Daniel Davies

Its important when you a run a website you spend time with it, not just publishing new content, but also taking a look at the bigger picture and refining the smaller sections. This is exactly what I've been doing today!

• Looked at navigation, was it really in the right order? Did I need links to external sites in there?
• Is the homepage really relevent? Does it do what a homepage needs to do still?
• How up to date is the about page?

I've thus rewritten most of the static content on the site, the homepage will now point a visitor in the right direction, and I've trimmed down some of the navigational fat.

The other big thing on my mind lately is how I balance personal and professional work on the site. I don't do enough freelance work to really justify a full website advertising myself, all the work I do is picked up through word-of-mouth. I also have a full time job, I do the freelance work to try out new things and for fun, not to put food on the table; the conflict of interests with my day job is something I'm keen to avoid. But is danux.co.uk really portraying the image I want to a potential client? And what about the people I do freelance for? They need a central source of links to the various web interfaces.

One option was to turn danux.co.uk in to danieldavies.co.uk, and have its primary purpose be a "professional front". I wasn't keen on changing a domain name, and all the email associated to danux.co.uk. And of course, I like this being a personal website! It also doesn't help the folks I already work for who know my professional antics as Amarus Digital Media, nor the tax office who also know me under the same name. All servers are part of the amarus.co.uk domain, so it would be very confusing to use danux.co.uk.

My decided solution was to stick a page up on to amarus.co.uk which simply explained that I only take on work through word-of-mouth, then link back to danux.co.uk. The "Existing Clients" bit will point people who need to login to the right place. Danux.co.uk is now a little more "professional", but still distinctly personsal, so I think I get the best of both worlds.

Time will tell, I wonder how other people deal with the Personal vs. Professional seperation issue?