Well, it’s been a little while hasn’t it? My blog has been sitting dormant for about a month now, but I’ve been super busy behind the scenes, trying to pull my brand new website together. And finally, I can say it’s here! So welcome to the brand new The Northernist!
First thing’s first, not a lot has really changed as of yet. Yes, I’ve got a swanky new layout, which has come as a result of me moving from Blogger to WordPress. But as for my content, it’s all still the same. You can still find all of my old posts (just don’t go too far back – I haven’t fixed the styling on a lot of them yet!) and I’m still going to be publishing my regular stuff. In fact, I have TONS of things in the pipeline that I think you’re all going to really enjoy!
So why did I move from Blogger to WordPress? I realise that to most people, this is pretty boring, but for those who are interested, I found Blogger quite restrictive in the things I could do. I could basically publish blog posts and that was it. I wanted a bit more freedom and more ways to customise, and Blogger felt like it didn’t have too many opportunities to grow. Whereas with WordPress, I’ve been able to adjust almost everything to make the site truly mine, I’ve been able to get plugins to make my content even more rich, and I’m hoping that I’m a bit more discoverable now so I can help more Teessider and tourists out.
In the short term, I’m just going to get settled in to this new site and feel out how everything will work, but in the long term, I have some plans!
A newsletter
I can link my new website up to Mailchimp, so I’m planning on putting together a newsletter. I haven’t decided whether this will be monthly or quarterly yet, but my brain is whirring with ideas. I’ll be able to add a sign up link on the homepage and in my sidebar, and you’ll just need to add your email, and hey presto, you’re signed up! I think it’ll have positive Tees news, some of my favourite recent posts, hopefully a competition, and so much more.
Business sponsorship packages
As many of you know, I work with lots of indie businesses, and I wanted a way to take that even further. This probably won’t come about for a little while, as my site migration will have a little knock on my viewership, but once I’m back to a good number again, I’d like to offer space on my site for businesses to advertise. In my mind, this will include a banner on the homepage, a space in the sidebar, a full dedicated blog post, and space in the newsletter, but I could tweak this to make it even more jazzy. I haven’t priced up yet as this idea is still in baby stages, but like I say, once my viewers are back up, it’s something I’d really love to do!
That’s all I had to say in this little blog post. Apologies for being silent for so long, but I’m back now and ready to get into the swing of things again!
