WordPress Design and Content Tweak Suggestions

Cheri Lucas Rowlands, with WordPress, recently published two posts to help us improve our blogs.  In case you missed them, here are five design and content tweaks she recommended. The posts themselves serve up narrative and visual guidance to implement each change, so if one of them catches your eye, click through and tweak away!

Five Design Tweaks for a Fresh Start in 2019

1. Set the tone with a new header
2. Clean out the cobwebs and remove your background
3. Get stylish with a fresh font
4. Build your site’s visual identity with a custom logo
5. Use your photography game with high-quality images

Five Content Tweaks for a Fresh Start in 2019

1. Update your site title and tagline
2. Reorder and reword your menu tabs
3. Clean up your categories
4. Revisit your sidebar and footer
5. Audit all of your pages

There’s lots more WordPress blogging guidance and reading suggestions on WordPress.com-Blog and WordPress-Discover. If you aren’t following them, sign up to get plugged into more resources!

 

Photo source: pixelcreatures on Pixabay

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For Those Missing WP’s Daily Prompt & Community Pool

Since WordPress dropped their Daily Prompt and Community Pool at the end of May, other sites have stepped in to fill the gap.  If you feel adrift, here are three sites to both jiggle your brain cells, and help you connect with others in the blogosphere. It’s a great way to discover new blogs, help new writers, and find new fans of your writing.  Enjoy!

Swimmers: Daily Prompt and Community Pool

“Have you just published a new post and need some feedback? Do you need some advice on your blog theme & layout ? Maybe you’re a newbie and need to increase your audience? Just leave your question in the comment section adding your blog’s address.”

Ragtag Daily Prompt: Daily Prompt

“To participate in the Ragtag Daily Prompt, create a Pingback to your post, or copy and paste the link to your post into the comments. And while you’re there, why not check out some of the other posts too!”

FOWC with Fandango: Daily Prompt

“FOWC was designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt at the end of May and I want to thank each and every one of you for being so supportive and for participating in these prompts.”

Photo source: Edar on Pixabay

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Ice Cream, Safeway and Letting Go

Ice cream is the secret to a long and happy life. My dad, an almost daily eater of ice cream is, at 94, my evidentiary proof.  If red wine drinkers have convinced the world of the medicinal argument for their lust, I’ll go with the longevity argument for mine.

So, I eat ice cream, leaning toward anything with salted caramel in it.

Return to Blogging

I fell off the blogging wagon. I’d like to blame it solely on the demise of WordPress’s Daily Prompt, but that’s like saying I eat ice cream only because they sell it at the grocery store. Right. It makes no sense.

I’m back. Taking it slower than before when I was overly ambitious with my blogging frequency. Had I spooled out my posts to date, they could’ve carried me through to today. Instead, I front loaded and then…life got busy and my postings dried up.

I’m looking forward to catching up. Or at least, jumping back in, and seeing what ya’ll have been up to.

I’m also looking forward to getting back to writing about how, so often, I’m of two minds (or more) about things. That hasn’t changed.

 

Photo source: Alexas_Fotos on Pixabay

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Dopamine-Induced Raw Begging

I’m responding to likes and kudos, comments and accolades. Like Pavlov’s dog, I’m salivating over feedback; getting hooked by WordPress’s announcement that I’ve surpassed my previous record of likes. New record: 27! It may be a puny record, but it’s my record. So…whoot!Pavlov. Dogs. I’ve been writing about dogs. Ugly dogs. Fee for petting dogs. Dog House fiction.

Is this all an accident? Coincidence? I think not.

The Sunshine Blogger Award

The Sunshine Blogger Award is “given by bloggers to fellow bloggers who inspire positivity and creativity in the blogging community.” I’d love to say that came from the official Sunshine Blogger home page but, if there is one, I can’t find it. This was on this 2018 blog post and since I liked it, I pilfered it.

To have One Day at a Time nominate me for this in April and tell their followers about Walk the Goats is a nice recognition of my blog. And it gives me welcomed encouragement. Thanks, Floating Gold, and sorry I took so long to participate!

Go check out their blog where newsworthy topics are tackled with passion and perspective. Creative writing explorations are done. And our fearless blogger takes on various projects to challenge themselves.

One Day at a Time also has one of the few blogs I’ve reblogged; it was How To Discover New Blogs, which I found incredibly helpful as a new blogger and, now, three months in, it’s still useful, even if Prompts, First Friday and Community Pool are leaving the WordPress umbrella at the end of May.

