As regular readers will notice, things look a little different on the blog now! That’s because I have just upgraded the blog from it’s previous, limited wordpress theme and am now running the blog using Headway.
Why I moved to Headway
The biggest frustration I have experienced as a blogger, is the massive amount of my time that’s wasted, when I need to make stylistic changes or modifications to one of my blogs. This happens more often than you might think; as I am always looking for better ways to engage with my readers and provide them with a more valuable experience.
I do most of my blogging activity when it’s quiet – for me, that means nights and weekends. Now, even though I have always paid for professional help, it’s seldom available to me when I needed it. As a result, whenever I wanted to make a change to the blog that wasn’t directly accessible via the theme, it could take from a few hours to a few days for the changes to be made.
Last week I launched a new ideas blog using the Headway theme. Like many wordpress themes, Headway claims that users like me can design a blog from scratch, with no need to touch the CSS / HTML. Unlike every other theme I have used, Headway actually delivered – In fact, it massively OVER delivered.
So much so, that Headway is the first ever affiliate product I have promoted on a blog!
What’s the big deal with Headway?
I am a marketing specialist, a content creator, a writer – but NOT a coder! I have zero HTML skills and no idea how to configure CSS. However, using Headway, I can do everything I want to my blogs, using their drag and drop system. In fact, I managed to reconfigure this blog today in less than 40 minutes – with no need at all to touch the code.
Here’s a few of Headway’s features, for those of you who are interested. I wrote that post myself, to try and explain how easy, fun and flexible Headway is.
Full disclosure
I was so totally blown away with Headway, that I wrote to the developers to thank them. After wasting almost a thousand dollars over the past 2 years, on themes that universally disappointed me, I decided to promote Headway as an affiliate. This is the first affiliate product I have ever promoted on any of my blogs; such is my gratitude for how it has (literally) transformed how I blog.
To Clay and Grant Griffiths, the guys behind Headway; “Thank you!”
I will forward this to my web man…sounds great to me!
Glad you like it Claudia – Thanks as always for the feedback!
Thanks for the feedback.
Clean and clear is exactly what I was going for.
Good news Jim, and I have been looking at the Headway theme for for my own site though knowing me I will end up customising it as much as any other theme I have used before (Arggghhh! Stop it Justin, it looks fine!).
The theme business is getting more and more advanced as guys like the Headway team produce these really cool, user friendly set-ups and if anyone is silly enough not to want to invest the money in their blog and they are taking it seriously then they need to stop and think about what they are doing blogging in the first place!
Hello Justin!
Great to hear from you, as always!
You can customise Headway as much as you like, the only difference is that you can do so much of that customisation without touching the code.
This is a good point you’ve raised.
There’s a clique that frowns on those that lack the coding skills to customise their own sites. Its totally unrealistic to expect everyone to spend hours they can hardly afford in html, php and css. Any app that helps to ease the process of building, updating and maintaining one’s web presence is more than welcome in my book.
GREAT comment Anthony!
I see it like this:
If a chef doesn’t need to know how to build or design a cooking stove, in order to cook; a blogger shouldn’t need to learn how to write HTML, in order to write.
Equally:
I don’t need to know how to code the software of my word-processor, to get documents to look the way I want – So why should I have to know how to do this with a blog theme?
Headway allows me to focus on my profession – without having to, as you rightly say, waste my time learning how to do someone else’s job.
Hey there Jim,
You know how much a fan I am of Headway – and I’m in exactly the same boat as you. I know some HTML and I can copy the right CSS code if needed. But why should I shell out on a premium theme and then have to work my ass off to get it looking presentable – isn’t that why I’m buying “premium”, so it’s done for me??
Glad to see you’re enjoying it as much as you are, and I agree – Clay (the developer) and Grant (co-owner and marketer) are cool guys with the blogger’s best interests at heart. Not always the case with some premium developers…
Oh, and wait until you see what Clay has for you next…
For those that do not know, it was Danny Brown’s blog that introduced me to Headway (Thanks Danny!)
I’m looking forward to what they are doing with the next update; which (I think) you have been demoing on your blog.
Hey there mate,
Not at the minute – I’m messing behind closed doors – well, demo sub-domain – with the update (still in beta so didn’t want to mess with live site at minute)
Did you get the developer version? If so, you can access the beta of the new build – just ping Grant or Clay.
And more than welcome for the heads-up on Headway, I’m like you – if passionate about something I’ll share and shout about it ’til blue in the face. Also like you, funnily enough, it’s the first thing I’ve ever signed up as an affiliate for – are we related??
Thanks for the feedback. I’m happy to wait until the next build comes out of beta. Only just started using it and still finding my way round.
Plus, the current build has done everything I’ve needed thus far.
Interesting that it was both yours and my first ever affiliate product – says a lot about the value of the product.