So it’s pretty obvious that last week we made some drastic changes to the way SocialMouths looks but we wanted to go over these changes and what they mean to us and to you as a reader or client.

These are not just changes on the front-end, stuff happened in the back as well as it is happening as a business, something we’ll address and share with you in a few days. For now let’s see what happened on the design and technical side…

It will be awesome if you have a couple of minutes to share your thoughts about it in the comments section. We have no problem with getting either positive or negative feedback so feel free to shoot!

You probably already forgot how it looked a couple of weeks ago so here is the “Before” shot. One thing that we wanted to respect was all the feedback we got in the past about our minimalist layout, pretty clean over white background, I hope we did.

Before…

And here are the changes we did…

No More Themes

We are no longer using themes. Even though I still love Thesis and will continue to recommend it, we wanted to have complete freedom to do whatever we want and not be attach to anything else in terms of structure. Our site is now custom built from the ground up.

Less Plugins

We were able to replace the use of some plugins for pure code. Running too many plugins can really slow down your blog so we wanted to run only the essential. The only thing we had to add is All-in-one SEO to replace the SEO features Thesis used to provide for us.

On the other hand we built elements on the site with just code. Want examples? the “Related Posts” at the bottom of this page is no longer provided by LinkWithin and we replaced the ShareThis system with our own custom sharing options. The reason to do this is that these type of plugins take too long making connections that you really don’t need.

ShareThis was the one element on our site that use to take the longest time to load. You can use a tool like Firebug to measure your site’s loading times and decide if some of these tools are worth running on your site. Just to be clear, not that the Tweetmeme button is fast… we just made the decision it is worth keeping.

Less Ads

I used to run 3 ads on our site, now I’m only running one that helps me pay my mortgage (yeah right…). I thought it would be more important to provide with that minimalist touch, just clean up the clutter for a more satisfying read. I’m cool like that.

Lighter Than Ever

One of my main concerns was that because of the use of multiple images in almost every post I publish and the use of tools like the ones I mentioned before, the site was getting too slow, there was a point when our loading time was almost hitting 20 seconds but with all these changes we were able to get it down to an average 6 to 7 seconds.

What Else?

Some changes going on, on the business side but we’ll wait a few days to talk about it. Also, a big thank you all for sticking with us while some of the changes were happening, maybe even some slower loading times or stuff out of place a couple of times… so thanks!

Now It’s Your Turn…

As I said before, if you can take a couple of minutes to share your thoughts in the comment section, that will be awesome!

Thank you!

Having a blog is only step one if you are trying to provide any kind of content. Just a couple of weeks ago I wrote the post 5 Social Tools To Help You Spread Your Awesomeness Outside Your Site in which I talked about coming out to spread your content and generate some traffic back to your site. This week we’ll go over some tools to implement inside.

The objectives of implementing these tools are:

• Build a better user experience.
• Promote user interaction, after all, a blog is a conversation platform.
• Make it easy for your visitor to share and promote your content.
• Make you look like a real pro.

So here is the list of tools, they are all fairly easy to install:

1. Facebook and Twitter Sharing Buttons

While you want to provide the possibility to share to a wide variety of networks, it has been proven that displaying individual buttons for the two most popular sites increases the chances of getting your content shared. Also, if you have been active on Facebook and Twitter and other sites, you have already experienced that most of your traffic is coming from these two sites.

Facebook provides its own code to install directly into your content and while Twitter doesn’t provide its own, you can use Tweetmeme, which is the one you have probably seen already in the majority of sites.

2. Sharing To The Rest Of The Web

Of course Facebook and Twitter are not the only sites and your visitor very well can move in other circles, make it easy for them to share your content to any network. Applications such as ShareThis or AddThis make very easy to implement, usually through a plugin that you can install from your dashboard and a little configuration.

Look for a service that can give a little more, in this case, both services provide analytics.

3. “Follow Me” Links

Another very common practice and a great way to stay connected to your tribe when they are not on your site. If a new visitor likes your content, he/she would most likely love to network with you in other places. Make it very visible on your site and include only the main ones, if you have profiles in 15 different networks it can get a little confusing.

4. Commenting Systems

Commenting systems are a great way to take the conversation to the next level. Services like Disqus or IntenseDebate are now very popular and their installation is as easy as creating a profile and adding a plugin on your blog dashboard. The main feature is that they take the conversation out of your blog into common places making it easier for your visitor to keep the interaction flowing instead of being just a single comment that they can otherwise forget.

Another great tool in this field is Echo, integrating activity from different social networks.

5. Facebook Widgets

Leverage form the most popular network in the planet. Facebook now allows you to display different widgets inside your blog. These widgets include commenting boxes, fan page badges, live streams, fan boxes and, in case you didn’t know, you can now connect your Facebook status to update your Twitter.

6. Promote Inside Navigation

One of the things bloggers usually watch is their “Bounce Rate”, visitors that come in, read one article and surf away from your site. A great way of engaging the reader into navigating your blog a little more before he/she leaves is by promoting related articles. LinkWithin is a plugin that inserts links with images to other content inside your blog at the bottom of each post.

Your visitor mostly likely go for a couple of more clicks if he/she enjoyed your article and is presented with similar stories.

7. Crowdsourcing

If you use your blog to promote a product or a service, social media allows you to give your customers a voice. Crowdsourcing is a fairly new concept that allows a community to become part of the development process by sharing their ideas, feedback and even voting for the best ideas on how to make your services better.

If you are concerned about having a complaint made public think about this, social media is about honesty and transparency, and there is nothing better that solving a problem in front of everybody…

UserVoice lets you create a forum where your customer can express that feedback and easily integrate it into your site.

8. Polls

Another way to provide different kind of content and engage your reader to participate. PollDaddy is a free and very user-friendly service you can use to configure any kind of poll and generates the code to just grab and dump right into your content. The truth is that people love expressing themselves and finding out what others think about the same topic.

Create a post that features a poll or display one to your blog’s sidebar.

9. Social Toolbars

You have probably seen them at the bottom of a blog, they not only add sharing capabilities to networking sites but can also integrate external tools such as your Facebook Fan Page or a Twitter feed come live in your site. Great examples of these bars are Gigya and Wibiya, both free and made available through simple plugins you can install directly from your blog’s dashboard.

Another popular toolbar is Meebo, which integrates instant messaging right on your site. Just be careful and make sure these services are not making your site too slow to annoy your readers.

10. Use Of Other Media

User other forms of media when possible, video for example has proven to be an excellent way to engage the user. Other ways are to use clever photography or even add podcasting to your site. Blogging platforms have made it very easy to add these types of files to your content and you can probably add some rich content with just a couple of clicks.

Don’t limit yourself to text, give your visitor a more visual experience.

Final Thought

Content will always be king, focus first on providing value through it. Having the latest technology will not compensate for not having it.