Great American Things is a blogging success story. Robin Chalkley began the blog in 2009 because he was tired of all the negativity about America that he was encountering. He began a quest to highlight all the things that make it special to live in America. He is now getting over 85,000 visitors to his wordpress.com site per month and climbing fast.
With that kind of traffic growth, he has been able to pick up sponsors to generate revenue through the site.
Needless to say, Robin needed an overhaul in both the design of the site and the functionality. He had made a wise choice in beginning the blog on the free WordPress.com platform which made the transition to a self-hosted, more robust solution far easier.
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I was able to create a much more currect design that intentionally reflects the ethos of the site. Additionally, I was able to implement and customize an Ad management solution that allows him to display different sets of ads based on the category being viewed. For example, when viewing content in the “Music” category, you will see ads that Robin has chosen for the music category. This means that instead of only having about 4 ad positions to generate revenue, he has nearly 100 possible ads that can be displayed across the site at the same time.
All of these ads can be simply managed from the WordPress Admin tool allowing Robin to do everything from ad management to content creation from one easy location.
In addition, the layout of the site takes full advantage of WordPress’ categories and organizes Robin’s great content in a way that makes it fast and accessible. It’s easy to get lost in this site and spend hours browsing without realizing it. Isn’t that what all website owners want?
The “related content” thumbnails help keep the guest browsing, while the Disqus comment system keeps them interacting and telling their friends. Custom “Recent From” boxes allow Robin to highlight specific categories, all from an easy to manage configuration tool in the WordPress admin area.
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Will you help me get the word out?
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Great stuff, Ben! Straight-up enterprise level work. The post images, page layouts, Disqus integration, custom homepage and multitude of ad locations combine to form a truly impressive site.
Thanks! I’m very pleased with the results.
Terrific display & format for Robin’s work. Kudos!!
Thanks! I have some great things in the works right now for hughes-rankin too. Can’t wait for you to see it.
Stunning work, Ben. Robin must be thrilled. This is what happens when you combine a talented writer and a talented web designer…something truly fantastic!