You have been using the same WordPress template for your blog or church website for years, now.
Like a comfortable pair of jeans that fit perfect, your media dimensions and featured images go where they should. Like familiar shoes, you know exactly how those h1, h2 and h3 headings look with your layout. Photo captions and block quotes? Like the back of your hand.
But then you decided to install a new WordPress theme…
All Shiny And New And Stuff
Getting a new blog/website design is exciting! We are busy tweaking and getting ChurchMag 2.0 all ready for a release this month (hopefully). It is easy to be impatient and release before it is ready, because getting a new design is really fun!
There is nothing like that new WordPress theme smell…
The Problem with Switching Designs
The problem with changing your layout and design is all those media dimensions, not to mention how featured images often time change radically. It does not take long for the honeymoon to end. The first time you look at an old page or dated blog post, you will quickly realize how wonky things can get. Of course, this varies from theme to theme, blog to blog and website to website. As for ChurchMag 2.0, it is kind of a mixed bag. Some posts handle the new design gracefully, while others look butt-ugly.
What About Frankenstein?
The question I am faced with the upcoming new ChurchMag design is how to deal with the ugly.
How do you handle blog posts that have transformed into Frankenstein?
Smaller blogs, generally under 500 posts, could consider reformatting any injured posts, but as I gaze at the 12,600+ blog posts of ChurchMag, it simply isn’t an option. I could try to keep more inline with our current layout and design, but it doesn’t seem like a good idea to limit a new design with the old. How would you like your new iMac in a beige case instead of the latest design?
My Strategy, Your Strategy
My strategy for ChurchMag 2.0 will be to re-format recent, high traffic and linked posts.
On launch date, I will go through the first week of blog posts posted before the switch, making necessary changes to make sure everything looks good. Since we schedule about one week ahead of schedule, we will tweak these as needed.
And those old posts? Every month I will comb over my Google Analytics and make changes to old blog posts that receive regular monthly traffic. I want to make sure that my design is safe for at least those high traffic Google search result posts.
Finally, whenever I link to an old post while composing a new blog post, I will check its design qualities. You would not want to knowingly force your reader to face Frankenstein, would you?
So tell me, what is your strategy for new designs?
How do you handle Frankenstein?
[Image via Ѕolo, marcmoss & Zlatko Unger via Compfight cc]
John says
Eric,
That sounds like a good plan. I’ve dealt with that a few times in the past and never really tried to “fix” the old posts. However, if I see an old post getting a lot of traffic I’ll go and fix it. I’ve been using the awesome Standard theme for a long time and now that it’s not supported I’m looking to make a change in the upcoming months. Your approach sounds like exactly what I’d do. Deal with the most current content and then the “evergreen” content that people find through Google.
John
Eric Dye says
Word. 🙂
Michael John Beil says
sometimes you just have to give up on fixing frankenstein cuz he’s cray cray!
Eric Dye says
SO cray cray.