A little bit of site news to start off your Friday! If you have visited USCoinNews.com this week, you will have undoubtedly noticed a new look and feel to the site. This new look has been in progress behind the scenes for the past several weeks, based in part on feedback from readers as well as good friend who is way better at SEO (Search Engine Optimization) than me! It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
The aim of this refreshed look is to give you quicker access to new content. You’ll note that there is a new scrolling ticker towards the top of the page. Everyone who visits the site will see this. There is also an experiment going on with a “Latest” block at the top of the articles feed, just below this ticker. This is part of a A/B test that some of you will see and some of you won’t. Whether that stays or not will depend on the interactions users have with it.
One bit of user feedback that I received is around the mobile version of the site. Previously, I had it default to the more mobile friendly AMP version of the site. Seems that a fair number of you wanted to have the full site on your iPhone or Android phone. I’ve changed things so now the full site shows up by default on mobile phones (it has always been this way on tablets).
Finally, a note about the advertising on the site. I’ve had several emails in the past two weeks asking for the ads to be removed. Folks, I just can’t do that, at least not right now. The ads on the site help me cover the costs of running the site. I’ve been very transparent with readers around this so for long time readers, this isn’t much of a mystery. Simply put, it costs about $150 per month to run the site. That’s for hosting the site, maintenance & support, and advertising. Right now, the ads on the site just about cover those costs. If I had it my way, they’d be gone too but the budget won’t allow it.
That said, you’ll note that in the right hand bar the Patron button has returned. This is a way for you commit a certain amount each month to the site. If enough readers do this and it hits $150 or more a month, that will replace the ad revenue and they will be shutdown on the site. Please consider becoming a Patron of USCoinNews.com.
As always, if you run into a bug when on the site or have feedback, let me know. Use the comment form on the About page to send it to me.
Thank you all for your continued support of the site!
Clinton