I have decided to make some adjustments to my blog-- nothing major, but just some things like adding social media icons, some new tabs, maybe actually categorizing my posts, ect.
Bear with me in the next few weeks- there might be something looking kind of wonky when you visit my blog, but it is all for the best. I promise. Even if you aren't interested in blogging/ are going to skip this post, I would still like to hear from you:
-What is your favorite blog (design-wise and writing/content-wise)?
-Is there anything obvious (or not) that I need to include on my side bar, ect?
I am not going to give any of my own advice on blogging (yet) because I still have a ton to learn, and any suggestions would be welcome, but I will share a few websites with you that I have found tutorials on, ect. (If you have more, PLEASE let me know! I would love to learn!)
1. Codeacademy- I have not completed it yet, but it has a great HTML 101 course that has been helpful. During this whole design process thing, I haven't done anything major with HTML coding, but it has come in handy when playing with my social media icons, ect.
2. 10 Blogging Commandments- these are nothing super specific, but they are good things to keep in mind.
3. Social Media Buttons and Tutorials- I don't have them up yet, but I have been working on them. Believe it or not-- my blog has a twitter. Don't get too excited, I haven't started using it yet, but soon it will be filled with all sorts of running (and non-running) tweets! So follow up! I might even get crazy with an Instagram and even a Facebook page-- so watch the icons. If you want some for your blog, you can Google "Free Social Media Icons" or use the link from Her New Leaf that I am using.
The whole "Primp My Blog" series on Her New Leaf is great. She includes guest post instructions, signature image creation techniques (which I desperately need to do-- the little pictures with your blog name on it that looks super cute and everybody else has), free fonts, and pin it buttons. Basically everything.
For you to answer:
Favorite blog?
Anything I am missing on my page that you would like to see?
Definitely categorize posts and things like that. It's easier for people to actually find your blog and your posts in search engines that way. I'm not really sure how to tell you to do things like that because I don't know anything about blogspot (I use wordpress.com for my blog and wordpress.org for work).
ReplyDeleteAs far as Facebook pages and Twitter goes, I have a page for my blog, but I only created it because I had to write articles on Facebook pages for work and I needed something to experiment on. I kept it around, and the thing is... it's something else you have to maintain.
What I've learned is... you should maintain your blog and it's content first and foremost- more than a page or a twitter. If you have a page, you should probably post a minimum of once per day on there, sharing more content, other content that isn't on your blog. Then, there's also the matter of responding to comments, responding to the bloggers who read your blog, etc.
It really takes a lot of work- it's a learning process and I'm learning myself. I don't know how those big bloggers do it- the ones who get paid for it obviously can but some of the bloggers with successful followings aren't getting paid either. They put a lot of work into the hobby of blogging :).
CodeAcademy is pretty amazing. I used to use it for work :). Great learning tool for programming!
Thank you so much! That will help a TON!
DeleteLabels are a great idea. It took me about 9 months of writing to realize that I should be using them, but after you've had your blog for a while, it becomes invaluable in helping you find your own stuff too! Same with the archive widget (which you already have). You also might want to consider an "about me" page- I can show you how to set one up. Let me know if you need help- I've learned how to manipulate Blogger after a few years. :)
ReplyDeleteTwo of my favorite places to learn new things are
ReplyDeletehttp://www.soyouwannabeablogger.com/
and
http://giftsweuse.com/
They have some great content for beginners and onward.
And drop the thing you have to do before people can leave a comment. I guarantee you are losing comments. I will rarely post on blogs that have that.