If you visit this site directly (rather than via a feed reader) you may have noticed a new design being sported. Apart from the purely aesthetic side, this was for a very practical reason: I found out I was losing subscribers!

By randomly checking my Google Analytics stats the other day, I noticed my regular readership was tailing off. After running a few tests, I found that a number of WordPress plugins on the site were causing errors in the rss feed and email subscriptions meaning that a number of people simply weren’t getting my posts.

To combat this problem, I’ve taken the plunge and purchased one of the best coded WordPress themes out there: Standard Theme. In addition to being really well written, it has a number of features directly integrated so you don’t need to use additional plugins (and bulk out code loading). Logo upload, layout options, social sharing buttons, breadcrumbs trail, SEO optimisation and advertising options are all included out-the-box among other great features. Even better, it’s fully customisable so you can make it look how you want (by changing the css options).

I plan to slowly tryout the various options and get it looking how I want, but I’m really happy so far as the previous errors are now all fixed! If you’re looking for a bloat-free, fully customisable theme, I can highly recommend Standard Theme!