Well, this is something I’ve been pondering. I was doing a lot of new blogs with the style of content - sidebar - sidebar. Always 3 columns with a content area and two sidebars. Anyway, these newer blogs were performing really well. Yeah, part of that is the topics I was choosing - they were performing well - but I was really getting used to the format.

So, when Ianiv & I were approved for BlogAds, and decided to do some eMiniMall testing, we had to shake things up a bit to fit the size requirements for both of these. Our two first blogs, Blogaholics and here at Blogging Help, are our largest traffic blogs still. So, it made sense to roll out some testing on one of them. We decided to start with Blogaholics. Shifted from sidebar - content - sidebar to the faithful content - sidebar - sidebar.

Sound confusing? ;)

Well, it was not an easy change. Blogaholics is graphics heavy. We like it, but from this experience some of it needs to be stripped down. Anyway, we managed to get it all in order. Mostly. Still need to align things up a bit better and make the columns flow together more seamlessly.

Well, we made the change. But what has the outcome been? Well, for a while our CTR was about the same. Now, it’s dropped. I would blame it on content, since I was not writing much, but I know that’s not true. Traffic is increasing and so are subscribers. So, the new design is not working well yet. It may be that our “design” does not fit the new alignment style. But it’s something to consider… how well does design play out with column placement. And how far can you change it without major alterations.

Well, we’re going to keep tweaking. If CTR does not go back to normal, and higher, for the monthly average, we have a saved version of the old design to revert to. That, or strip the design to basics and start over.

How have design transitions been for you? Have you experienced the same hiccups?