BlogHer's New Web Site

March 07, 2010 10:44 pm by Lisa Stone in Web site

Liz Henry, Self Portrait

Welcome to BlogHer's new Web site. Our goal for this project is to deliver you a visual platform as vibrant as the words we read on women's blogs every day. A site that says life well said.

Like all our new launches, we consider this baby in beta until the brains in our nerdery say otherwise (one of whom includes Liz Henry, self-portrait above). So please, bring on the comments below -- we'd love to know what you think!

My new favorite things?

- A tour if you're brand new to the site

- Search rocks

- BlogHer's directory of 80,000 blogs by women by topic is re-organized and re-designed

- The whole site is cleaner and easier to use thanks to design by ThinkSF and user interface design by Momentum

A huge thank you to all the bloggers and editors who helped us get here.

And a grateful thank you to the BlogHer team, who have worked amazingly together to launch this site, forgoing food, water, sleep and seeing loved ones. You know who you are, Rob Potter, Julie Douglas, Liz Henry, Mike Griego, Denise Tanton, Riccardo Spina, Joy Johnson, Julie Ross Godar and team...

So, we'd love to know -- what do you think?

Best,
Lisa

for Elisa, Jory and Lisa
BlogHer Co-founders

BlogHer is non-partisan but our bloggers aren't! Follow our coverage of Politics & News.

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Search really rocks

Denise March 7, 2010 - 11:21pm

And I mean really really rocks.

 

Yay search!

 

~Denise

BlogHer Community Manager

 

Did you say 80,000!

Jory Des Jardins March 8, 2010 - 1:57am

Wow the community has been busy. I love that it's so much easier to get right to what you want. The search is fantastic, and the categorized blogroll rocks. And have I said it looks gorgeous? Wonderful job, team!

 

Excellent!

Just_Margaret March 8, 2010 - 2:20am

How wonderful to get on my computer, come to BlogHer and see the gorgeous new site!  The interface is so much more...comfortable.  Pages load more quickly; it's intuitive, clean and fresh.

 

This looks polished and professional.  I know that such an overhaul is an incredible undertaking--Three Cheers to the whole team!! 

 

~Margaret

Just Margaret

 

Thanks Just_Margaret

Lisa Stone March 8, 2010 - 12:16pm

I'm so glad you think the site is more intuitive and user-friendly. I agree!

 

Our goals for the week are to assess performance (speed is great so far!) and to make sure that we hear from you all about anything unexpectedly great or not great. :) So look forward to that too.

 

I think the search engine is

Melissa Ford March 8, 2010 - 5:42am

I think the search engine is incredible.  I think the look is very clean and user-friendly.  Great job!

 

My favorite test case for BH.com's new search

Lisa Stone March 8, 2010 - 12:35pm

...is the most question I most often get: "How to build blog traffic?"

 

The first page of BlogHer.com's new search now delivers the following links

 

1. The intro and all five sections of Elise Bauer's fabulous "How to Build Blog Traffic - Intro"

 

2. A peek into how the community grapples with this issue, thanks to Virgina Debolt's "You are Invited: Share your Goals and Questions about being a Better Blogger"

 

3. Loralee Choate's barn-burner of a post on traffic and the green monster: Hey, Jealousy: Every Blogger Was a Newbie Once

 

 

Squee!

loraleechoate March 9, 2010 - 6:56am

hee hee. 

 

:)

 

Love the new look

sassymonkey March 8, 2010 - 6:51am

And I am head over heels in love with the new search capabilities.

Excellent work to the team that did it. Should we send coffee? Or perhaps pillows as I suppose they haven't slept much the last few days?

 

I vote for chocolate chip cookies...

Lisa Stone March 8, 2010 - 12:36pm

...since I'm getting on a plane to LA and can't build a shrine of properly gargantuan proportions!

 

You guys rock!

Virginia DeBolt March 8, 2010 - 6:54am

Rob Potter, Julie Douglas, Liz Henry, Mike Griego, Denise Tanton, Riccardo Spina, Joy Johnson, Julie Ross Godar and everyone else who imagined and created this wonderful new interface.

 

Virginia, thanks for naming names

Lisa Stone March 8, 2010 - 12:39pm

...this is high praise coming from you lady! This is the hot list.

 

And yet, given the tribal, grassrootie way BlogHer tries to work, I think just about everyone on the team had some role to play in this redesign -- especially the community members who have (mostly) gently needled us about the need for an easier to use site and better service over the past couple of years. So thank you, all of you who have done so. It took awhile but we were indeed listening!

 

And there's more in the pipeline...bwahahahahaahhaaaaa.

 

clean site and well done

Vita lingus March 10, 2010 - 6:24pm

AS always  dearest Lisa your team have reallly done a splendid job and as always PROLOFIC IN WHAT IS ACHIEVED !! They have really cleaned this up it is less chunky! However as a visual person I wondered whether the Blogher logo on the previous page on the right could be slightly reduced as it's a tad top heavy on the right side iof the page.. just a thought!! my dear!!  the one that has 'follow us on twitter!

See you in New York !!

