Refreshing

A lot has changed in the two years since the Finding Substance blog started… so we felt this was an appropriate time to apply the “do better” idea to findsubstance.com. Time for a refresh.

First, we need to look back at some previous thoughts about agencies, sites and blogs. Back on February 13, 2007, I wrote a post called “Death to blogs. Long live blogging! (Part 1)” that explored agencies and blogs. And on February 18, 2007, I followed it up with “…Long live blogging (Part 2).”

“What we’re talking about is changing the vehicle for the people who are thinking about how to communicate in new ways… Smart agencies who are using blogs to communicate will realize they don’t need to separate them from the agency site. They should be the same thing… tell a story, share an experience and inspire an idea.” – me, February 18, 2007

We’ve been doing this from the start because our thinking is an important part of the Substance brand. But it was time to ask ourselves some better questions… and then try and create the answers through our refresh solution.

Q. If the home page is just one page for entering the site, how can other pages welcome visitors who have never been to the site before? What if they return through a side door? And if they come back to the home page, why are they coming back?
A. Every page is a entrance. This means section landing pages like Thinking, About, Portfolio and Labs all need to greet visitors like old friends, get them comfortable with the site structure, and let them explore. Story pages also need to welcome visitors in from wherever they came, and then provide directions for how to get around to other parts of the site. These pages don’t need to try and accomplish too many tasks, just the important tasks: let people know where they are, let them know how to get other places, make people feel welcome, and get people involved in the conversation. You’ll also notice the home page and Thinking pages have a featured story. In order to elevate stories that we feel are important, we can now feature them as the “lead” story on the home and Thinking pages, while the supporting stories run chronologically. This allows us to present our stories in a way that we think you’ll find interesting and engaging, as well as give hierarchy to the content.

Q. Why do blogs use the same template for all posts, notwithstanding the content or subject?
A. We don’t know, so we changed it. Sometimes a post might benefit from a one column, two column, or a three column layout. Content should determine layout, not succumb to it. So we created multiple templates for our Thinking stories. We can pick and choose the one that’s appropriate for the content type and the visual communication we want to accomplish. Best of all, the content is separate from the presentation, so we can preview it in a number of ways until we find what we like. We can go back to previous posts and reformat those templates if we choose. And when we refresh the site again (and you know we will), we won’t have to reformat everything. Flexible content, flexible presentation, all working together to complement each other, not compete or restrict.

Q. How can we utilize our digital brand across the internets to create a more comprehensive view of the Substance brand?
A. Give access to everything we do online. We’ve always made our Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Delicious, Muxtape, Last.fm, Amazon library and Facebook group available. Now those links are accessible at the bottom of every page for easy access. There’s also a combined RSS feed that takes the information from our involvement all around the internets (yes, the extra “s” at the end is completely necessary) and share it in one place. And we can pipe in new content feeds to this stream as we explore other digital communication resources, and it’s all updated in the RSS feed.

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There’s also the ability to “share this story” at the end of each story, a new archives nav at the bottom of the site as well as a more comprehensive archives page, new primary navigation language, and some new design details.

We know the site will probably never be “perfect.” It’s changed several times over the last two years; it’s a constant evolution. Our site should represent our brand, and the evolution of that brand. So as long as our site remains relevant to our brand, then we feel pretty good about the solution. But not so good that we’re complacent and not thinking of new things to try. Always do better.

Let us know what you think, what you like, what you don’t like, and ideas for making it better. Thanks!