Meet Yoast!
After a couple of years on joostdevalk.nl, I've decided it was time to do a couple of things at the same time:
- redesign to a more professional look
- move to a .com domain and US based hosting
- 301 redirect the entire old domain to that new domain
Now those of you who are unlucky enough to have me in your IM list have been spammed a lot by me the last few weeks, while I was doing all the redesign work, and deciding which domain I was going to use. In the end, I decided to go with yoast.com. This name was created when at SMX Stockholm last year, I tried to explain to Rand Fishkin and some other people how to pronounce my first name, Joost, properly. Rand spoke the great words "ow that's easy, just toast with a y", and then: yoast was born.
It took some time (and money) to acquire yoast.com, but I succeeded in that too, and then went on to pick a designer. I chose to work with Alen Grakalic of CSS Globe, who not only creates great designs, but can code them to my, very very high, XHTML and CSS standards too. We worked together for a couple of weeks, with me getting feedback from some of my very good friends like Ben Jesson of Conversion Rate Experts, Jennifer Slegg and Roy Huiskes.
In the new design, I wanted to do a couple of new things:
- Create a better homepage, which had to be more than a blog index page.
- Create a separate blog index page, while keeping the URL's for posts the same.
- Make a better distinction between utility pages, like contact, advertising etc., and the "really" important pages: SEO tools, WordPress plugins and Articles.
- Clean up the template for single post pages and pages.
And preserve a couple of others:
- Make the RSS button still stand out as much as it did in the old design.
- Keep the tag cloud.
- Make sure the comments stayed as important as they were in the previous design.
Alen did a great job, as you can see in the new design. Now the last thing I had to do was get a new logo and tagline. I'd always called this blog an SEO blog, and in some sense, it is. But a lot of what I write about has hardly anything to do with SEO. So I started discussing a new tagline with the above mentioned friends, and Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips.
In the end, I decided to go with "Tweaking Websites", as that's what I do. For the logo, my buddy Brent Csutoras pointed me to a site called 99designs. This site allows you to launch a contest for a design. I set a $400 price, and got a massive load of designs submitted, check them out.
In the end, a German guy called Christian Hockenberger won. He came up with this design. I'd like to thank all of my friends for all of their help in this move! Now on to what is basically a very big experiment: a 301 redirect of an entire site to a new, US hosted domain.
Some stuff won't be finished today, some moving still needs to be done. But do look around and share your feelings about the redesign in the comments!
Related posts
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- Back in business!
- Heroes coming to Holland
Martin Joosse Jun 9th, 2008 at 13:35
Congratz! Beautiful logo and design! Keep up the good work :)
Joost de Valk Jun 9th, 2008 at 13:36
Thanks Martin :)
brewgin Jun 9th, 2008 at 13:36
Ah the wise Fishkin... he still owes me an autographed picture...
I like the new design. A lot better than Dave's recent switch.
Still very yoasty! Couple of sponsor images on the right are broken at the moment.
brewgin Jun 9th, 2008 at 13:38
Sorry for the double post:
Any particular reason you went with the non-www?
Joost de Valk Jun 9th, 2008 at 13:40
@Bregwin: thx, fixed the banners! as for the www: yes, it's shorter :)
Jaswinder Virdee Jun 9th, 2008 at 13:48
nice! Looking swish
Bas van den Beld Jun 9th, 2008 at 13:51
Looking good Joost, or should I say "Yoast" from now on? ;)
Simon Jun 9th, 2008 at 14:07
Hey Joost,
I've seen the site yesterday already and I think you've done a great job. Very professional, very nice. Also I wasn't familiar with 99designs, which seems to be a pretty cool tool. Keep it up!
Travis Jun 9th, 2008 at 14:10
Looks good Joost.
One suggestion; increase the size of the text in comments so it matches your posts. It's a little too small right now to comfortably read. :)
Arjan Jun 9th, 2008 at 14:12
I very much like the new homepage. As a visitor you perfectly know that is is you personal site, and that they can find some interesting stuff here (plugins, SEO tools, articles). Congrats to you and the people who helped designing and developing this new site.
My few cents on the design and code:
- The footer looks a bit too black. If you use the same blue as in the breadcrumbs-bar of the header, it looks much nice, I think.
- Make you author comment even more clear, by using a blue background, too.
- Why do you put Analytics code in the header of a page? The browser now waits until the JavaScript files are completely loaded and parsed. That costs some time, especially if Google's servers are slow. That's why Google recommends to put it before the closing body tag.
- There are some validation errors, that can easily be fixed.
Don't interpret me wrong with the few points I just made. The site is great at the moment, it just that I look at those things :)
Joost de Valk Jun 9th, 2008 at 14:12
@Travis: thx, that is on the list of todo's already indeed!
Joost de Valk Jun 9th, 2008 at 14:13
@Arjan: Thanks! The GA code is on top because outbound clicking measurement is broken when it isn't... unfortunately, I dare say. I'll fix those validation issues indeed, and am trying to think of a better look for author comments.
Elja Trum Jun 9th, 2008 at 14:48
Looks great, Joost. Nice design and logo.
That 99design website sounds useful. I'll certainly try it..
