AMSOIL at Stokes Abode’s New Website

It took a while to learn the supporting software. Still, after a lot of trial and error, I finally learned how to make site templates, so I now have an exceptionally clean header at the top and a footer at the bottom that makes it easy to recognize my website. Hence, customers know they have landed at the right place.

One major challenge is making the site as it grows easy to navigate.  As most know, the menu on the top of many websites scrolls off-screen as you scroll down the webpage. Well, I found a solution and call it a sticky menu. What happens on my new AMSOIL at Stokes Abode website is that the top header will scroll up and disappear, but the menu right below it will stop and stick in place, so the menu is always available.

Then the page layout became my focus.  Looking at other websites, it really bugged me that they were full of nothing but Buy Now links and hype.  I wanted to make the more informative site to clearly articulate the benefits of the AMSOIL product line and make it easy to read. I employed various tools that checked spelling and grammar to ensure I did everything to make the pages easy to read yet short and comprehensive.

Once all the pieces were in place, it was ways to improve performance, resulting in loading speed for every page.  This took a lot of work, but now, my site gets a grade of “A” for performance based on the industry tools.

Easy Navigation

Then came navigation, the hardest part of making a website user-friendly, AMSOIL at Stokes Abode.

As I already mentioned, the menu will always be visible; depending on the screen resolution, you will either see the full menu or the pancake icon.  The pancake icon is cool for mobile devices with one tap, and you are presented with a clean dropdown where all menu items are easy to see and select.

If you select a menu item that links to a page on the website, it will open the link in the same window, but if you select a link to the AMSOIL online store, the site will open that window in a new tab.

You can use your browser forward and back buttons at any time without getting lost.

Webpages with Valuable AMSOIL information

In making things easy for my visitors, the AMSOIL at Stokes Abode webpages start with the Home Page.

The home page is the starting page you will land on when you open the link to the website.  This page has some cool high-level information.  On this page (and every page), you will see blue text links to other pages you may be interested in reading.

The one section I am immensely proud of is the section that says, ‘Quick Product Lookup.”  I personally made each little icon; each icon will take you directly to the AMSOIL Online Store in a new tab making browsing the AMSOIL store quite easy.

A New Blog

Then came the BLOG! I have seen so many Blogs that are so complicated to try and follow.  If you look at the current blog I set up; I hope you will agree it is easy to navigate.

The first thing you will see on the desktop and tablet is 2 columns of summary posts; if you click on the image or the text, it will take you to the full blog post.

At the bottom of the summary pages, you will see a link on the left and right to move forwards or backward in the summary posts.

At the top right of the right sidebar, I have added a search box.

A convenient button in the middle of the right sidebar will reveal the categories I have set up, making finding what you want even easier.

Please note: When viewing a Full Post, please use your browser back button or click on the blog button in the menu to move back to the summary view of the blog.