I started this post at 11:00pm on Saturday. I put together a featured image, title, and post images, and then…
nothing.
Over 48 hours later, and I don’t even have a revision to fall back on.
Life happened, as life tends to, and that’s why I’m so grateful to have participated in Blogging 201, hosted by The Daily Post.
It made my blog, for a short moment each day, the priority in my life, and gave me the push I needed to do a lot of blog xesturgy.
This was place was in need of quite a bit of polishing.
It’s funny because, before I started, I would have said it was absolutely fine– and it was. After minor tweaks everywhere, though, it’s infinitely better. Earlier today, someone asked about an old post of mine and I found it without extensively using my search function.
To me, that’s amazing.
My goal is to continue with the tiny daily steps, to keep making things better a little at a time.
Today wrapped up Blogging 201, and since I promised I’d summarize what I learned, what I did, and what I didn’t do or learn– here it is.
What’s New at Rarasaur?
- You can now see all the little stuff happening in my life over at the most ephemeral page of my blog. You’ll find it on the sidebar, called “This Very Moment”, and will be updated on the 1st and 15th of every month, with minor tweaks whenever I want. To me, the best thing about this page is that it’s there because you want it to be there. Reader feedback is amazing. You can see it here: http://rarasaur.wordpress.com/this-very-moment/
- For now, as I improve it, you can see an organization of my posts by different methods. I have over 800 posts and only about 50 are tagged appropriately, but I will get there. I even have a section for Readers Faves, where I give credit to the readers who picked them. It’s my favorite thing ever. If you’d like to add your voice to that page, just let me know what post of mine is your favorite– you can email me, or respond in the comments. Check out that page here: http://rarasaur.wordpress.com/sort-by-reader-faves/
- The theme! I was gifted magically with a custom design upgrade, and using that plus my CSS skills, I put together the theme of my dreams. There’s still tweaking to be done, but I’m pretty happy with it. What’s been customized using CSS? The site header height, the font of the sidebar widgets, the overall size of the blog’s font, the red line around the “subscribe email” box, the larger and redder comment prompt, the dashed line between posts, the previous & next buttons, and the shortcodes I used for my archive filings.
- I assembled a permanent apology to include when I reply to a comment late. You can forgive me in advance, or shout at me in advance, here: http://rarasaur.wordpress.com/sorry-for-my-late-response-to-your-awesome-comment/
- Social media icons on the sidebar! Feel free to use either the icons I use, or the ones I didn’t but made anyway. You can find those here: https://rarasaur.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/free-social-media-icons/
- Right under those social media icons is a whole page of ways to reach me, and what happens at all those various social media outlets. There’s even a link to my book: http://rarasaur.wordpress.com/contact/
What did I learn?
Well, I learned a lot about:
- cross-posting, and the terms of service of other writing platforms
- the value of regularly asking for feedback
- WordPress ad and revenue rules
- shortcodes
- CSS
- my own writing and how it’s sorted in the minds of my reader
- how y’all experience this site most commonly
- what a first-time visitor sees when they peek in (see my “this very moment.” page for more details there.)
What’s next?
- I put together a blogroll, of sorts. It’s not live yet, but I’ll let you know when it is.
- I’d like to move my vlogs to Vimeo.
- I’d like to finish tagging the rest of my posts.
- I’d like to start a regular writing feature somewhere else, as well.
- I’m gonna pin the beserko out of my posts. Hold onto your hat, Pinterest, a dinosaur is movin’ into your town!
- I want you to read my old stuff. Maybe once a month, I’ll point you in the direction of a piece I love– even guest posts on other blogs.
What didn’t I learn or do?
- I skipped the parts of the challenge related to joining up in blogging communities and finding buddies. Though eventually I’d like to branch out, for now, I’m all full just trying to be halfway active with the challenges I know and love. (On that note, I have nothing but good things to say about the A to Z challenge. It is a well-oiled machine!)
- I skipped the advice to give you guys what you want, based on my greatest hits. The reason is that I don’t think my highest or most regularly viewed content is necessarily what has turned us into a community here– probably because I write about a lot of stuff. I’d like to see the “Readers Fave” section develop, and I might take my cues from there. Generally though, I am more invested when I am writing what I want.
- I opted not to monetize. WordAds and affiliate links seem to be a little more commitment than I’m willing to give. The donate button was tossed around over in the course summary, but I just don’t know. With nothing but my intuition to guide me here, I feel as if it would be off-putting.
- I still don’t really understand the high-traffic-bringing outskirt social platforms like Reddit.
- My site still isn’t incredibly mobile-friendly. I’m not a phone person myself, so it makes it a trick to figure out how it feels.
Phew! One thousand words later– I think I did alright. It was definitely a fabulous 2-week course, and I recommend jumping on board the next time they do anything like this– or at least revisiting the last two weeks of concepts:
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/courses/blogging-201-branding-and-growth/
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I feel like I should get a shiny gold star for all the clean up around here. What do you deserve a gold star for this month?