This is a post of yet more tips for new bloggers.
I have mentioned not linking your blog to your Gravatar previously, but so many of you still don’t bother with that, I’m giving up.
On this occasion, I am talking about the (mostly) new bloggers who seem to think that style beats substance, where blogging is concerned.
It doesn’t, believe me.
Everyone knows by now that it is my habit to visit the site of new followers, and leave a message or comment on one of their posts.
(That cannot happen if you don’t have any posts, or an unlinked Gravatar image by the way.)
So here is what seems to be happening a lot lately.
The blog has some kind of Home page, or perhaps an ‘Introduction’ page. But neither allow comments. Then to actually find the blog, I have to look in the side menu or top line for the word ‘Blog’. Then when I click on that, I get a selection of small boxes or images with a ‘teaser’ for the posts they contain, but little or no idea what they might be about.
Sometimes as I am trying to figure this out, an image of some kind blots out the text, and superimposes itself on the whole page. That image may well be relevant in some way, and it certainly looks swish and professional to many people. But the truth is, it’s just really irritating. And it’s not always apparent how to get rid of it, to get back to what I was looking at before it turned up.
But by this stage, I am already thinking about clicking the ‘X’ at the top of the screen, and not bothering.
Then there are the bloggers who require a comment to be filled out in a separate ‘Contact Me’ section. Scrolling down, filling in my name, email address, website details, etc. But if I do this, the comment is not on the blog post I just tried to read anyway, so why should I bother? Sometimes, this is caused by the choice of theme. Best to change your theme, if that’s the case.
Take this top tip, free of charge. If you want followers, if you want blogging interaction and comments, if you want to be part of a blogging community, do these three things.
*Allow real comments on posts, including ‘About’ pages, not just ‘Contact Me’ boxes.
*Make each post clear and separate, so we know what we are looking at.
*Cut out the fancy moving images, and the bizarre colour schemes.
Otherwise you are going to be a very lonely blogger.
Great post and great blog!
Question: I personally keep comments off on the About page so as to differentiate it from a post – would you not consider this advisable?
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People like to comment on an About page. Take mine for example, it has had 274 comments. Sometimes, a reader doesn’t have a specific response to a blog post, so they might make a general comment on the About page instead. They also use it to leave pingbacks and trackbacks to my blog. So my advice is to allow comments on your About page. It doesn’t do any harm. π
Best wishes, Pete.
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OK then, I shall take your advice! Thanks!
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Iβm new to the blogging scene so this was very helpful – would love to know if you have any thoughts on my blog format/content!
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Thanks for letting me know it was helpful, and for following my blog.
I will check your site out now.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Okay, so your link to onedayatatime687750067.wordpress.com is coming back as ‘No longer available’. I cannot see your blog, so obviously cannot comment. Sorry.
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I think I just fixed that issue, but in case itβs still doing that, my blog address is http://www.musingsbymubashshira.com Sorry for the trouble!
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No problem. I just left a comment on that site for you. π
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Thanks for the tips. I just added my Gravatar, thanks to your post. If you get a chance to check out my site I’d be delighted. I’m new to this and trying to get a good start.
https://www.diaryofawearymom.com
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Your site is bright and professional, and doesn’t look to me as if you are new to blogging at all. You have various menus, a video production section, and a few advertisements bouncing around already. I think you have got it nailed.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thank you so much. Much needed words of encouragement.
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That refers to your main blog of course, not the Painting/business website. π
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thank you. I didn’t realize it was under that username. I’m glad you mentioned it.
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Hi, thank you for these tips!!! it really helps especially to a newbie like me!!!
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Always my pleasure to help other bloggers when I can. Thanks for letting me know the tips were useful, Francheska.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Different apps or whatever they are referring to a newsletter and moving while I’m trying to read a blog really gets my goat. I usually just stop reading at that point.
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Me too! Thanks, Pamela.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Love this
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Thank you for the tips! I spruced up my Gravatar, allowed comments on most of my pages, and started writing more descriptive excerpts for my posts. I only have the most recent three so far, but I’ll get them all updated soon. Thanks again!
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Thanks for letting me know, Tiffany. I am happy if this helped you.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thanks for that. From w very new and eager to engage blogger
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Thank you for your comment. You should be aware that your site comes up as “URL infected with phishing”. You may want to look into that.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Good lawd! I stumbled upon your blog through WordPress’s Discovery mechanism and was stunned to see the amount of comments and interaction with it. It’s great to know personal blogs can still flourish in this day and age what with social media ‘n all.
As an old school (and infrequent) blogger, it’s inspiring to see you do so well with your blog and even more inspiring to see you encouraging others to take on the blogging mantle.
Thank you for all you do.
