Happy Saturday friends! I’m gearing up for an exciting day in Texas and I hope you’re all having a great day so far! Today’s post is super exciting…and no you’re not seeing double! These beautiful twins and best friends are taking over the blog and talking all about one of everyone’s favorite topics… blogging! They seriously have the best style and are super sweet too, so make sure you go say hello after reading… Enjoy!
Hi! This is Whitney and Lindsay from TheDoubleTakeGirls! We are best friends and twin sisters that started our style on a budget blog nearly four years ago. Blogging is our way to share our passion for all things fashion, beauty and design and gives us a nice break from our day jobs. Samantha has so graciously allowed us to write a guest post for today’s feature. We love Samantha’s signature style and modern flair and are so thrilled to share our first Blogger How To post with all her lovely readers today.
Background:
Starting a blog from scratch is extremely overwhelming, especially when you throw in no former experience or technical training to the mix. Needless to say we were both clueless about the process, but that wasn’t going to keep us from aspiring to our longtime dream of having a blog. We heard that Tumblr was a free platform and had good functionality. After some research, Tumblr seemed like the better option over Blogger so we went with it. While it wasn’t a bad experience, it was certainly a learning adventure as we embarked over the next three years of using this platform for our blog. After many issues with style updates, not being able to make necessary coding edits, functionally issues etc. we felt it was time for a change.
Our first design on Tumblr: aka lots of pink and purple!
DesignerBlogs to the Rescue:
Fast forward to where things took an exciting turn that changed it all for us. We came across an amazing site called DesignerBlogs. The website is absolutely stunning and had tons of helpful information. After reading numerous blog posts and reaching out to some of our blogger friends, we knew it was time to upgrade our website and move over to WordPress.
At first we thought utilizing their amazingly affordable templates would be the way to go. There are so many gorgeous ones and they are so modern and fresh – plus they are considerably less than anything else we’ve seen available. The only issue is we needed some customization to help make our transition from our old blog (with tons of old posts / archives) more doable. We had lived with our first blog for years and there were a lot of improvements to be made.
There were lots of questions we had and items on our checklist. Thanks to a phone call with a fabulous and friendly designer, we were able to map out exactly what the new and improved TheDoubleTakeGirls.com should look like. It was so reassuring that our goals for the aesthetic and improved functionality were completely understood. The proactive communication and extremely fast turnaround time was astounding. We honestly were so impressed with the designer assigned to our project. We received top notch customer services and absolutely LOVE the end product. Here’s a before and after to help show you were we came from and how our look is much improved. Don’t you love how fresh and bright our new site is?
So to all the bloggers out there – be it lifestyle, fitness, food or fashion – if you feel trapped by a subpar web platform, don’t waste another day on it! It took us more than a year to decide to finally make the change. Now we think of all that time we could have had with a platform that makes publishing blog posts a cinch, the ability to easily update code (no need to contact an expensive IT person), install widgets that weren’t compatible with Tumblr, and the best part – we have all the features to meet the needs of our readers. After just a few short weeks we were able to debut our new site just in time to celebrate our third bloggiversary!
If you have any questions about moving your information over from Tumblr, details on the blog transfer steps, or help with picking a new blog design, etc. please don’t hesitate to email us at [email protected] or leave a comment below. We would love to help! And we can’t forget to mention that if you are looking for a new site design (from $50 blog themes that are publish ready to a customized site that is full of bells and whistles) DesignerBlogs definitely has an option for you.
Now until October 10th they are providing 20% off premade blog themes for all new clients! They also have an ala carte menu to change colors and make additions to themes so you can make it more of your own, or you can go the custom design route like we did. It’s the perfect time to have your new and improved site ready before the end of the year. As we always say, don’t waste time on things you don’t love – and this includes sub par websites!
P.S. We would love to have you join us over on the blog for our “double take” on style and beauty on a budget. We also post fabulous “daily deals” on our instagram!
