UPDATE 2021:
This post is from 2016 and now I finally am a little bit closer to my goal! Life (or mostly a lot of hard work) happened in between…
A couple of months after this post, in late 2016, I changed the site to be in two languages, with the help of Polylang plugin. I am super happy with the choice of plugin I made! And Happy with the fact the site now is in two languages, even thou it is takes more time to do everything. Since then I have also moved every blog post to the correct language, but not translated everything yet…
Also, since 2016 I have changed theme and is now using Generatepress, love love love it!!
My thoughts 2016, before the switch:
This website and blog is in desperate need of some big updates and improvements! And I have known it for a long time, but not until now I have found the time and energy. Yeah! I am ready for the task! (Written in august 2016.)
But it is not just some TLC that is needed, like some new fonts and colours. It is a BIG reorganisation and developement of the entire content, a new approach to multiple languages, and a big modernisation from the ground up when it comes to plugins used etc.!!! And of course update the look and feel of it, the most fun part, but that is second in priority right now.
Huh! This will take a long time!
My aim is to be a much more effective blogger, I have tons of material waiting, but as the site is today, it is not working for me. I also want to show my drawings and products in a much nicer way, since I plan to expand and sell in more ways.
I started this site back in 2011 and I haven´t done any bigger changes since then, appart from making it responsive ready (thank you Headway theme for your easy one-button-solution!) But in five years a lot has changed with WordPress, themes and plugins. I feel like I almost have to start all over again. Well actually I think I will!
I still love WordPress and my theme of choise Headway. (But right now 2016 I can sadly not recommend it… UPDATE 2021: Headway did fade away, and is no more. But it was once a great theme!) But everything else will have to change! And I have done some heavy research the past days on what plugins to choose for different needs. It is very interesting! Wow, what you can do these days! (Duh!)
My biggest question is how to handle two languages, swedish and english. I have always mixed them up on the same post and pages… Not good! And I have had categories, tags etc in english, even thou this is a .se-domain. Google dislike everything about that approach! And my SEO thinking may have been incorrect… (And I also have been too lazy to alt-tag images. Shhh! Don´t tell anyone. And I don not even use a SEO plugin! Sorry! I will be a better blogger soon!) But it has been easy for me, and I have not had to deal with any of the problems connected with language plugins or multisite for years.
But now it is time to move on and do everything right and better!!
A lot concerning multilingual content, Wordpress, plugins, SEO and Google has changed in these five years. My problem is, it is still changing. There is no future-stable solution yet, it is constantly evolving making this a hard decision.
But one thing is for sure, since I use a .se-domain I must change this main site and blog to a more swedish approach only. So Google will like me more. And I also want to do that, to be more present in Sweden. Even thou it will maybe have a temporarily bad effect on many old posts, categories and links…
I appologize if this site will be in a working mode (maybe even a mess) for a long time to come.
Now I just have to choose. Should I change this to a swedish only site/blog and start a blog in english on a new standalone domain, or somehow use a plugin and blog in english in a subfolder within this site. Been reading about it for days (a nice post about it is here by Nomadic Matt), but still haven´t ended up in a conclusion.
Any advise is welcome!