Ray
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Thank you, Ray. I take my blogging very seriously, and as I am retired, I have time to dedicate to it. I love being part of a large blogging community, and have always tried my best to help any blogger, as well as encouraging new ones.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Pete,
Am curious, how are folks finding you (and so many of ’em)?
Thanks for sharing,
Ray
P.S. Odd, I noticed my gravatar didn’t show in the original reply. I logged out and back in to see if it “takes” this time around…
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Hard to say how they are ‘finding me’, Ray. The short answer is I don’t know for sure. I have a ‘core’ of around 150 bloggers/followers, many of whom have been around from the start, as we all began blogging in 2012. Most of my new followers in the early days came from their followers, until a ‘community’ was created.
Around 5,000 of my listed ‘followers’ don’t seem to follow at all, or I would have a couple of thousand likes and comments every day. many are selling stuff, others trying to get me to follow back.
As for engagement on the blog posts, I think that is self-evident. I reply to every comment, every time. I also follow 100+ bloggers, and ALWAYS read and comment on their posts every day. I also thank people for following my blog.
By the way, thank you for following, Ray!
Other bloggers ‘chat’ to each other in my comments streams, and I encouage that. Then they sometimes follow each other, building the community. I write posts about blogging tips, and ‘dos and donts’ of blogging. They attract a lot of readers searching for such things.
I have Guest Posts, where I feature other bloggers, then very often their followers read my stuff, and might follow me.
That about covers it. As for all the others, I suppose that’s ‘chance’. π
Best wishes, Pete.
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Pete,
That makes a lot of sense and I like that. You do have a built in community you’ve fostered, akin to message boards and all that except yours is quite organic where bloggers and commenters jump from blog to blog.
There also seems to be a benefit to being in the WordPress.com ecosphere, which is how I found you. Their built in Reader makes it handy to ruffle through blogs, like, and comment on ’em in one interface.
Thanks taking the time to expound and glad to follow.
Ray
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I love reading your advice! Thanks for helping! I truly appreciate it!
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And I appreciate your very kind comment. π
Best wishes, Pete.
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I enjoy many of your thoughts. I much miss the days when the internet was all text. Video has taken over recently and all I do is scroll on past.
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Thanks very much for your comment, Erica. And for enjoying my thoughts. π
Best wishes, Pete.
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I don’t want to be a “lonely blogger”… Thanks for the advice!
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I hope it helps, and I am sure you won’t be lonely for long. π
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thank you for another good advices, Pete! I am working on a re-opening of my blog. In the meantime i am dealing with sending informations to Pinterest too. Michael
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Thanks, Michael. Some bloggers need these tips.
Best wishes, Pete.
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For sure, Pete! Thank you for sharing. Michael
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Nice tips. And thanks on the reminder. Had to check up.
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Happy to hear you found it useful.
Best wishes, Pete.
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This post was much needed for someone new like me and others, thanks β€οΈ
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Thanks for letting me know it was of help to you, Charmi.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Good tips. I think the new themes and some new options with older themes can be blamed for some of the issues. When I pick a new theme I test it out first before I activate it on the site. I want to make sure the navigation is easy.
I have comments turned off pages simply because I would rather they be on the posts themselves. Also I found most comments on pages were along the lines of, “Cool blog. follow mine?” Or full of links.
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Comments on posts is definitely preferable. Those pointless comments can be filtered out by using ‘awaiting moderation’, in most cases. I agree that many themes cause the problems I wrote about, and as you have explained, it is preferable to experiment with themes before activating them.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Please tell if mine is okay… I know I need to work a lot more but still a little advice would be helpful. Thank you
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Well your blog is very clear to read, and easy to navigate. Your gravatar links to your site directly, and you have a normal comments box after each post. There are no annoying colour schemes, or irritating graphics. Seems to me you are doing fine, Vivi. π
Best wishes, Pete.
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Okay I’ll change the gravatar thing… Thank you so much, Peteπ
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No need, your gravatar works fine, perhaps I didn’t make that clear. π
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Oh, okay. Thank you π
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These are some really good tips, Pete. I personally don’t like overwhelming themes too. I already had a comment section under each of my posts, but now I have also added it in my About page as well.
Actually, I am curious about how you find other blogs. I struggle to find good blogs πͺ. Can you please give some tips?
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Finding good blogs. That means something different to all of us of course, as it very much depends what you want to read about, or look at. I started following some people who followed me at the start, manily because they engaged in the comments, and always read my posts. I still only follow 100 other blogs, as any more than that would be hard to keep up with.
