Happy Year of the Horse! I’ve decided to commemorate Chinese New Year by upgrading to the Genesis framework with a Metro child theme (if that doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry about it.)
My old theme was decent, but it was a pain in the ass to maintain and the fonts were just terrible – I hated the large spaces between paragraphs, but I didn’t have enough coding experience to do anything about it. I also had a lot of trouble trying to make forms and images appear correctly, and my old theme didn’t have any SEO to speak of. I guess that’s what you get for buying a cheap theme (My frugal brain got totally aroused by the temptation of owning 6 themes for $25).
So thus began the search for a new theme/framework. It came down to between Thesis 2.0 and Genesis, although hours trawling blogs and reviews convinced me that Genesis required less coding knowledge. That was important to me – the last time I upgraded my theme, I had to take leave from work and spend 8 hours just to make sure it didn’t look like I hired a 5-year old to design it.
This new theme is a lot easier to use, has a lot more functionality, and looks awesome on desktops and mobile. Highly recommended if you’re a blogger. I made several slight tweaks in this new config, which I published staying up after reunion dinner last night:
- The use of the Mailchimp plugin to make the signup form more professional and less awkward-looking
- Changed my profile picture so you guys don’t think I only have like ONE picture. (I can’t take selfies without putting on some sort of contorted expression, annoying the hell out of the photographer)
- Published my Twitter feed on the sidebar – I haven’t paid much attention to Twitter for the past year, but I’ve realized that it’s an awesome place to discover and share links, and connect with readers. So I’m stepping up my Twitter activity this year. Follow me!
- I chose green for the theme color, just because I felt like it and they didn’t have yellow (haha)
Comments, suggestions, review about this new theme? Ideas for a better background image? (I picked grass because, well, it’s green.)
Let me know in the comments section below 🙂
Here’s to a happy and prosperous Year of the Horse!
