you’re welcome, John. It is interesting to read about bloggers’ past, and find out how they got hooked on blogging.

You said some great stuff in your response to David above. You expanded on what I was thinking and didn’t quite say.

I think one redesign every couple years is appropriate, but some people do it ever other month! It’s confusing to come back to their blog because I wonder if I’m where I wanted to be. A logo (like your bIt) would greatly help with this; it’s important for visitors to see something familiar so they know they’re in the right place.

Lauren, you’re spot on the inconsistencies in the brand image with your example of sites that are going through too many re-designs.
In my case, I’ll be drastically changing the visual image of this blog’s design - different colours, fonts, layout, logo, but after I’m done with the re-design that I’ll be happy with, I won’t be re-designing the site any time soon, and I’ll definitely be carrying one or two elements of the new design over to the next stage.

Peter, your blog case is special indeed. Like you said - it’s more of a repository of useful tips than a blog. But then, you too have already built a small brand for yourself - don’t expect regular posting from me, whenever I have some useful tips for you, I’ll post them. You do have quite a big traffic coming to your blog, but the audience who visit your site is different all the time.

The answer in some cases might actually be yes. I don’t really worry much about attracting regular readers on my blog. I think they might be frustrated to see the randomness of my topics.

Over 90% of my total traffic comes from Google searches due to the nature of my posts. The main focus in my case is to make that one random visit worth someone’s time. But maybe my blog isn’t really a blog since it’s more of a repository of hopefully useful tips.

I see quite a few blogs redesign over and over, and it makes me wonder if it’s the same place when I return.