I’m very happy to announce this morning that Search Engine Journal is launching the first of multiple redesign and restructuring phases, which have been underway now for about 4 months of planning and acquiring feedback from our readers. As many of you know, Search Engine Journal has been my baby for over 6 years, and recently Search Engine Journal, Inc. merged with Search & Social to form Search & Social Media, LLC. Search Engine Journal is now the flagship of the Search & Social Media network, which includes IMBroadcast, Daily SEO Tip & other properties which we are currently relaunching and acquiring.
I’ve been wanting to redesign for about a year now, and was referred by many to Reese Spykerman of Design by Reese to head our blog redesign. I can honestly say that Reese and I clicked during the initial brainstorming phase, and saw eye to eye on a new direction for the site design, and its functionality. Basically, I wanted something cleaner and a little more different for the site, our logo and enhanced social interaction for reader discussions and connectivity.
Site Design
For the site design, I wanted a new direction in SEJ’s feel and cleanliness. The old design, which we launched back in 2006, did a great job of differentiating the site at the time, but I found it to be a little clunky and cluttered. Furthermore, I felt that Search Engine Journal has grown far beyond what it used to be, and did not see the need of so many ads, links and other content which had been squeezed into the sidebar over the past 3 years.
I also found the blogroll to be restrictive, limiting the roll to only a handful of the hundreds of magnificent search blogs out there, personally I felt as the smaller blogroll was doing an injustice to the “search-o-sphere”.
That being said, the first change I wanted to make was a color change to help make the site easier on the eyes. Since SEJ was originally launched in light blue back in the day, I wanted to revert back to something similar, especially with Mashable, Facebook & Twitter all using a similar color strategy. I also wanted to keep the deep red of the SEJ brand as part of our logo, so we decided after a couple rounds to go with a teal, some light blues, white and a little red.
For the blogroll, we’ve decided to use a master blogroll, which Ann and I will continue to build, and randomly generate five blogs at a time from the master on each page (with an upcoming link to the Master Blog Roll).
Social Interaction
Another focus on the new design of SEJ is the ability for not only readers to engage in enhanced discussion on the blog itself, but also connect with each other and SEJ via Facebook & Twitter. Furthermore, we made it a point to include contact information for all of our contributors via an email button which is placed next to their pic on individual blog posts while also giving contributors the option to include their Twitter info on their posts as well.
Furthermore, the more people I talk to out there who read different blogs and the more social media penetrates into everyday life, the more options arise beyond RSS for reading & monitoring social content outside of a news aggregator. For this reason, we are now featuring an SEJ Connect box on our sidebar, with these three options. As more options introduce themselves, we may be adding in the future, but don’t expect us to add Plurk anytime soon :)
Commenting & Community
In addition to adding the ability to connect with SEJ, writers and readers, we have also added a few new features to our comments. Now on SEJ, your comments can feature your avatar on them. We’re using Gravatar to power this feature, so if you don’t have a Gravatar account, I highly suggest opening one up right now and uploading your favorite pic. If you don’t have one, your Gravatar will default to a custom SEJ avatar of our new logo!
We’ve also added threaded commenting, which lets readers reply directly to a comment left by another reader. Threaded comments tend to lead to more discussion, and less lost thought or ideas in the commenting … since a reply is made directly below an initial reader comment. We’ve tested this out on Daily SEO Tip, and found it to really encourage overall knowledge sharing, opinion sharing, and replies, ultimately expanding the lifespan of a post or column, and adding new thought and direction.
Like I said at the beginning of this announcement, today is the first phase of the total Search Engine Journal redesign. Other new add ons are currently in the cooker, including enhanced author and profile pages, more polls, enhanced sponsorships and advertising opps, staff reviews, new tools and cool downloads.
I’d really like to take this chance to ask you, the readers, audience and overall heart of SEJ, for your feedback on the new design along with any ideas or tips you’d like to see. Personally, this is a very happy day for me and the staff at Search & Social Media, and in celebration of the SEJ community and the Search Engine Industry, your thoughts, feedback and criticism are all welcome.
Best, Loren Baker
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Nice! Congrats on the redesign!
Thanks Andy, really appreciate the feedback :)
Nice work – the site looks great!
Cheers Rachel, don’t forget to update your Gravatar :)
Much leaner and cleaner, love it
Very nice redesign Loren, and everybody really.
Since your content is still top-notch, you guys can now continue kicking ass!
Looks great! Good job.
Awesome Dan, thanks!
Looking good.
But your anti-spam software thinks that comment is not verbose enough… let’s see if it now works with added guff!
Yeah, commenting and spam is an ongoing issue with WP spamming software and SEO’s or search marketers for some odd reason … but I can’t figure out what that reason is :P
The new site looks great, congrats guys/gals!
