Note: This is the first in a series of articles about the building of alexking.org 2.0.

So now that the new site is live and I’ve had a chance to fix most of the re-launch related bugs, it’s time to share a little about the process that went into building this version of the site.

If you’re seeing this in a feed reader, this is what the new site looks like:

Come on over for a visit and poke around a bit. 🙂

I launched alexking.org v1 on Nov. 1, 2002, v2 launches 4 years later¹ and incorporates a number of lessons learned. The main changes/adjustments have been building up in my head for the last 2 years, and as a result I made a lot of changes in the redesign.

There are a number of topics regarding the redesign that I think would be interesting to discuss, for example:

• Overall re-design goals – what needed fixing.
• New site navigation – reasons for it, what it solves. & Goals of simplification.
• Designing for the future.
• New URL structure – which choices were made and why.
• You’ve got content – how do you best leverage it?
• New WordPress plugins written/updated for the new site.
• Bending WordPress to your will – or how many plugins are too many?
• Is your site maintenance toolset holding your site back?
• Benefits of having your entire site content in a single CMS.
• Monetization choices.

I’ll try to tackle these over the next few weeks. If you have other topics you’d like to hear about regarding the redesign, let me know in the comments and I’ll try to cover them as well.

1. To the day – how about that. [back]