Local Biz Blogs Official Blog

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been hard at work trying to better the experience for our most valued businesses and beta testers. As a result, I’ve redesigned various important sections that, in my opinion, dramatically improve the way everyone uses the site.

As we approach the Public Beta stage, we’re working extra hard to make significant improvements, bug fixes, as well as adding new features. In my opinion, this most recent build of LocalBizBlogs brings the site to an entirely new level ... one that brings us closer to a very successful Final Launch later this year.

A New Day, A New Homepage
As you may have noticed immediately, we have a brand new Homepage. Over the course of our Private Beta testing period, we’ve arrived at the point where our business models are becoming increasingly focused. With new content & new focus comes new perspectives on what we’re building & creating. And with new focus on our content, comes improvements to visual elements and strengthens the notion of things becoming more visually pleasing, thereby enhancing the overall user experience in the end. We always knew we would have to someday throw away the old homepage and build something completely new. Overall, I’m extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished here and hope you’re enjoying it so far.

Dashboard: Reinvented
Those of you who are reading this and are not currently beta testers or businesses on LocalBizBlogs may not be familiar with the “Dashboard” integrated on every business' page. It’s a unique part of our robust CMS (Content Management System) that enabled our businesses use to manage and maintain a large portion of their page, account, preferences, etc.


A screenshot of our new dashboard, located in an an animated pull-out menu at the top of each BizBlog. (click the permalink title at the top to see a bigger version, if you're reading this from the Homepage)

For our current users/testers, the Dashboard is now located at the top of the page. Much cleaner, much more accessible ... it improves the flow of the page when opened. It also takes a step in reducing page clutter. The new design is much cleaner and simpler than it's previous incarnation. New navigation makes it much easier to access everything quickly and easily, which will be vitally important as we start to add sections & more content. It would have been nearly impossible to expand with the older Dashboard design.

The new Dashboard also gives you a sneak peak into some of the management features we have planned for the future (Blog (an extention to our blog management) , Mailing List (which will be changed to “Newsletter”), My Account, & Visitor Tracker (which will become a new, standalone expanded section)).

I think the Dashboard redesign is really clean & beautiful ... and it’s only the beginning.

The LocalBizBLOG
I also made some adjustments to the BizBlog page (the main business page) which gives more focus on the Blog. A couple months ago, we decided to eliminate the Blog Title, which took up a lot of much-needed vertical space on the page, which I felt was a huge step in improving the usability of the page, but also seemed to reduce the visual clutter.

This time I widened the middle Blog section a bit, made the left side thinner, which further moved the Blog section up more towards the top of the page. No biggie, but it’s a step in the right direction.

What’s Next?
Our next goal is to reach the point to where we can open the site up to a larger number of testers, or Public Beta.

We have a bevy of new features & additions planned, as well as more design revisions, and a large number of bug fixes. My next large undertaking is to completely overhaul the Tools. So you should see some big new improvements to those in a matter of weeks.

Thanks to all for reading and stay tuned for more exciting updates!

Tino Novellino
Creative Director
LocalBizBlogs, Inc.