I can give you some recommendations to look at, and you can decide whether or not to follow them.
https://cadburypom.wordpress.com/
https://nicholasrossis.wordpress.com/
https://fishinthetrees.home.blog/
https://cheryloreglia.blog/
https://saania2806.wordpress.com/
https://fromcavewalls.wordpress.com/
https://johnrieber.com/
https://fragglerocking.org/
https://traveltalk.me.uk/
See if you like any of those.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thanks Pete! I will have a look at them ππ
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Thank so much for the advice. Great post!
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And thank you for your comment, Rosalie. π
I am very happy if this helped you in some way.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Reblogged this on Sarada Gray and commented:
No takers for today’s guest post so I’m reblogging this helpful advice from Beetley Pete
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Thank you, Sarada.
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thank you so much for these tips! i didnβt know that enabling likes and comments in pages was preferable but i will make sure to this now !
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If you don’t enable likes and comments, you will never know who is reading your blog, and you will not be able to be part of a community. Glad to hear this post helped you.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thanks much for the advice. As a new blogger I am trying to learn all the best practices. Donβt know anything about Gravatar and so will certainly look for info on that. Thanks so much again!
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I appreciate you letting me know.
Try this post, for gravatar linking.
(To see what it does, click on my dog photo next to my name, and look at my ‘Full Profile’. You will see both my blogs linked on the page.)
And this might help generally, if you are new.
My email address is on my About Page, if you ever want to ask me anything else.
Best wishes, Pete.
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This is awesome! I am so happy I found you. Thanks much again βΊοΈ
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I am always very happy to help any fellow blogger.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I think I did it and it works! This is so great. And you are totally correct it is so much better when I can see the card and go straight to the blog. Never knew this was important. π₯³
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I just checked, and it works fine. π
So glad to have been of some help.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I need help trying to deactivate the need to register part of commenting, can’t seem to do that
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It might be your theme. I suggest using the ‘Help&Support’ function at the very bottom of your admin page. Type in your question, ignore the suggested answers, and send it off to WP. I don’t know enough about different themes to help, sorry.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thank you
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My thoughts exactly if its to difficult unless I think I may like the blog I just don’t bother anymore π x
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Life’s too short to have to try to work out how other blogs work. π
Best ishes, Pete. x
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Absolutely , Pete I’m getting crabby about that in my old age π x
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The gravatar link thing is so frustrating.
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A constant irritation, Lloyd.
Best wishes, Pete.
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These are some useful tips Pete. I neither want those moving objects in a blog maybe unless it is a song or a movie trailer.
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Thanks, Arlene. Songs and trailers are fine, because we know what they are, and can choose whether or not to click on them.
Best wishes, Pete.
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That’s true π
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Yup – all of that AND MORE! for me! “where’s your about page? if you are wordpress.com, but here, why can’t I like/leave a wordpress comment in reader? Why does your new ‘premium page’ not allow me to ‘follow’ it? In wider web? “Why do I have to spend my time trying to contact you? Where is your privacy policy? Why isn’t your site secured by https? For goodness sakes, https is FREE now! ” etc, etc., etc – – unknown ‘friction of user’ perhaps but for me? at some point (the time I spend becomes less and less…). I just figure that’s their way of weeding me out early as ‘not their target audience’ – and leave it at that – – LOL
Just until someone I love, who is DIYing, says, “Why?” then? I can truthfully say, I”m on month 3 of wondering why they have done the ‘do this’ instructions and their premium site here still doesn’t let me ‘follow’ them with one click – sigh –
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You sound as frustrated by all this as I am, TamrahJo.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I think some themes make it harder to navigate a blog. Those “clean, simple” ones are the worst. I always look for the latest post. If it’s interesting, I’ll read a few more. And the About page, if I can find one. I like it when the most recent posts are in a sidebar (like on your blog, and mine).
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Thanks for adding your opinion, Audrey.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I find those contact forms annoying that ask if you want to see follow-up comments, and then you get a new email every time someone leaves a comment, whether it is in response to your comment or not. My inbox is crowded enough without a new email each time someone comments.
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My feeling is that contact forms should be scrapped, Pete.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thanks for this post. I just made my blog a couple of days ago and I had no idea people needed to enter their emails and info in to leave a comment. Working on changing that now. Great post!
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Thank you for letting me know. If this helped you, then I am very pleased.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Extremely helpful, literally just set up my blog and I’m still trying to get the hang of it
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I am glad that you think so, and thanks for following my blog.
Best wishes, Pete.
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It’s very nice of you to try and help new bloggers with periodic tips. Appreciate.
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Thank you, Shammi. So many bloggers wonder why they get little interaction on their blogs. This post is just highlighting yet more reasons why that might be.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Two things: first, totally agree that filling out a long form in order to leave a comment is a big “non-starter” for me Pete…oh, and I woke up this morning to a new editing style that won’t allow me to do the “classic edit” easily at all…so it appears that WordPress wanted to get on my bad side – very bad side…
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Are you trying to edit an existing post?
