Happy Monday! It’s a new week and a great day to finally introduce you to my brand new website / blog! I can’t even believe this! I am head over heels in love with this new online home of mine. Have you seen the colors?? And my new logos?? Yes, I actually have a logo now – more than one! I’m in heaven and it’s taking my eyes some getting used to each time I log in. After celebrating 4 years of blogging last month, I couldn’t be more excited and proud to give you a little tour of my new space. Of course, please tour around on your own as well because there are so many fun little things to see…especially within the galleries. If you’re a new reader, that’s a great way to catch up to speed.

I can’t begin to tell you how hard we worked to make the site super clean and user friendly. Because I’m a professional organizer, more than anything I wanted a clutter-free, easy to navigate and organized website. Shocker, I know. With the help of my website angel Lesley, we totally nailed it!

Enough chatter, let’s look around! Welcome to my new landing page!…

Previously, when someone went to www.simplyorganized.me, they were dropped directly into the blog. The blog is where my online footprint began and what my regular readers were accustomed to seeing. I’m still shocked that I managed to grab the attention of companies and clients when my site was functioning as a blog…and all of the tech / behind the scenes stuff was done by me. I’m not a technical girl, so to educate myself and get the blog into a reasonable place, I spent a lot of time watching YouTube tutorials and reading tips and tricks from other bloggers. So, my initial online presence was a blog. But with my small business up and running here in SF, it was time to upgrade the site to also function as a way for clients to reach me and get info about my style / pricing. I also have a lot of companies reaching out for other services like product photography or product reviews…and even some public speaking (so not me and can’t believe I’ve given a little speech already…and have another scheduled on the books). The site needed to be done. And in order for that to happen, I had to press the brakes on a few other things for a couple months to really focus in on getting it done right the first time.

And boy did we ever get this right. Did I tell you how much I love this place?

Anyway, I’m getting away from the topic here…the landing page! When you login to my site now you see this beautiful yet calming, clean, classy landing page. From here you can quickly navigate to what you want – whether you’re a regular blog reader or a new client wanting to reach out to me, all you have to do is click through the top menu bar or the menu buttons. Within that initial space above the fold, you can do so much – you can contact me, read about me, find project galleries, see what clients have said, click through to my social media platforms, or sign up to receive the blog posts via e-mail. At some point down the road, that sign-up bar will also give you access to a weekly newsletter. I’m not there yet, but I’m ready to go when the stars align for that goal. I love that any site visitor can do so much within that small amount of space. It’s so clean and easy to navigate!

If you scroll a little further down on the landing page, you’ll see my 3 most recent blog posts. And did you notice the navigation bar from the top followed you? I love that feature! Now when you scroll, you can quickly click to get back to another spot on the site…

Regarding that top menu bar, let’s talk about it! Next to “home” you see “blog”. When you click “blog” it takes you to … you know, I don’t have to tell you!…

The blog is a slightly different format in that the featured post image is off to the left (instead of front and center), all of my posts will be truncated to keep the page clean, and I still have a sidebar…which is looking awfully pretty! I’m not including images of the entire sidebar here, but feel free to scroll on your own to see it. My houzz account is there along with Pinterest…and there will be a few little updates coming. Otherwise, my goal is to keep that sidebar as clean as possible with very few ads…

 

The next item on the menu bar is the “project gallery”. You can see here that when you hover over “project gallery” my 4 main galleries show up in a drop down menu…

 

Or if you click on “project gallery” itself, you’ll come to another landing page with 4 menus to choose from…

 

All you need to do is hover over the menu button to click through to the gallery. For example, when you click through Blogging Tips, you’ll see a gallery of blog posts like this…

So nice!

The next page on the menu is to access my 4 main services. It functions the same as the project galleries I mentioned above. This page is so pretty…Lesley really went above and beyond here!…

As with the project gallery page, if you click on any one of these 4 main menus you’ll see another page with the info you’re looking for. For example, someone looking for professional organization help would see my 3 main in-person services…

And a company looking to connect with me for blogging services would find this on the Blogging Services Page…

Those 2 services are the most popular besides those swinging through to read the blog.

There’s also a main contact page as well as a special contact page for those looking to connect with me for services. Words can hardly describe how in love I am with the site appearance and usability. And most importantly, the site is easy to tweak, update and has so much functionality that it will last me many, many years. Which, funny enough, is something I work on with my clients – making smart investments that last a long time and can easily be tweaked later without more of an expense.

Sigh, I love this place! Can you believe after 2 months when I first announced I was taking the plunge and moving to WordPress that we’d be here today with a beautiful new site? All of this was possible through the help of Lesley at Launch Girls. I am SOOOO grateful to have taken her class at the Haven Conference over the summer. I met her there and learned about Launch Girls during her presentation. This process is stressful and taxing because you want it done right the first time so you put a lot of pressure on yourself, but Lesley made it so fun and easy. No matter what changes I requested, opinions I shared, concerns I had, or questions I asked, she was there 100% of the time…and so patient. She delivered a product that exceeded my wildest dreams. In the process of working closely together, she’s become a personal friend that I look forward to getting to know better…and maybe visiting in the south one day. You guys know half of my heart is still in Arkansas, so why not have yet another reason to head south? Lesley, how can I ever thank you?! You’re work speaks for itself, but I look forward to singing your praises and hope those visiting will see my beautiful site and hire you immediately!

Lesley not only works with the amazing Launch Girls crew, but she also has her own website (here). Please be sure to check her out!

And I can’t end this post without throwing a HUGE shout out to my new friend Kristy of Robb Restyle. You guys, Kristy worked SO hard with me (and probably wanted to strangle me more than once) to perfect my logo and colors. She knocked this one out of the park and was ultra patient. I found the branding process to be the most difficult, tear-inducing part. My color palate was difficult to land on because of the blues and grays. As you guys may know in real life, when it comes to those 2 colors you can see too much blue or purple or green in them…and they were throwing me off. Not going to lie, I cried once trying to decide. I can laugh about it now, but it was brutal. Not only are the colors being used on the site, but also on my printed materials. This meant I had to track down a Pantone Color Chart to review colors (online and in print) and give Kristy specific color code numbers. After nearly 2 weeks of trying to track one down, a friend of a neighbor had a chart for me to get acquainted with. And I did just that…over many agonizing days and many bottles of wine.

This experience drove home the fact I’m never going to be an interior designer. Those people…pay them their insane fees. They are worth it – they clearly have a gift!

Thank you so much Kristy! I love love love my new logos and colors and feel confident handing someone my business card now! I guess this is the place where I should share my logos! My main logo…sorry it’s so small here…

And 2 perfect secondary logos…

Love love love!

I hope you’re enjoying my new home as much as I am. I’ll be posting a couple more times about my transfer experience, as well as sharing my final branding palate…so look for those posts to come soon. I just wanted to pop in today to show you around and welcome you to the new home of Simply Organized! Thank you so much for reading the blog and sharing it with your friends. It means the World to me to have your support and look forward to sharing even more simple organization ideas and client before & after’s. Can’t wait to put this process behind me so I can finally get back to work blogging for you guys. So many projects and clients to share!

Have a great day and happy organizing!