Ideas to customize a website

[dschneid]

Hello,

I am not sure if this is in the right place/an appropriate discussion topic so I apologize in advance (first time poster). I am making a travel blog for me and my girlfriend which we hope will one day reach wide audiences. I originally started with a wordpress theme and have since been customizing it, probably making it worse, but at least making it my own.

Here is the original template:
http://www.gabfirethemes.com/themes/journey-wordpress-travel-theme/

Here is my current website:
acoupletravelers.com

Currently I am looking for ideas, opinions, etc on what direction to go with the site. What are the different “cool” features that would be nice to implement. I have looked at many other travel blogs and while they probably have a more consistent style than my current website, in terms of features etc, they all seem to be pretty standard and about what I have currently.

I have a basic understanding of CSS and PHP, and by that I mean I did some coding in college and have been learning these languages on the fly to work on this website. So far, it has been going well.

As a first time website designer, my major struggle is coming up with a vision of how I would like it, as I just can’t think of all the possibilities. Please feel free to share any thoughts on enhancements, styles or features, more or less irrespective of the coding difficulty (I suppose the really really advanced stuff is probably not going to happen, but I don’t like to set boundaries).

Thanks,
Dave

[chrisburton]

Is this a business or just for fun?

[dschneid]

I suppose both? Eventually we would like to advertise on the website as well as possibly sell products, so there is a business aspect to the travel blog.

[chrisburton]

Well, it’s no secret that travel blogs should be highly appealing both content and design wise. I think that should be the number one factor when you’re adding things to the site.

The following are my opinions:
What you have now seems dirty (background). I think it’s very minimal and the article structure seems to be everywhere. A different approach to the typography could enhance the appearance tremendously. I also think the shadow on the headings are a bit much. What’s the purpose of the menu at the footer? I would remove the advertisement since it won’t help you make money at this point. You have little to no users to the site and it’s certainly not your target demographic.

It’s hard to answer this because there’s no short answer. Most importantly, I don’t want you to take my opinions and apply it. I think you would benefit more by studying about designing for the web.

[Author]

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