The Mystery Blogger Award

The Mystery Blogger Award is “an award for amazing bloggers with ingenious posts. Their blog not only captivates; it inspires and motivates. They are one of the best out there, and they deserve every recognition they get. This award is also for bloggers who find fun and inspiration in blogging; and they do it with so much love and passion.” – Okoto Enigma

To have Confessions of an Irish Procrastinator recognize me for this with her April 29th Award nomination, is a gratifyingly, warm acknowledgement. Thanks, and my bad for taking so long to engage, especially since you’ve decided to take a hiatus from your blog. I do hope you come back, because your musings on life and your colorful visuals always caught my attention, entertained and provoked thought.  Glad your writings remain on your site.

Liebster Award Round #2

The Liebster Award, with its tag line, “Discover New Blogs!” feels like one blogger telling another blogger about cool places to visit.

To have A Creative PTSD Gal send other bloggers my way with her April 29th Liebster Award nomination is a gratifyingly, warm greeting. Thanks, Jo, and mea culpa for my taking so long to engage!

Go check out her blog; it’s filled with sketches, doodles, washes, 6-word stories, longer pieces, challenges, a soon-to-end contest, pictures, and, well, just an incredibly wonderful collection of wit, wisdom and wonder.

Award Nominations: I’m Finally Responding!

I received several award nods at the end of April from fellow bloggers I enjoy reading. Definitely wit and wisdom in all three of these blogs so check them out.  I’m learning all sorts of fun, worldwide slang from some very colorful folks!

May turned into a busy month so I’ve been a tad slow responding. The 3-day Memorial Day weekend (for those of us stateside) is the perfect time to do this: one award a day.  This post is to kick my butt and get my promise to deliver on the table. After I launch this, I start my response to The Liebster Award.

Here are the three awards I was nominated for.  Thank you, my fellow writers.  I get to frolic with your questions each day and tag other bloggers along the way. Here’s to a great weekend of mindful, playful, thoughtful engagement!

#1: LIEBSTER AWARD – 2^nd Nomination!

• Nominated 4/29/18 by: A Creative PTSD Gal

#2: MYSTERY BLOGGER AWARD

• Nominated 4/29/18 by: Confessions of an Irish Procrastinator

#3: SUNSHINE BLOGGER AWARD

• Nominated 4/30/18 by: One Day at A Time

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My First Award: The Liebster!

Reading blogs is, for me, a way to travel, because I discover new things. There’s that initial “lost feeling” experience when I first arrive. The longer I stay in a place, I’m able to get my bearings, start noticing details of the place, and meet some local folks. Then, when I head off to explore new lands, I carry these traveler-impressions with me.

Since joining the blogging community, I’ve heard tales told by people of all ages and from around the globe. I’ve experienced the wonderful cadences, vocabulary and slang of different places.  Rarely do I know the age of a blogger, certainly not at the outset; there’s something liberating about that. I gain different perspectives of the world and am reminded we don’t all see things the same way. I may know that intellectually, but this illustrates it.

And during all of this traveling, my suitcase remains in the closet and my own, snuggly bed awaits me. Pretty dang sweet.

Which is why the Liebster Award, with its tag line, “Discover New Blogs!,” feels like one traveler telling another traveler some cool places to go.

To have My Journey to Imperfection send other bloggers my way with a Liebster Award is a wonderfully, warm welcome; it’s as if Walk the Goats now has a little round dot on the blogosphere road map. Thank you Ang!

So…here we go. First:

50 Posts!

When I started this blog on March 2nd, I wasn’t sure what I’d write about. Or how often I’d write. I knew I wanted structure and I hoped setting up a blog would give me that. When I decided to do it, it was a pretty spontaneous idea.

I had done a blog a year ago–Pursuing Podcasts–for a class. My engagement faded when the class ended. But the class got me started and I learned rudimentary blogging skills. I had used the Lovecraft theme on the free WordPress platform for the class. Since I was familiar—although rusty—with it, I stuck with that rather than pick a new one. One less hurdle to slow me down.

Blogging as a Spiritual Workout

The world is awash in words. Words meant to inspire, encourage love, espouse hate. Words intended to inform or designed to deceive. Words unrestricted by paper shortages; digitally unlimited.

Bloggers number in the hundreds of millions. Social media allows us to reach out and touch others. How far our reach goes depends on whether or not what we have to say resonates for others and how good our marketing is.

I’ve joined that blogging world. Twice.

I started my first blog, Pursuing Podcasts, last year. It was about podcasts. About other peoples’ work and thoughts. It continues to exist, albeit lightly used.

My second blog, Walk the Goats, I started on March 1, 2018. This year. Fifteen days ago. Walk the Goats is about my thoughts, thoughts from my inner landscape.

I write about things Bubba and I talk about: relationship stuff; “divine” versus “relative” selves; internal “characters” who show up to deliver their lines and take their positions when they hear their cues. I write about things I think about and want to share, including observations on personal growth and life and aging and random other stuff.