Changes To The Site & The Future

Hello! If you are new to this site then welcome along and I hope you find some great information on men’s fashion, style and fashion trend’s. This article will not be directed towards you, although you will perhaps find some useful information about how to make best use of the site on a whole. For those readers who visit here regularly and are used to the old site, then I am sure you have already noticed the layout changes etc.

For those that do not know, my name is Ben and I have designed, maintained and written this site on my own for the last 2 years. Over the last month or so I have been thinking about how I can take the site to the next level and develop it even further. I want this site to become THE destination for men’s fashion news and advice, and so in order to do this I needed some help.

New Homepage Layout

The homepage now features more fashion articles on the page as I have split it into featured stories on the left, and general articles on the right. The aim over the next couple of weeks is to finalise the writing team here for FashionBeans and I have had so many applicants already wanting to help out and write for us which I really really appreciate. I am also going to be approaching some of my personal favourite writer’s of blogs I read regularly and see if they would like to contribute here. In the end I am confident before the end of the year that we will have an amazing team together who will be able to deliver at least 8-10 stories per week instead of the 5 I currently write.

By having other contributors and writers it means I can spend more time developing the site and making it easier to use. I have also done very little promotion on it so far even though we have managed to be featured in some large magazines and publications already. By expanding our audience and getting more of a community going, it means there will be more people commenting on each story, and maybe even scope for a forum in the future. In the end this social interaction and mixture of views will help everyone expand their personal style and develop your overall fashion sense.

Features of The Site

Here are some of the features that I think newbies should know about as well as you existing readers:
Newsletter
You can sign up for the FashionBeans newsletter on the homepage. We do not currently send out a regular newsletter as I am still trying to grow the mailing list to 5,000+ before I do this. Once we hit this target though I am planning on sending out a newsletter every 2 weeks just showcasing some of the great new articles we have written, new voucher codes and offers information, competitions and some of the latest menswear you should get your hands on. Believe me when I say I would NEVER sell your information to a third party and would never ever spam you each week:

Offers and Vouchers
We are approached each and every week by a lot of clothing stores who want to feature voucher codes and offers on our site. Due to this we created a voucher code section here which lists all the new one’s at the top. You can also see the latest 5 voucher codes on the right side of the homepage, hopefully making it easier for you to bag a bargain:

Men’s Clothing Section
If you have ever clicked the main image at the top of the site before, you would of arrived at our men’s designer clothing section. Here I list item’s from just about every retailer on the Internet so you have one big super clothing store to browse through. You will be able to find you favourite designer EASILY in our clothes shop, as well as the latest item’s in their collection and where you can buy it at the best price. Use the left hand side to narrow your selection quickly and find the item that you want at the best price possible. You could look through all the latest All Saint’s T-shirts or Rick Owens Footwear or Paul Smith Accessories or just browse through the whole latest PRPS collection:

Navigation
The navigation is always at the top of the site and you can use the tabs to browse through our full selection of articles in each category. If you are looking for all the latest fashion trend’s for example, then just click the “fashion trends” tab, and they will be listed with the latest article first. The logo will ALWAYS take you back to our homepage, so if you are ever lost then just click there and you will find your way home:

Future Changes

Over the next few weeks there maybe quite a few changes to the site taking place including:

• New writer’s and contributors: Like I have said, I am going to finalise my writing team and start getting extra articles on each and every day. Hopefully you will like the new point of view and a change from my personal writing style. I will still be editing every story and picking out some of my favourites to feature in the main section of the homepage, but it should mean we become more well rounded as a site and as individuals. I will contributing 2-3 larger articles a week time permitting, so I am not going anywhere do not worry!
• Changes to the categories and navigation: When we have more people writing for the site, some will be concentrating on areas we haven’t featured before, or expanding our original range. For example I have people wanting to write specifically about teen fashion, budget fashion, latest hairstyles and even social intelligence for men. This may mean we make our categories more specific and also redesign the navigation to include popular categories.
• Changes to the article page: The article page is having a quick redesign to make it slightly cleaner and to separate out the information better. These means the comments section, article body and maybe even the header will change over the next few weeks. But hopefully it will look better!
• Product Page Redesign: This page will also be getting a redesign so hopefully when you are browsing for clothes, it will make it easier to find what you are looking for and get the information you need in order to purchase some great clothes quickly and at an amazing price.
• Social Networking: Something I will get time to do once I free up some hours is integrate more social networking into the site. I have plans for a facebook page, regular twitter updates and the like, so I can keep in touch with you all easily!

So there you go, big plans and changes ahead. I hope you are all excited as to where we are going and continue to enjoy the site and the information we provide. Remember to tell your friends and family about us, and let’s try to grow this to the next level!