it is no longer a HFP issue. So two clicks gets us what we want to see on HFP; very good in my view. It is true that you often provide links to earlier posts requiring further clicking. When I was new here I found this helpful as I’m sure others do too. I think most of us are regular followes though and rarely use these links to earlier posts unless we wish to refresh our memory or see something we may have missed. On the whole I think they are useful and should stay in; it is the readers choice whether they want to click or not.

• Andy Lea (@andyandy) says:

  9 Mar9 March 08:26

  Seems fine to me Raffles – easy to find items – I especially like the Categories section. I did not dislike the former site, but as you mentioned I cannot remember many details now – except the yellow which I found rather attractive – much to my surprise as I know for websites – “blue is the colour”

  My personal preference was for an “ad free” site although I fully understand why you have changed this aspect – the changing nature of the ads can be distracting for me as I try to tune them out of my vision.

  Keep up the good work – the above are minor niggles only. Give me content over format any day! None of this style over substance nonsense!

  Cheers.

  Off topic I know but any news on the Tesco aluminium can recyclying for Avios – I was not able to find reference to it on the Tesco sites.?

• whiskerxx says:

  9 Mar9 March 10:18

  The only thing I don’t particulary like is the font style of the topic headings

  e.g. “The new look, one week on. Thoughts? Problems?”

  Whilst large enough, I dont find it particularly easy on the eye

• Richard says:

  10 Mar10 March 08:12

  This is a fantastic site, Raffles. Have you considered introducing a forum? I think it would provide an more engaging user experience. It would also generate additional traffic and ad/affiliate revenue opportunities for you.

  • Rob says:

    10 Mar10 March 09:11

    It is an option going forward. The issue is whether the admin and management issues surrounding a forum outweigh the ad revenue. If I can arrange an advertising deal with an agency which focusses on travel and leisure ads, it may be viable. However, I don’t think it would work on the back of Google AdSense ads because they do not pay hugely well.

• Jamjaw says:

  10 Mar10 March 08:51

  Hi Raffles,

  There seems to be an email issue… I only got one email this am, but know there have been more than that. Could be my email server bouncing them, but that never happened on the old site!

  • Rob says:

    10 Mar10 March 09:12

    I got all 3 emails, so I think the others got bounced somewhere.

    • Jamjaw says:

      10 Mar10 March 09:29

      Ok – could you remove my email and will add another to stop them getting bounced! (If you can see my email that is!)

      • Rob says:

        10 Mar10 March 09:47

        Leave it another day. There was a video ad which ran in the Amex post today, as an experiment, which was probably what caused the spam problem. It won’t be repeated tomorrow.

        (And, separate point, I can’t actually edit the email list! WordPress has control of the list. You need to use the settings at the bottom of the last email you received.)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.