I find that if I click ‘Edit’ it takes me to the Block Editor format.
So I go into ‘All Posts’ on the Admin page, find the post from there and edit in in Admin under ‘Classic’.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I had “classic editor” format until this morning. Now it’s gone and I’m seeing it only in the new format with no way to adjust….I will try to fix it but this is very very frustrating and not pleasant
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Actually I recently found that in the mobile app, there is an option to enable/disable block editor. It’s in the Site settings in Configure. I hope it could be of some help.
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I don’t use that mobile app, as I am on a PC. But I am sure your tip will be very useful for some other bloggers. Thank you.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thank you…I tried that and it completely upended my site, so I figured I would just learn to adapt and move on…thanks again for commenting and trying to help me with it! I appreciate it!
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The Lonely Blogger Support Group meets almost every week on the same day (subject to change) at the same time (undetermined), and will use various methods (unspecified) to assist bloggers (who show up) in their efforts (dubious) to target a specific reading audience (undefined) that will react (in vague manner) to what they have to offer (if anything).
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I think you should start that group up, David. π
Best wishes, Pete.
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Excellent advice simple, short, and very accurate…..chuq
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Thanks, chuq.
Let’s hope some of them take it. π
Best wishes, Pete.
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Fingers crossed…..but some are so self-centered they think the world owes them something regardless content…..chuq
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I tried to comment on a blog yesterday. I stopped counting after ten or more different font styles and colors on one post. I think most serious bloggers are readers and/or writers, so what a person has to say is much more important than the decorations. Anything that tires the eyes become frustrating very quickly.
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That’s exactly the sort of thing I was writing about, Maggie. They might think it looks ‘snappy’, but nobody is going to want to read it.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Exactly.
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I’ve seen an increase of ‘followers’ of late. It massages the ego, but when you check them out most are promoting stuff, rather than serious bloggers.
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Many bloggers use blogging to sell. That has increased more since the lockdowns of course, but I have got used to it over the years. Despite my site currently showing a total of 7,656 followers, I think 750 is the more accurate reality.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I visited one the other day which I would have liked to have followed, but couldn’t find any means of doing so. No comments box either.
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If a blog has no comments box on any posts, I will not follow it. The whole point of blogging for me is interaction.
Best wishes, Pete. x
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Interesting comments. I am constantly learning and trying to improve my blog.
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Thanks for reading, and for following this blog too.
Best wishes, Pete.
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No worries! And thank you! Some good things Iβve learned from yourself
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If I can ever be of direct help, my email address is on the ‘About’ page. π
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Awesome thanks!
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Reblogged this on theshammuramat and commented:
Nicely done as always Pete.
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Thanks very much, Felicity, I left a comment.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Iβve never understood why people blog but donβt allow comments.
That said, I had problems with finding my own About page in my new blog and would rather my old posts etc were on the side not the bottom (Like my old cricket blog but that templateβs defunct) so Iβll certainly revisit my About page.
Many thanks
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It might be worth trying new themes, Paul. You can use the ‘Preview Blog’ function on all the free options. I used to see what my blog looked like on various themes, before settling on this very ‘plain’ one.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I only ever check out new followers if they leave a comment on one of my posts, and always return the complement. This seems an ongoing situation for you as you’ve written about it a few times now, I don’t think they’re listening!
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Yes, I might have to finally abandon this issue, FR.
Something makes me keep trying though! π
Best wishes, Pete.
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Ah give it up and do something nice instead π
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I only check out those who leave a comment too. Seems only polite.
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I have always looked at the blogs of new followers to offer some encouragement. But many are not making that easy any longer.
Best wishes, Pete. x
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That just sounds frustrating. Can you confirm I haven’t got any of that on my site?
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You do have the dreaded ‘Black Background’, Debs. π
However, you make up for that by having clear white text, and an easy to follow layout.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Awesome thanks βΊοΈ
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Keep it easy for your readers
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Thanks, Beth. ‘Less is more’, when it comes to blogging. π
Best wishes, Pete.
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As well as most everything
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Wise advice. If I’m commenting on a blog and I see glittery or fancy moving images, I put a piece of card over them that I keep next to the screen, lol.
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Thanks, Stevie. I normally give up soon after.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Quite agree Pete. Life’s too short. Like you I visit the sites of my followers but if I can’t easily see posts or a comment box I don’t bother.
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Thanks for confirming that, Sarada. I thought it might just be me beig ‘picky’.
Best wishes, Pete.
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No. In fact you seem to make more effort than I do to connect with followers
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