MarilynMoll.com Redesign Completed

Today I have officially completed my redesign of MarilynMoll.com – the private blog of The Urban Homemaker‘s owner.  After about twenty hours of work, I took the blog from a basic WordPress blog with all the original defaults to an search-engine-friendly, social-media-optimized, and (hopefully) visitor-welcoming blog.

What I Accomplished

• Updated the WordPress version from 2.3 to 2.8.
• Customized the Atahualpa Theme to match Mrs. Moll’s main website, TheUrbanHomemaker.com.
• Setup a Feedburner RSS and email feed to boost reader retention.
• Optimized the permalinks for search engines.
• Added social bookmarking buttons at the bottom of each post to aid in site promotion.

What I Learned

• I now understand how to use the Plesk platform better.
• I learned how to use desktop-side ftp clients whereas before I had only used server-side ftp programs.
• I gained experience in CSS because I used it to modify the Atahualpa Theme.
• I practiced using HTML by creating the subscription widget.

This was a great learning experience, and I am grateful for the opportunity to hone my web design skills.  Because I enjoyed this project so much, I hope to do more similar projects soon.