New Design & Dilemmas
As you can see, new layout! I couldn’t really think of a better opening line, but do tell me what you think of it. This was a free theme from Blog Oh! Blog, but I tweaked it here and there to fit my needs. The tweaking didn’t take much time because I pretty much took the codes from my previous design and just copy and pasted as needed. What really took a while was finding the right image for the header. I’m still not completely satisfied, so if anyone has a good photo/image to use or a good idea of what to put there, I’m all up for suggestions.
I wrote a post on experiencing with different blog advertisements a while back, and after a month of using Project Wonderful, I’ve made $0.51. It’s obviously an improvement from the $0 I made from Google Adsense, but I feel like it’s just not quite cutting it. So I’ve decided to finally switch to self-hosted advertising, as you can see to your right, there are 3 125×125 ad spaces available at a first-come-first-serve basis. I will also provide a custom-designed ad at an additional price 
I haven’t made my final decisions on the prices yet, but here’s what I’m planning to use so far:
- $2 for 1 month
- $5 for 3 months
- $7 for 6 months
- $12 for 1 year
- $1.50 for 1 custom designed ad
Do these prices seem reasonable to you guys? Any comments, suggestions, anything, would be welcome.
Another dilemma I’m having is whether or not to buy a new domain name. Google hates my butt right now (the feeling is mutual), but the thing is, I haven’t been taking offers from Payperpost and SocialSpark in a while now. 1) because their offers usually suck, or 2) they just don’t have anything at all. I figured that if I got a new domain name, I could start off fresh and maybe get my pagerank back and dig myself out of Google hell. On the contrary, I just renewed this domain, I like the idea behind the name, and switching names means building up all my backlinks from scratch. Ideas anyone? 
Ai~ says:
Looooove the new look, girl!
So professional, so stylish, color contrast is just perfect. The little icons on the forms give are an excellent touch. 
I think the prices are reasonable.
Oh, and don’t change your domain name! If Ever-After is special to you, does it really matter what Google thinks? 
Mimi says:
To Ai: Thanks! I didn’t actually do much to this design besides download and install it, but yes, kudos to the original designer! I’m still very tempted to change my domain name, just because it bores me (it’s still meaningful, but I’m just bored of it!) and that the Google slap is getting to me. I miss my pagerank
Regina says:
The prices seem reasonable enough!
I say starting out would be good because you have nothing to lose. 
Mimi says:
To Regina: I think I’d like to start out new. But at the same time, I’m going to keep riyuu.org and use it as a redirection.