Jojo Jun 9th, 2008 at 14:52
I like the new design.
The bread crumb "blog" is linking to the old "http://www.jdevalk.com/blog/".
DazzlinDonna Jun 9th, 2008 at 14:52
Looks fabulous, Joost. Let me be the first to toast Yoast! :D
Joost de Valk Jun 9th, 2008 at 14:54
@Jojo: thx, fixed! I'll buy you a beer in Hamburg ;)
@Dazzlindonna hehe, thx :)
Patrick Daly Jun 9th, 2008 at 15:03
Couple of questions/observations:
I noticed you're using Mint for your site analytics. Why do you prefer it over Google?
I also noticed that you have the Mint tracking code inserted twice. Maybe that's how they have it setup for some reason, but if not, you may want to fix that.
Overall, I love the new site!
Arjan Snaterse Jun 9th, 2008 at 15:09
Joost, congratulations with the redesign/move/name-change!
Eduard Blacquière Jun 9th, 2008 at 15:12
Hi Joost,
Congrats on the great new sitedesign! I think it's an improvement of the previous site and fits better with your international acquired status.
Markus Walter Jun 9th, 2008 at 15:15
Hey Joost,
great site, congratulation. I hope to read the same interesting posts as on your old page!
Markus
Simon Jun 9th, 2008 at 15:18
Unfortunately the last comment didn't make it through. However I think you did a great job on the redesign. Although the old site was pretty good already you've reached a more professional level i.m.o.
99 designs is pretty cool too, I didn't know that one before (notify of followup comments is not yet working).
Sint Jun 9th, 2008 at 15:18
I really like your new domain name and design. Almost thought the online tv-platform did decide to sue you over trademark abuse in the end :-)
At first I thought the silhouette in your logo was some kind of animal/devil, but now I know it is a wrench I like it very much! The 99design contest concept is pretty cool too. I strongly believe the end result is also pretty much dependent on the way you try to stimulate the designers to improve the things they come up with. I've read through some of your comments and I think you managed to do this very well.
Maybe the favicon needs some alphablending for its transparency to look even better on other background colors than white (for instance in Firefox browser tabs).
Keep up those great articles!
Ruud Kok Jun 9th, 2008 at 15:26
looks good Joost!
Joost de Valk Jun 9th, 2008 at 15:32
Thanks all for the warm words!
@Patrick Daly: I use GA too ;) and thx for noticing the double mint, removed that :)
Gerben Jun 9th, 2008 at 15:35
Good work, Joost.
I expected you to switch from joostdevalk.nl to joostdevalk.com, but this is much better!
Mubin Jun 9th, 2008 at 16:05
Welcome to your new home, you should hopefully be getting alot of new backlinks from your friends as a "blog-warming" gift.
G. Vink Jun 9th, 2008 at 16:31
I like the new design and domain name. But when a had a look at the logo I had more or less the same thought as Sint, is it a spanner or a bull's head with big horns. But after reading the payoff I guess it must be a spanner ;)
I also found a small bug in Firefox (Mac) using the new site. I will send you an email with the screenshot and details.
richardbaxterseo Jun 9th, 2008 at 16:41
Woops! Looks like something's gone awry with your sitemap. What's all that PHP error code in the header?
Jenstar Jun 9th, 2008 at 16:50
Looks great! The end result is definitely the best one :)
Joost de Valk Jun 9th, 2008 at 17:14
Thanks again all!
@Richardbaxterseo I don't see it?
@jenstar: and certainly for a large part due to your feedback! Thx :)
PJ Brunet Jun 9th, 2008 at 17:48
The gravatars look great, I hope they get to be more mainstream eventually.
Joost de Valk Jun 9th, 2008 at 17:49
@Simon: fixed the comment notify thing
@Arjan: fixed all validation issues too!
Devon Young Jun 9th, 2008 at 18:30
Seems redesigns are contagious lately. Nice job here. I always thought your name was pronounced like "Who" with an "st" at the end. I learn something new everyday.
Richard Hearne Jun 9th, 2008 at 19:43
Very cool new site. Will be interesting to see how it is recached.
Did you redirect granularly, or anything else funky/experimental in the redirects?
Funny thing is I've had to explain to a few people how Joost is pronounced, now that wont be an issue anymore :)
Joost de Valk Jun 9th, 2008 at 19:45
@Richard: it's one big fat redirect :)
Search Engine Optimization Journal Jun 9th, 2008 at 20:20
Congratulations on the new site. Looks great!
Rajab Bader Jun 9th, 2008 at 20:49
I must say that the new design is awesome! However, as Travis said, the comments font need to be a bit larger ;)
Congrats
Roy Jun 9th, 2008 at 21:17
It looks amazing. I like the new logo and the news style I really think this is a good version to work on your next stuff, which will be next level.
sam i am Jun 9th, 2008 at 22:45
Looking very good Joost.
With a name like yours and another big site out there with that domain i'm not sure i'd have gone with this choice of domain though. Or maybe with Rand's text as the tagline so whenever spoken people know where to go (podcasts etc). At least be sure to cover searches for misspellings through adwords :)
Site looks great though! Also on iphone :)
Ramon Eijkemans Jun 9th, 2008 at 23:05
Looks very good Joost. I particularly like the way you made a blogging platform into a full blown thematical cms, for instance the way you organized the indexpage. An example for sure!
