Showing posts with label Email. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Email. Show all posts

Sunday, 21 July 2013

7 Things That Should be on Every Home Page




Before getting to the list, I must say that this is just my view.  And as you all know I am only in my second year of blogging and am still very much learning.
So here is my list:
1.   A contact page where your email address can be easily located – or put it directly into your sidebar.  Lots of people prefer to comment via email (avoids all the ghastly captcha stuff for one thing).  I have posted about this here. 
2.   A search box – people will often want to search for topics/recipes etc that interest them.  Make sure the search box is towards the top of your page.  Go to this post for more on this.
3.   A list of popular posts (including thumbnails) – I use the most popular for the month rather than all time.  Here is a post I did on this.  
4.   Big clear follow me options.  My current fave is Bloglovin but I also have a GFC widget and email etc.
5.   Short blog list of blogs you like – don't let it default to being a list of every blog you follow – that will slow the loading of your page and clutter your home page up.  I select a small number of book and food blogs to feature each week.  (There is no quid pro quo for this – I just like to share blogs I enjoy with my readers) Go here to see more about this.
6.   Restrict the number of posts that will show up on your home page to 6 or less.  Again your blog will load more quickly.
7.  If you are in to Pinterest (and most of us are), put a link to some of your important boards into your sidebar.
Other people will add that you have to have a good detailed About Me page – I don't happen to agree – but it is entirely a matter of personal taste.  I want the substance of the blog to speak for itself and for my readers to get to know the way I think that way.


Finally, although this is not about your home page – I can't help myself.  Please kill the captcha/word verification/prove you are not a robot stuff.  Nothing will put your readers off from commenting more.  If you are on Blogger and want to know how to kill it, go to this post   

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Sunday, 5 May 2013

Your Email Address and Your Blog



If you are going to connect an email address to your blog, I have some advice for you (for what that is worth):

1. Create a special email address for your blog/s – at the very least don't use your work email on your blog

2. Make the email address easy to locate and to use

· Put it onto your contact page and/or sidebar prominently

· Put it as it is – not with typed "and" and "dot" in it. I notice a lot of people use that approach but it just makes for extra work for people trying to contact you.

· Put it into your Blogger/Wordpress profile and maybe in your Google profile as well.

3. Don't hide your email address in the fine print (like disclosure policies and the like). If its there somewhere people will find it but will be put to extra trouble.*

4. Turn off the default no reply comment setting on your Blogger blog – see here for how to do this and why it's important.


All this is particularly important if you are wanting to be contacted by sponsors and/or advertisers etc.

* I think the reason people do this is to cut down spam. I have noticed spam to my gmail account has increased since I put it onto the blog but it goes straight to the spam folder and so isn't really an issue for me.



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Thursday, 7 February 2013

Some very good advice from Diana of Diana Rambles


The wonderful Diana, from Diana Rambles has done a great post about sending email invites out for linky parties.  Please do pop over and have a squiz - this is the link
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Thursday, 6 December 2012

Email and Your Blog


I suggest that you do make sure that you have an email address that is linked to your blog.  It should be shown on your About Me page and on your Contact page (if you have one).  It would also be a good idea to make sure it shows up in your Blogger and/or Google + profiles.  For many people, it is probably best to have a special email address for your blog rather than using your personal or work emails.

I have been receiving a few email reminders about linky parties lately - which is fine - but it does worry me that many people are doing them in such a way that all recipients can see all the email addresses.  It would be   much better for those reminders to be sent via bcc (ie blind copy) so that the only email address the recipient sees is their own.  To do this you can either address the email to yourself or there is an undisclosed recipients address you can use (but I haven't done it so can't tell you how to do it) and then put all the other recipients into the bcc section.
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Tuesday, 4 December 2012

Your email followers on Blogger


Well, I have actually managed to find out how to see how many people are following using Blogger's follow by email widget.  And it confirmed my suspicions that nowhere near as many follow by email as by GFC and Google Reader - or at least that is the case for Carole's Chatter.

To find out how many email followers you have, go to your Dashboard and then to Layout.  Find your follow by email gadget and click Edit.  Don't get nervous you won't be mucking anything up!

The window that comes up will give you an option to View stats and learn more - click that and you will see the summary stats for your Blog.

Then you can just close that window and cancel the edit page and things will be just as they were before.

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