Welcome back to The Rocky Safari! Something’s changed, hasn’t it?
A lot can change in a week. 😉
In the span of just seven days, my travel blog has undergone a transformation. After one week of hyper-focused effort and attention to detail, I have reinvented my brand and I am thrilled to return today to reveal my blog’s new look: a new logo, a refreshed design, and a slew of other updates that I believe will enhance your experience on my website.
Table of Contents
A New Logo for My Brand in 2024
Firstly, let’s talk about the new logo:
My primary goal with this change was to make sure that first-time site visitors can understand what my blog is about at a glance. 👀
By adding an airplane and backpacker silhouette, I hope readers will be able to quickly and easily understand that my blog is about traveling the world and making the most of the journey along the way.
I decided to lean into visual signals because unlike many popular travel blogs online, my site’s title doesn’t immediately reveal that it’s travel-centric. ✈️
Calling my website some SEO keyword like “Nomadic Rocky” or “Rocky’s Travel Blog” would have made this a lot simpler, but when I started blogging back in 2013, I was a high school student and I didn’t know my blog would one day primarily become about travel.
Safari means “journey” in Swahili, and that’s the core message behind my blog!
To convey that “The Rocky Safari” is also a reference to my name, Rocky Trifari, I decided to make “Rocky” stand out in a handwriting-like script. ✍🏼
You’ll also notice there’s a new bird in this design! 🐦 He’s chilling on my head this time. 🥰 Birds have been such an important part of my life and especially while traveling the world, it just wouldn’t feel right to have a blog logo without one!
Thoughts on Updating the Logo
I know change can be uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and sometimes confusing or hard to understand. However, I’ve preached the importance of taking chances on my blog since the beginning!
Gone is the beloved singing little bird that I lovingly drew during the pandemic using my MacBook Pro and Wacom tablet. Now, with my upgraded M2 iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, I’ve been able to create a more polished and modern logo that better represents the current stage of my journey. I hope you won’t miss the old bird too much, but I think you’ll love the new design just as much as I do.
Anyone who’s been here for more than a minute knows how much I love birds. That’s why the backpacker still has one resting on his head, ready to go along for the journey. 🦜
It’s a nod to my passion for travel, adventure, and adoration for wildlife. 🕊️
I struggled with which kind of bird to select, but I chose a cockatoo because they are so affectionate, cuddly, and loving. They’re also highly intelligent and often misunderstood.
A cockatoo is also a very well-known species whose silhouette can be easily recognized by most people, I believe!
What do you think of this change? I greatly appreciate honest feedback and while I don’t have plans to alter any of these decisions at this time, I incorporate feedback into my decisions every single day and may continue to fine-tune them into the future.
New Features & Updates
Polls & Surveys
On that topic: I’ve added polls/surveys!
Please vote in the poll above!
A Simplified Menu
One of the most substantial changes is the redesigned, simplified menu. While I was very proud of the interactive menu I once built, which featured interesting and complex interactive fields, this update was necessary for better navigation, user-friendliness, and SEO optimization.
Oh yeah, and the menu is blue now! 😊
My previous menu was a project I was once incredibly proud of, having spent a lot of time building it. However, over time, I realized it wasn’t as optimized as it could be. It slowed the site, especially on mobile devices, which is a big no-no in today’s fast-paced digital world. So, I rebuilt the menu from the ground up to be more organized, faster, and, most importantly, helpful.
My new menu is a work in progress, with a few items still pending.
My headline, “Explore, travel, & design your dream lifestyle” has transitioned over to “Ready to travel? A new journey awaits!” Tying in the safari messaging.
Improved Flow for New Visitors
In addition to the new menu, I’ve launched a new “Start Here” page to help new visitors navigate the site more efficiently.
With 11.5 years of content, it can be overwhelming for newcomers to know where to start. I’ve also solidified my brand guidelines to ensure that every piece of content I publish is cohesive and aligns with the overall aesthetic and message of The Rocky Safari. These changes are all part of my commitment to creating better-quality content for you.
New Social Sharing Tools
Another technical update I made was switching from Social Warfare to Grow by Mediavine.
Social Warfare has been a source of frustration for me for a few years with its glitches, and once they stopped tracking Facebook and Twitter shares accurately, it became pretty useless. Grow is a much more reliable plugin, and I’m excited about the improved functionality it brings to the blog.