Gustavo Leig Jun 10th, 2008 at 06:37
Congrats for the new superb website.
Which plan did you get in MT? Im trying to measure how much power I need in a web server. I have +-5K pageviews/day.
thanks!
Joost de Valk Jun 10th, 2008 at 06:39
Thanks all!
@Gustavo: I have a grid server, with a lite MySQL container added to it. I wanted to make sure the site could survive Digg frontpage-like situations without any trouble, and I've heard from a few link-baiter friends of mine that this is the package they'd choose for that!
Gustavo Leig Jun 10th, 2008 at 06:43
Wish you better luck than I had with MT.
Maybe you can write a post later about your moving domain name experience. That would be very interesting (at least for me.)
thx again.
Joost de Valk Jun 10th, 2008 at 06:45
@Gustavo I'll certainly be doing that! I'm tracking spidering etc. like mad now, to see how the SE's deal with this :)
oeroek Jun 10th, 2008 at 07:59
Great name and great site. I think you are really going the right direction and starting to make a nice footprint.
Christian Hockenberger Jun 10th, 2008 at 10:06
Hey Joost, thanks for the pretty words and the link. I am glad you like my work and proud that you got so much positive critique for your redesign.
I like your page, very helpful and just looking great :)
So long..
martijn Jun 10th, 2008 at 10:34
love the new site design! keep up the good work.
Anup Shah Jun 10th, 2008 at 14:24
Fantastic redesign. I love the logo -- as well as looking like a wrench it also looks a bit like that batman signal for help! Works on a lot of levels!
Will be interested to see your experience with the entire domain being 301'd. I have a similar large scale effort coming up for something else I work on and even though I technically know that 301s are the way to go, I am still nervous about some key pages that rank 1 on google for reasonably popular search terms!
(Also, I found out that StumbleUpon has no mechanism to update your URLs for you, so all the stumbles you may have built in the past may not be seen by future stumblers. Do you find that an issue?)
Dave Jun 10th, 2008 at 18:46
Great Layout Joost :o much better than the previous one..
Dave
Jermayn Jun 11th, 2008 at 08:05
I like alot, very nice. Comment type a bit small but apart from that very nice indeed..
Jaan Kanellis Jun 11th, 2008 at 21:59
Joost one thing that stinks is the size of text on the new website/blog. The font size could use an increase to be easier on the eyes.
Otherwise congrats on the new website and welcome to the .com world, LOL
Ozh Jun 12th, 2008 at 09:39
Nice redesign Joost. So, how does it feel when you commit Technorati Rank suicide ? :) (I did it too 18 months ago)
Chris Estes Jun 13th, 2008 at 05:04
Nice cool design. I like it because the font isn't too small. In fact it might border on too large for normal visitors. The drastic font size change on the comment might be too much for my eyes.
Edmund Pelgen Jun 13th, 2008 at 13:27
Joost, I love the site...the great article on WP seo as well. i have one question though. How do you do the grid layout of intro articles on your Wordpress Plugins page? I've always wondered how something like this is done in WP?
Thanks
Edmund
Laurens Jun 13th, 2008 at 15:37
Hey Joost,
The only thing that bothers me is the dotted borders around the hyperlinked images in your header menu, To disable this you can add this to your CSS:
a {
outline: none;
}
The site looks very cool and professional. Nice domainname to! Keep on going!
Joost de Valk Jun 13th, 2008 at 15:40
@Laurens: removing the outline causes some accessibility issues, read Arjan Eising's post about that :)
Laurens Jun 13th, 2008 at 15:45
@Joost: never thought about it like Arjan. Seems logical, now I know where it is for ;) Thx!
SE7EN Jun 13th, 2008 at 19:08
Beutiful new design, new site name, and great article
youfoundjake Jun 14th, 2008 at 21:40
Joost, looks good, I definately like the layout. I really dig the RSS button.
Hopefully all the engines are able to gracefully handle the 301 redirect to the new domain... :)
Wilco Jun 18th, 2008 at 06:04
Better late then never, but I like it.. A lot!
It's fresh, it's cool, it's yoast!
However, don't forget to update your "advertise here" page ;-)
René Greve Jun 18th, 2008 at 19:30
Looks great Joost, specially the great RSS-button. You're om mij feed now!!
Denis L. Jun 21st, 2008 at 10:00
Very nice!
Marcel (seotaal) Jun 25th, 2008 at 23:03
Was a long time ago that I visited Joostdevalk.nl, been to busy lately. But this new site looks great! I love the design and think both the name and the site structure are improved!
Hope you keep posting the same great blogs as you used to. I understand the importance of a .com domain, but does the US hosting still really count on SEO grounds? Or is this only a change for better loading times for US visitors?
Keep on the good work!
Joost de Valk Jun 25th, 2008 at 23:05
@Marcel: so far the US hosting has helped in ranking too, yes, though only in US rankings. But since 70-80% of my traffic is from the US....