As many of you have noticed, I've made some changes to the look of Halfway Anywhere recently.
Since I frequently get asked about the inner workings of my site, I thought I would share what it is I've done and why I've done it.
I'm not going to lie, unless you're interested in blogging, website design, or why it is I do what I do, then you may find the following a bit dry. However, if you are interested in these things, then get excited because there's a lot to absorb.
Let's start with the basics: what did I do?
The Genesis Framework
I use WordPress to build and manage my site; if you're already lost then you may have difficulty with what's to come.
I've now switched to the Genesis Framework by StudioPress, which is not a theme (as you may be used to) but instead exactly what it sounds like – a framework.
A framework is a structure that themes are in turn built upon. You first need to install Genesis, and then you need to install a theme (built for Genesis) on top of that. I chose the Metro Pro theme for my site, but there are plenty of StudioPress and third-party themes available.
It's a well-supported and well-known framework so it's not only secure and regularly updated, but it's tested and reliable as well (at least that's why my research has yielded). With Genesis I'm not getting some random theme I found and think looks good – I get something well-coded and properly put together.
I've made a lot of mistakes trying to take shortcuts in the past with my site's infrastructure and code. Now I'm getting serious about future-proofing my work.
If you have a site powered by WordPress and you're ready to make some big changes in a good direction, then check out Genesis now.
Why Switch To The Genesis Framework?
I've already gone into a bit as to why I switched, but for me, a big motivating factor for the Genesis switch was speed.
I use Google's PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom, or GTmetrix
With Halfway Anywhere's traffic increasing, I was losing out on traffic and running up my web hosting bill by serving up a slow and bloated website.
I'm not a professional web developer (yet), and Halfway Anywhere is about sharing content. If people need to wait for that content because my site needs to load another plugin, then that's no good.
Since switching, the website has been performing a lot better on both desktop and mobile devices (although Firefox is still being a bit difficult with some things).
The Logo
Lastly, I would like to give a shout-out to my good friend Mr. Karl Axel Andersson.
The Halfway Anywhere logo is something that I neglected for a very long time. Being the excellent person that he is, Mr. Andersson came up with the new paper airplane logo and text you see on the site today.
You can see more of his work at his website, KarlAxel.com.