One of the things I’ve been working on getting launched over the last few days, is the redesign of Dietriffic.com. I designed it before I left for our holidays, but I had to tweak a few things when I returned.

I launched yesterday, even though I’m aware of a few minor areas which need tweaking.

Why the redesign?

Dietriffic has been going for about 10 months now, focusing on very specific areas of diet related health issues, such as diabetes, heart health, and vegetarianism, and heaps more. To be honest, the vast majority of its visitors come from Google. Dietriffic ranks highly for a few terms, and it gets a considerable percentage of visitors from Google Images.

However, site traffic still isn’t considerable. It’s in severe need of incoming links in order to drive its ranking and authority. To do this, it needs some blog owners, and social media users to begin visiting it. This is the only way forward as I see it. The alternative is to buy heaps of text link ads, but I don’t want to go down that road, for a few reasons;

• It’s now looked down upon by the big ‘G’
• It can be expensive
• It sends very few visitors
• It doesn’t help to build a reputable brand, or loyal visitors

So, what’s the Plan of Action?

1. Write content which attracts people who making a living online

This is sort of tricky. Some people aren’t into exercise and healthy eating, some are, but they think they already know everything they need to know, and then there are a few who want to learn more. However, all these people who work online have one thing in common; the feeling of not having enough hours in the day.

My advice therefore to Melanie, was to begin to write productivity and other lifestyle related articles. This connects to most people, but particularly freelancers, and small business owners. By doing this, then Melanie can tie in the health aspects and problems of say, for example, not taking time to sit down and have set meals.

2. Advertise, and build reputation as a leader in the field

Dietriffic.com I believe, is without a doubt, one of the best health related blogs on the net. Not in one single post does Melanie give diet related advice, which is not evidence based. That is, it can all be backed up by official research, and scientific journals. Do not take this for granted. The vast majority of blogs are written by people masquerading as ‘experts’, when they are nothing of the sort. In fact, quite a number revel in writing that which is contrary to government research, and revel in conspiracy based health ideologies.

On top of that, Melanie is a registered professional dietitian, which, immediately commands authority. I therefore feel, with a little bit of encouragement, Dietriffic could establish itself as the leader it ought to be.

My plan is to purchase space for a 125×125 ad on a few blogs, which are (in my opinion), reasonably priced. I’ve already made contact with a few, but I’d appreciate if you could advise on more.

I’m also going to dabble with a little PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising for it. I’m going to start with Google Adwords, and very carefully monitor how that works. If anyone has advice on it, I would love to hear it.

Conclusion

Mel and I both felt it was necessary to give the site a new look, in order to help with the new focus. Fresh, simple, and unique were on the cards, and I hope that’s what I’ve achieved. The new tagline, “healthy eating for busy people” was just what popped into my head when I was putting the design together in Photoshop, but it has stuck, and I think it captures the focus quite well.

I did work on a symbol based logo right at the start, but I didn’t come up with anything really satisfactory. Instead, I chose a really nice font. I put a tilt on the font just to see what it would look like, and Melanie preferred it like that. So for now at least, it’s just a unique text based logo.

Your opinion?

Maybe you’re against advertising a blog, or maybe you don’t like the new design. I’d love to hear your thoughts.