Friday, January 23, 2009

Increase traffic by blogging - Art Car Central Redesign

When times are slow it's time to get busy and get ready for the next wave of work. Last December it was painfully slow and I decided that the extra time on my hands was a gift to help me catch up and reorganize my business. So I decided to redesign my art car central blog and take it to the next level. It went from a boring template to a fully customized web site with lots of image buttons, videos, useful links and social network bookmarks on every blog entry. I had a ton of art cars I categorized for easy access, so I broke it all down by medium used, type of vehicle, popular tags, and a few other related categories.

I also designed the banner to reflect my love for typography and the movie marque. Art Car Central is cross between going to the movies and the circus freak show. I do all the non traditional looking art cars and beyond, mutant vehicles, crazy car modifications, and some new ones not yet up. My goal is to allow my readers to have fun exploring all the different categories of art cars for hours. In January my site was listed on Blogs of Note by Blogger, which was a nice way of saying "Good Job" and it sent my stats through the roof.

The lesson learned here is that when you get sense that it's time to move ahead with a project, you better listen to your gut feeling. Because missed opportunities stink and they set you back every time. The upshot of having redesigned the art car central is that, traffic increased, I gained valuable skills and sold advertising on my blog. The best part was that I picked up more work from a big internet company wanting to take their company to the next level.

I believe that every one and every business should have a blog because its one of the best ways to drive traffic to your site through current and relevant information. If your are not blogging, then you're missing out on an amazing online opportunity.

Art Car Central Blog Screen Shot
Art Car Central Blog Screen Shot

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