Say Hello to the New Solostream Website

By Michael Pollock in News

Ahhhhh, there’s nothing like the smell of fresh pixels in the morning. And there’s nothing like a snazzy, new design to give your website or blog some new energy and vitality.

Yes, after more than two years, we finally got around to freshening things up around here with a completely new look for solostream.com. Long overdue you say? Most certainly. If you’re reading this in an RSS reader, why not come on over to the site and see it live as I walk you through some of the new stuff and our thinking behind it.

Our Goals Behind the Redesign

As we made our way through the redesign process, we had two main goals in mind. First, we wanted to give Solostream a more modern, up-to-date look and feel. I don’t have to tell you that the original design – while adequate for its time – had gotten a bit tired and stale. And since we are in the web design business, we can’t be out there with a tired-looking design for our own site now can we? Here are the before and after shots in case you forgot how the old site looked.

Beyond a fresh, new look, our second primary goal was to create a site that speaks to the broader market of business web publishers beyond the WordPress user community. Yes, there are still a few people out there who don’t know how awesome WordPress is as a web publishing platform, and we hope to enlighten them a bit. Don’t get us wrong though. We still love all you WordPress users out there, and I hope you’ll agree that the new design speaks to you as well.

Some Interesting Elements of the New Solostream Site

1. The Home Page Tabbed-Navigation Header

When someone lands on your website, they usually have one question in mind. What is this website/company about, and how can it help me? I believe you have only a few seconds to engage with that question before you lose your visitor’s attention, and that’s what drove my thinking as I conceived this area.

I wanted to give people enough information to engage them without overwhelming them. I wanted to let them know what Solostream and WordPress is about and then provide the opportunity for them to gather more information if they choose. In doing so, however, I didn’t want to take up too much real estate on the home page. Hence, the use of the Javascript tabbed navigation box.

2. The WordPress Theme Store

When it comes to WordPress themes and web design, in general, it’s a very visual medium. As a product, I believe a WordPress theme has to – first – appeal to you aesthetically. You have to look at it and see some beauty there, or else you move on.

When I conceived the WordPress Theme Store, I wanted you to be able to see everything we have to offer without any other information getting in the way. If one of the themes appeals to you visually, you can simply click to that individual theme page for more information.

3. Individual Theme Pages

Once you click through to the individual theme page, I wanted to give you enough information to make a decision to buy the theme or not.

I also wanted to make it easy for you to ask a question about the theme or read questions that other folks had asked. So, you see the “Ask a Question About this Theme” section at the bottom of the page. That section is simply a modified version of the standard WordPress comments template that you see at the bottom of this page.

Another feature of the Individual Theme Page is the ability to see additional themes without having to go back to the Theme Store. So, you’ll see links in the top corners for the next and previous theme. That feature is something that’s built into WordPress via the Previous Post Link and Next Post Link.

Solostream 2010 and Beyond

Like any website, the new Solostream site is a work-in-progress as is the Solostream company. Over the coming weeks and months, we plan to build a few more components into the new site. For example, we’ll be creating a Services section outlining some additional services we want to offer folks. Stuff like a WordPress install service, custom blog design and custom web design, to name a few. We’ll also be creating a Support section describing our support policy in more detail, as well as providing more support-related content and tutorials.

The level of success that a company like Solostream can achieve is limited only by the size of our community and the value we continually deliver to that community. With that in mind, another goal going forward is to invest more time and energy nurturing and expanding the community we already enjoy. To accomplish that goal, we, just like any other web-based business, need to do these three things really well:

1. Continue to offer innovative products and top-notch support to our customers.
2. Create more interesting and useful content via the Solostream Blog.
3. Engage with more people outside the Solostream community via social networking and other, more traditional forms of marketing.

A Small Request

As we continue to develop the new Solostream site and work out any bugs, we’d greatly appreciate it if you’d let us know of any problems you experience. If you think we could have done something better for you with the site, then feel free to let us know via the comments section below our contact page. As always, we love to hear from you.

About the Author

Michael Pollock is the marketing and product development guy for Solostream. He's also an Internet business coach who teaches bloggers, coaches, consultants and other creative entrepreneurs how to use the Internet to earn more money and live an amazing life. Visit Michael's Internet Business Coaching site.