Nice, I like it. A lot crisper and cleaner with less distractions from the content.
Loren,
This site is AWESOME :) It’s so clean and easy to get around:) Good job Loren!!
Thanks Vic, maybe we’ll see you on the homepage someday soon :)
Fantastic job – well done!
Especially loving the SEJ Connect box – great idea.
Keep it up! :)
Nice job guys :)
Cool! Looks nice.
Love the new look! I think it’s very important to have connections to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Good job!
Nice design, but can I have old one back please?
Nice crisp redesign Loren. You’ve managed to put more stories on the page. Congrats to all at SEJ.
Really looks good; great update!
KISS is always the way to go. Great job, Loren. It’s very easy on the eyes.
Look really clean. And the finer design aspects are really cool. Great to SEJ enter a new phase.
Congrats to all … Looks really cool here!
I’m totally stoked and excited about the new look, and features – it really takes SEJ to a whole new level!
Well done, gang – looks good. Congrats.
Indeed, nice simple clean redesign. Kudos to the team.
Definitely a lot easier on the eyes now. Good colors choices. Very calming :)
Search Engine Issues – I am willing to pay a webhost, but just want to be Sure it will show up on a search engine.
I have on another site that is hosted by Blogger, and I paid to not have the subdomain extended URL. So I tested tips on getting it on a search engine (not that i want that one on an engine, but was just testing it for this one) but it also didn’t seem to work.
Just want the right info before paying for anything…
Nice redesign!
I like a big avatars :)
Congrats on the new site, looks great.
When can we expect to see the “SEJ Tools”? Will these be SEJ newly developed tools or SEJ endorsed tools?
SEJ Tools will be a tools suite, more news at 11!
I have one question to seo gurus, about new SEJ.
I am not sure, but is it possible that random links in sidebar looks like paid links?
They could look like paid links perhaps, but will not be mistaken as paid links, as they are not.
Now that it’s live, I’m lovin’ it even more :)
Excellent job all. It looks fabulous, nice clean design and great new functionalities.
Love it!
Congrats on the redesign! The site looks great! It’s much easier to navigate and a lot cleaner.
Best,
@RBeale
Very nicely done by Reese. I’m becoming quite the fan of hers, even if she did replace Pearson’s design. ;-)
Hehe, now I have a unique Pearson design in my backpocket and need a site to use it on :P
Bravo gang – good luck with the growth of the site. We’d all love to see stats around engagement/etc and see if the new format helps with metrics like browse rate, time on site, email signups, etc.
Thanks Rand. Yes! I think we’ll do that.
I would recommend updating your account at Gravatar.com, do you have one? :P
Pats on the back to all involved in the design and development of the new Search Engine Journal. Kudos! It looks great. I love the new clean, crisp appearance and new features. Congrats. :)
I love the redesign! It looks very clean, professional and easy to read. I think it definitely takes the site to the next level. Great job, Reese!
I think it looks great. Nice blend… nice work!
Great Change! I like it very much. Just thinking I’ll redesign my blog, too.
Maido Okini Suzuki-san!
I’ve been following you for a while on Sphinn and Twitter and am very happy to see you here on SEJ.
Refreshing new design! I LOVE a lot of white space.
Site looks fabulous Loren! Well done.
Thanks Dev, Can’t wait to see you on the homepage again too
I dig the magazine look! :)
Love the new clean look and layout, but I wish there were author thumbs on each entry on the home page.
The new design looks fabulous, congrats!!
Very nice and less cluttered.
I love the logo style
Looks a lot better now……Clean design….
Am I the only one that preffered the old design?
Loren – The new design looks clean and beautiful. Best wishes.
Nice article. :-)
Ho Loren,
I like the new design .
It looks clean
Loren, great! just everything’s cool on new design. And of course, congrats to Reese for great design.
looks great, gives your site a much more modern/professional feel.
Just my opinion but skip the “Only $1.40/Link!” Adsense leaderboard and its a 10/10!
Very nice Loren, a job well-done
This looks great Loren!
Congrats Loren… So finally new design of SEJ made live…. :)
new design looks good…
New design looks great! If I may offer a suggestion, I’d like to see the font color black – it’s a little hard to read in dark grey against a white background.
Looks great Loren..my best wishes..
Worth the wait! It’s fantastic.
-e
Wow, that’s quite a design update Loren. Well done.
Nice and soft.. I like the color, It’s become more fresh and clean than the old one. Well, congratulation SEJ.
Congratulations to your site’s re-bumping and new design!
A nice combination of soft and cool colors. I personally like blue and this color is a plus point. The nice and simple background makes it even more good.
Congratulations again!