State of the Savage: August & September 2018

The newly revamped and redesigned Traveling Savage has been live for just over a month, and I wanted to spend the majority of this State of the Savage discussing the motivations behind the update. I hope you’re enjoying the new look and finding information here easier than ever! If you’re experiencing any hiccups, especially with RSS feeds or email deliveries please let me know in the comments. Also, before I proceed, I want to mention there are still a few days left to enter the sweepstakes for a FREE bespoke itinerary for a 10-day trip to Scotland. Go here and scroll to the bottom of the post to enter. Good luck!

Lets get into the reasons behind the recent, large-scale overhaul here, and lets start with the obvious:

Traveling Savage looked dated

I built Traveling Savage at the end of 2009. It had an awful gray and orange motif that lasted a few months. I revised the color palette to focus on warm browns, oranges, and maroons, and this style remained mostly the same until the redesign last month. In the interim I changed how photos appeared in posts and thumbnails, updated the site banner, and a host of other small and aesthetic changes, but they didn’t amount to anything more than a burp in the user experience.

Meanwhile, the rest of the internet cycled through new designs every year. After a couple of years I was dreadfully behind, and after awhile I realized that, as web design and programmer are absolutely not my forte, there’d be no way I could personally keep up with the Web’s changing landscape. I focused on traveling and adding to the site’s repository of information, but I knew there’d have to be a reckoning at some point.

There was no room to grow

This site functioned perfectly as a blog for many years. The problem with a blog, though, is that it’s focused on the now. New posts appear on the homepage and after a few weeks they’re lost in the site’s dim and bewildering archives. Few venture into those unhallowed depths. That works if the posts are just about the here and now, but I was writing about evergreen topics that, more often than not, remain relevant indefinitely. I began to make up for this deficit with long lists of links in my site’s sidebar but I couldn’t plug all the holes and the boat was sinking.

The biggest roadblock I ran into was not being able to pin my posts to a map of Scotland. As an experienced trip planner who has tackled many trips to many different countries, I always wish to see a map of the country and click into content. I don’t always know the names of places or reasons to visit them, and sometimes just the geography and orientation of the country help me determine where I want to go. Coastline? Yes please. Islands? Yep. Northerly climes? Uh huh.

Of course I as began redesigning the site I thought of other features I’d like to add: A marketplace, gated resources, etc.

Google was and is punishing me

Traveling Savage has a dedicated core of readers, and I am very thankful for your continued presence. The bulk of my traffic, however, comes from new visitors who find me via Google. Up through mid-2017 you could Google most things related to Scotland travel and Traveling Savage would appear on the first page of results, sometimes even the first result! That was huge for me and my business providing trip-planning services. My primary source of income comes from the services I provide here, which means if Google gives me the cold shoulder then there are dark times ahead.

Those dark times arrived in the latter half of 2017.

Traveling Savage began to plummet in search results. Sometimes I had to click to the sixth or seventh page of results to find my site. Most people don’t do that. My consulting business dried up and 2018 has been a very slow and difficult year in this regard.

This was the tipping point. Traveling Savage was being punished while other sites nominally related to Scotland with shallow content were vaulting to the top of search results. Google values responsive, mobile-compliant sites, among other features, and Traveling Savage didn’t measure up on most.

I had a decision to make: Soldier on or fold up my tent. When this whole venture started, Sarah and I decided to give it two years to see if it would succeed or fail. We’re now on year eight, and while I don’t think we were informed enough to make that initial call we’re well beyond the checkpoint.

In for a penny, in for a pound

The decision wasn’t very difficult. We both believe in Traveling Savage. I’d put very little money into the site over the years so it made sense that it needed an update. There’s too much good information here to let it slide into the oblivion of Google’s page 2+ search results.

My tepid search for a web designer turned into an inferno of action. I quickly settled on a local design firm and the rest is history. My aim with the design is manifold: To make using the site immensely more pleasurable, to make finding information easy, and to get it in front of as many people as possible, not only for the sake of my business but also because there are more people traveling to Scotland than ever and I know Traveling Savage will help them make the most of that trip.

Other notes

Now that you’ve got the scoop on the reasons behind the redesign, there are a few tidbits you might be interested in. Sarah and I are heading off to Spain toward the end of September for a vacation. I’ll be home for less than a month after that trip before I return to Scotland to explore Argyll, Bute, Kintyre, Cowal, and Glasgow. I’m also hoping to get in a daytrip to the Isle of Jura. Impending highlights include traveling with my dad again, visiting Springbank, and having a castle to ourselves for several days! More info to come!

Writing novels is the other half of my professional life. I’ve had a “finished” novel for almost a year now and waffled on which publication method I wanted to pursue. I believe I’ve landed on self-publication, and I’m now deep into interviewing freelance editors. It’s a good idea to have the manuscript edited even if pursuing traditional publication, so this doesn’t close off any future course correction.

I should probably start plotting the sequel.

Until next time.

Sláinte!