If you clicked to the website in the last couple of days, you probably noticed that things have changed a bit.
Ok, not a bit – a lot!
Part of the reason for this was that the last time I re-decorated had been over 7 years ago – an updated look and feel was somewhat overdue.
But also, after years of dismissing any notions of adding a commercial component to my website, I suddenly warmed up to the idea of attempting to monetize it. And although it will essentially remain a blog, I wanted to make it look a bit less like a blog.
At first, I toyed with the concept of building a parallel site that would be more of a commercial vehicle. A separate brand. Even came up with one that neatly expressed my targeted market segment – One Cobblestone Alley. You know, a quaint corner in a picturesque little town that a traveling photographer cannot walk by without taking a picture of. A pretty cool idea given that I intend to build upon my passion for travel and photography. A good old friend even devised a brilliant logo for me that reflected those converging passions.
But after playing with the separate website for a while, I realized that I am not ready to abandon my existing brand, which has some presence – if mostly friends and family – established over the course of nearly a decade. And that’s how burlaki.com got its makeover. (And I am pretty sure I can still find use for that awesome logo!)
What does it all mean for my readers? Hopefully, not really that much. There will now be ads on the site – I know some people will find that annoying but I hope they will bear with me. To further annoyance for some, there will be a popup inviting anyone to join my mailing list – I’ll try to keep it to a reasonably low frequency of actually popping up. There will be links to products and vendors with whom I will establish affiliate marketing relationships. There will certainly be more content in the form of product reviews. I’ll throw in some post-processing tutorials.
But the focus will mostly stay the same – travel, photography, memories.
Thanks for reading! And welcome to my reboot!