When you’d like to share something on Facebook or Pinterest, it’ll go through Grow now.
Grow can be found at the bottom right-hand corner of my website in a floating bubble. You’ll find it on desktop and mobile!
Advertisements
Additionally, you may begin to notice some advertisements on the site.
For a long time, I was very reluctant to run display ads across the website because of their impact on site speed and user experience. I’ve dabbled on and off with ads over the years, struggling to decide the ups and downs. I’m thinking of bringing them back in a limited, low-impact format: anchor ads.
I’m generally not a fan of in-content advertisements because I find them distracting from the actual content that readers are here to consume. That’s why I typically prefer to show relevant content that adds to the experience from my premier advertising partners like Viator.
Throughout the past 12 months, you may have noticed I’ve been recommending experiences alongside my content. That’s very intentional and I hand-curate those experiences based on reviews, my personal experience, and professional insights from within the industry.
I make a substantially higher percentage of revenue from affiliate partnerships and brand sponsorships than I do with regular display advertising, so I’ve found this to be a happy medium since it’s mutually beneficial and adds value to those who are interested in making buying decisions.
By now testing ads anchored to the bottom of the screen, I hope to introduce a minimally distracting stream of income to boost revenue which ultimately helps enable me to create even better content for all of you.
These ads can easily be minimized and will simply take over the space where my Social Warfare social sharing buttons used to be, which were deactivated with this update so it doesn’t really reduce screen space either.
I’ve also carefully curated the categories of ads that are allowed to ensure you won’t see anything that is related to sensitive or controversial topics. (If at any point you do, please email me. I’ll address it immediately.)
New Graphics
With newly established brand guidelines, I have been able to design better quality graphics to share across my blog. My hope here is that these will make my content more engaging and visually enticing in an era where attention spans are becoming increasingly limited.
It’s also why I’ve been beginning to sprinkle in emojis into my writing. 😉
It’s the era of short form content and with social media being so prevalent, I think people are more drawn to this style. 🤔
What do you think about that? Let me know in the comments!
A Revamped Newsletter
I used to send an email anytime I published a new post, but I’ve learned over the years that the best email marketers use email differently. 📫
They share personal stories, talk directly to subscribers, share unique and sometimes even exclusive resources, and so on.
I am trying to learn and get better so I’m thinking of sending out newsletters in more of a “weekly” or “monthly” recap format. This means you’ll get less frequent emails, but the content itself will be more nicely presented and I think will raise the quality overall!
I always aim with the intention of making things better, so if you dislike anything I’m altering, just drop me a message and I am happy to listen to your feedback. 🗞️
I Share These Posts for Full Transparency
If you’re wondering what these changes mean for you, the good news is that a lot of it is mostly behind-the-scenes improvements. You’ll notice the new logo, ideally faster load times, and hopefully better branding, but the heart of The Rocky Safari remains the same.
Every few years, I like to do a blog redesign to reflect my current stage in life, my interests, and the latest technology I have access to bring forward to you, my readers. Since I started blogging in 2013, I’ve gone through at least four major redesigns. I know I enjoy looking back and seeing how much the website has evolved over the past 11 years, and I can say with total confidence that this is the happiest I have ever been with its design and performance.
I want to acknowledge and thank all of you who read my posts because, without you, a blogging business wouldn’t be sustainable. It’s thanks to your support that I can keep my dream alive. (If starting a blog is something you’ve ever been interested in, I have a popular guide on how to create a blog here.)
I’d love to invite all of you to share your thoughts on the changes.
Do you like the new logo? Should I change anything or even reverse the decision? Your input matters to me.
Thank you for being part of this journey. Your support means the world to me, and I’m excited to continue sharing my adventures with you on The Rocky Safari. 🐦🌍
Love all of this! Looks like you put a lot of work and effort into rebranding, and it looks like it’s paid off. I think I started following you 3-4 years ago, but it’s incredible you’ve had a long and prosperous blogging journey throughout the past decade-plus. Can’t wait to see where blogging continues to take you, Rocky!
Thank you so much, Rebecca! I think you’re right about the timeline. I believe we connected online during the pandemic, so that sounds about right! Thanks a lot for the positive feedback. Little by little, we get better each day. 😊
Looks great, Rocky!
Thank you so much Leigha!! 😊