Yes, I know. What you’re looking at right now looks different than the way my site’s looked in the past. VERY different.
A few weeks ago, Google announced that it will be penalizing websites that are not optimized for mobile devices. If a site isn’t optimized for phones, people won’t see it featured in their Google results. Advertisers are also increasingly requiring the sites they advertise on to be optimized for phones, so a mobile-friendly redesign for JillCataldo.com suddenly became a priority.
This is the third design my blog’s had — design #2 was in place for more than five years! So, I’m moving forward and attempting to embrace change. The redesign process has been tedious, time-consuming, and often bordering on nerve-wracking for me, because I don’t like change either. I’m going to continue to tweak things over the weeks ahead. Getting all of the old content transferred to the new site was an arduous undertaking, and there are still a few anomalies that I’m working on (like the fact that my web forum now proudly announces it’s been on the web for 45 years! While funny, the internet as we know it hasn’t been around that long… and neither have I. My forum area’s functioning fine, but it needs some more visual tweaking.)
In a perfect world, I would have liked to have waited until everything was perfect before relaunching… but the Google deadline is nearly here, and sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump — or in this case, click the button that wiped out my old site and launched this one. (Wow!)
Here’s what you need to know:
If you’re a registered user of this site: You will need to reset your password before posting. All existing passwords were removed during the upgrade process. Visit the login box on the top right side of the page, then click “Lost Your Password” to reset it. The server will email you a link to reset your password. If you have ANY issues, email me at jill@supercouponing.com and I will manually reset it for you.
If you are a new user who signed up for an account in the past couple of weeks: You will likely need to re-register for the site, because the user database was imported from the old site about two weeks ago in preparation for this upgrade. If you posted forum topics or comments over the past few weeks, a few things were lost in the transfer process because we had to select one day to move everything — and from that point forward, I’ve been maintaining two sites. If a forum thread you were following is missing, please feel free to start another.
For those of you subscribed to my daily email digest of posts, I am still working on transferring the email database over, so it will likely not function for a few days. I will send out an email to everyone once this is complete, and you’ll likely have to reply/reconfirm your desire to continue receiving the daily digest.
Lastly, I want to publicly thank my husband, who has put in countless hours over the past few weeks working on the back end of things, helping get everything set up and transferred over from my old site. It was an enormous undertaking, more than either of us could have anticipated. (These are the times, I really, really appreciate having another programmer in the house.) He and I have been living like web-hermits for the past few weeks, home every night, buried up to our eyes in code, and rarely leaving the house for sunshine or sustenance.
On the upside, there are many new features you’ll likely enjoy:
- Printable shopping lists have improved mobile support for printing from tablets and devices
- Browsing on a device is easier than ever. Links are larger, stories are scroll & slide-friendly when browsing by touch
- Sharing articles and content on social media is easier than ever – just click the Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest buttons at the bottom of each post.
- It’s easier to find content. Not a week goes by without someone emailing me asking “where’s your Disney on a budget story?” or “I can’t find your review of that Japanese foot peel.” The new site design breaks everything down by category and makes browsing for posts about travel, reviews or food much easier than it was before.
- The back end of the site is more robust. Site search functionality and load times have improved.
Again, I realize this is an enormous change, but hang in there. I am!
Coupon Maven says
Just a heads-up — with everything transferring over tonight, it may take longer than normal to receive your new password. If you cannot log in (and cannot wait!) please email me at jill@supercouponing.com with your SCREEN NAME and I’ll reset it for you on my end. :)
avenger says
It’s so different! I am still looking around but I like it. It looks great on my tablet which is how I browse 90% of the time now.
avenger says
Back to say the design is growing on me already. I tried it for the first time on my phone today, great!
Doug Cataldo says
Your husband is AWESOME! Thanks for mentioning me.
rswehrle says
Here’s to the man behind the great woman! lol :)
SSMark1 says
Welcome to 2015. Both of you are AWESOME! I can read on this my phone without stretching the screen with my fingers. This will really making shopping much easier while using your site. And you kept the forum which I use the most.. Thank you.
-Mark
francesregina says
Just wanted to say I like the new blog look! Going to have to browse around to find the coupon website links that you used to have on the left hand side… but, I really do like how this looks! Usually I hate changes too, but I think this looks great!
Coupon Maven says
Thank you, francesregina — the most commonly-used links are now in the “Get Coupons” menu at the top, and there are graphic links (boxes) for them on the right side of this page too. I did remove some of the lesser-used links. I’m working on putting back some of the tools, like the Catalina alerts, insert schedule, etc, but in the meantime these can be found with the search tool too.
hwendt12 says
I thought of your site today when I heard that starting TOMORROW, Google will be reprioritizing search results to have the ones that are mobile-friendly as a higher result than non mobile-friendly sites…good timing!!
Coupon Maven says
That (Google’s deindexing non mobile-friendly sites) was the #1 reason I made the switch this past weekend. I would have updated my design at some point, I’m sure, but I’m also kind of a “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” kind of person.
As much as I love my blog, it IS my business, and losing visibility in Google could be a death sentence to a website. Plus, it’s no secret that my blog is advertising-supported. More and more advertisers are requiring mobile-friendly blog designs, or they don’t want to spend their advertising dollars on them. I have always striven to find that balance between blogging as a passion and blogging as a business — but I cannot ignore what Google and/or advertisers are doing. It’s a different world than it was when I began blogging — far more people are browsing on mobile devices now.
Thanks for bearing with me this week too, everyone — I realize we are still having some login and forum issues, and my husband and I are working on this nonstop. Hopefully things will smooth out over the week ahead.
ms says
I hate this new web site
cannot get used to it, cannot find anything
ms
Coupon Maven says
I’m sorry you don’t like it. As I explained above, I had no choice but to redesign — it was not something I necessarily wanted to do until the mobile-friendliness became a serious factor. I could not continue blogging with the site the way it was. I imagine very few websites could survive without being indexed in Google.
The Search tool (magnifying glass in the top black navigation bar) is MUCH better than the one at the old site, and it can help you find anything you’re looking for.
If you would like a simpler blog view, you can view it in single-post style at this link: https://jillcataldo.com/
Lemon Girl says
Just wanted to say I like the new look. Most everyone hates CHANGE but sometimes you can’t avoid it. I’m still learning where everything is and I promise you I will ask if I can’t find something. Again, GREAT JOB.