Cheers

vita

 

Wow!

anna.lefler March 8, 2010 - 7:26am

This looks fabulous!  I love the new, clean format!

 

Off to explore more now...

 

Thanks Anna!

Lisa Stone March 8, 2010 - 12:41pm

:) Look forward to anything you find that we missed.

 

I'm still thinking about it,

LMAshton March 8, 2010 - 7:46am

I'm still thinking about it, but after a quick perusal, it looks easier to find what I want, for the most part. I'll have a better idea tomorrow after I've taken a better look. :)

 

I'm curious, though - is there an easy way to see all the groups I've joined and any new activity in those groups without having to hunt down each group individually? I haven't been able to find such.

 

Your Groups

Denise March 8, 2010 - 8:21am

You're right, that functionality is missing (though honestly it didn't work well in the last iteration either, for those of us who were members of a lot of groups.)

 

We need to add a My Groups block or module that really helps us keep track of the groups that are important to us.

 

I'm adding a ticket to request that now.

 

Thanks!

 

Denise

BlogHer Community Manager

 

AHA! This is a great bug

Lisa Stone March 8, 2010 - 12:42pm

Thanks mucho.

 

Thank you! I couldn't find

LMAshton March 8, 2010 - 6:35pm

Thank you! I couldn't find anything like that in the last iteration, either, and it annoyed me. If that feature existed, I have no doubt that activity in groups would increase. As it is now, I can't remember which groups I've joined and finding them is a pain in the butt.

 

I'm looking forward to having that functionality. :)

 

Duly noted LMAshton!

Lisa Stone March 10, 2010 - 2:30pm

:)

 

How's the My Groups feed coming?

BarbD May 21, 2010 - 5:20am

The group that most interests me in BlogHer is Midlife Sonata. I used to get a feed specifically of posts tagged to that group. Now I have to make an effort to remember to go there (first searching for it, since it doesn't show up as a subscribed group in my profile).

Just wanted to add my voice saying that it would be great if we could have a way to fine-tune the feed process so we can get the blog posts most relevant to our interests. Thanks!

 

The feeds for groups do work

Denise May 21, 2010 - 5:39am

The RSS button is just missing from each group. The team is working to bring back the buttons and they might even have that ready to go this weekend.

(In the meantime, if you have a browser that includes the RSS icon in the address bar, you can click that to grab the feed for all of our content level pages.)

Here's the feed url for Midlife Sonata http://www.blogher.com/node/82985/feed

Let me know if you have another group feed that you'd like me to snag for you.

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager

Flamingo House Happenings

 

Love the new look!

Kalyn Denny March 8, 2010 - 7:52am

I'm thrilled with how the site looks now.  To me it looks cleaner and easier to navigate, and I love the "teaser" photos in every post.  Having that photo there definitely makes me want to keep reading the piece.  Good job everyone!

 

Thanks Kalyn! Your use of photos on BH.com

Lisa Stone March 8, 2010 - 12:43pm

...no matter how difficult we made it :) and the use of photography throughout the food community especially has been a huge inspiration to us.

 

At a glance

Shelly Kneupper Tucker March 8, 2010 - 11:44am

it seems much more user friendly.  I'm about to find out for sure, though.  I was shocked to open it and find the changes, but I think I'm going to like it.  I especially like the site profiles!  It's much easier to figure out more about the person now.  Two thumbs up at this point.  Thanks to all of you behind the scenes who are working to make our BlogHer experience such a treat.

 

Yell if you hit a snag

Denise March 8, 2010 - 2:09pm

Or if you have questions. ;-)

 

Denise

BlogHer Community Manager

 

Congrats!

Boston Mamas March 8, 2010 - 11:49am

It looks so clean and pretty - kudos to the team!

 

So glad you like it!

Honeybeast March 8, 2010 - 12:29pm

I love the new colors especially the blue - that color just makes me happy :)

 

Love it!

Elise Bauer March 8, 2010 - 12:34pm

Love the site design.  Less cluttered, more professional.  Love the new color scheme too.  And the search function? Wow!  What technology are you using? Great use of filters.  Congratulations team BlogHer!

 

SOLR

Denise March 8, 2010 - 12:54pm

All I know is that it's Drupal's Solr and it's fab-freaking-tastic. Julie Douglas, Liz Henry and Laura Scott can all give you details.

 

I am so glad you're as impressed as I am. I was kind of waiting for you to weigh in before I really believed it was THIS awesome. You're like my search goddess and nothing is great til you agree that it is. :-)

 

Denise

BlogHer Community Manager

 

As I live and breathe, Elise Bauer!

Lisa Stone March 8, 2010 - 12:48pm

Elise, you've counseled me and BlogHer for years on the value of excellent tight design and slick code. Thanks for every minute you've spent working with us on this. I'm so glad to hear you like!

 

I'm going to defer to Liz Henry or Julie Douglas to talk more about the Search functionality. I'm at SFO and my flight's about to leave. Plus, She Of The Purple Hair and Julie are mucho smarter than I about the filter. And the site. And, heck, many other things...

 

 

 
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