May 4, 2015 / Community Pool

Community Pool

The place for advice, feedback, and friendly blogging conversation.

Photo by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/redjar/8402178817">redjar</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">(CC BY-SA 2.0)</a>

Have you just published a new post and are dying for some feedback? Did you recently start your blog and could use some layout or design advice from your more seasoned peers?

Tap into the wisdom of The Daily Post blogging community and leave your question here in the comments. Others can then click through and offer input either on your site, or in the comments here (feel free to indicate which you’d prefer).

To help us make the Community Pool a productive space for discussion, here are some tips you might find useful:

TIP: To keep from losing your place in the comment thread while you visit others’ blogs, right-click on a link to open it in a new tab or window.

  • While you’re not required to, we encourage everyone who requests feedback to also reply to at least one or two other bloggers who need some help. Spread the love!
  • The Community Pool comments section can get quite big — and starting duplicate threads doesn’t help. Thanks for not posting the same question more than once! We tend to delete duplicate comments asking for feedback on the same post.
  • If you’re looking for quality feedback, be as specific as you can. Questions about a particular post tend to draw more comments than ones about entire blogs. Questions about specific design elements are more likely to be answered than ones asking for general layout advice.
  • We discourage leaving links without a more substantive message or question. These are often overlooked by other bloggers, and we frequently remove them to make the comment reading experience smoother.
  • Please keep all comments civil and constructive. The idea is to have fun — it’s a pool, after all!
  • When leaving comments, please remember not to add your blog’s url as your signature. It’s kinda spammy: after all, your handle links directly to your blog.
  • If you haven’t looked at our Commenting Guidelines in a while, now might be a good time.
  • No running on the deck.
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  2. Greetings all,

    this blog is a new chapter in my life story: http://journeywithparkinsons.com/

    I would really enjoy feedback about the ‘balance’ between personal reflection with education/science:

    Imagine Yourself Then, Imagine Yourself Now With Parkinson’s

    compared to

    Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in Parkinson’s

    Is there a place in blogging for research, medical technological advances? Or should I just focus on support and staying hopeful?

    Thanks for your comments and feedback, it is much appreciated!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Hi Frank,

      I really enjoyed reading both sides of your blog. The educational/science posts provide great information while the personal posts remind readers that we don’t treat diseases but instead people who have very real thoughts and emotions.

      So to answer your question: I believe there is a place in blogging for the science side – especially from someone who is trained in that area and can provide credible information from a unique perspective.

      I’ve added your blog to my reader and look forward to reading more posts.

      All the best to you on your journey.

      Liked by 2 people

  4. Hey guys! I hope you are all well? I am currently in the middle of my first psychological thriller novel. It is coming on leaps and bounds! If you are interested, please do follow me and check out my blog. I would really appreciate the support. Thanks, Mark. http://www.markdraycott.com

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I liked your post on pantsers and plotters. I do a bit of both. Would love to read a snippet from your book if you are offering that. Best wishes. lily

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Thanks Lily! I appreciate you taking a look. Unfortunately I am not releasing any of the book just yet but please do follow my blog and I’ll keep you up to date. Thanks again. Mark

        Like

  6. Dear all,

    I have recently started a new blog on the technical side of making fashion and I would like to learn to shorten my texts. If you could have a look and give some tips that would be wonderful.

    And of course, if you have other comments those are welcome too.

    FYI: the blog is developed as an inbetween to a website but I’m actually liking it here very much.

    https://zwijnenbergtrainingandconsultancy.wordpress.com/

    Looking forward to your reply.

    Thanks in advance and best regards, Martine

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Happy Monday all 🙂
    Has anyone had any success with attracting Stumbleupon traffic? If so how did you do it? Have heard this is a good way of increasing traffic but not sure how I go about doing it.
    Thx 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Writers, do you find my blog useful and fun? What do my posts need to attract more comments and discussion? I always try to leave an interesting question at the end of each post, but they don’t seem to get much reply. I’d like to know how to get ore response. Thanks! cskinnaird.wordpress.com

    Liked by 2 people

    1. I enjoyed your blog, I am about to do the school run so only got through a couple. I love how you put your own experiences into the article about the writing exercises. I can relate to everything you say. You asked for a suggestion, I would like to look a bit further but perhaps some shorter posts or varying lengths? (sorry if you have these further down, I’ll look tonight) Now following. Good luck

      Liked by 1 person

  14. Hi there! im new at this wordpress thing. i am doing a school-project so my teacher ask me to do a wordpress blog. If you would like to help me, look at my blog and hit the “LIKE” buttom and write a commen if you think i can do it better. Share my site so my teacher give me better grades 😀 thanks ! https://sarocchiii.wordpress.com/

    Liked by 1 person

    2. I like that you incorporate scripture into your posts and that you have clear goals with your Bold devotional. Love the big pics and interesting angles. Draws you in! I too am a Christian blogger. Stop by sometime to read more about battling worry as a Christian.

      Liked by 2 people

    3. Morgan, your blog is beautiful. I love the pictures. I chose to click on the picture that moved me and it happened to be “What are you hiding?” I commented. Thank you for sharing.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Thank you Marie, I spent some time on your blog as well. I love how eloquently you write, that one section,

        “It’s God in the place.

        It’s the people in the place.

        It’s God in the people in the place.”

        Beautiful.

        Definitely following you from now on. 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

    4. You website is really pretty, first of all. I like all the big photos.
      If you wanna check out my blog it’s http://www.thehonestroot.com

      I am a christian blogger as well, even though I don’t always make that explicitly obvious in all my posts.
      Anyway, it would be nice to connect with more like minded bloggers.

      Liked by 1 person

  17. Hi, I have only recently started my blog and would love some feedback. It is a photography blog as I am not really a writer. My posts are generally short but should I try and write more or would that just bore everyone.
    Thanks in advance for your help.

    Liked by 2 people

      1. Hi Christina, thank you for your kind words and looking at my blog. I also checked out your blog and your Flickr page and you also have great shots.

        Like

    2. Hey! Your photos are really pretty, first of all! I think you have some real talent! I don’t think you really need more text unless you’ve got a story to go along with your photo, or unless you add more photos to a particular post. So I think your text:photo ratio is on point right now.
      I’m just going to point out a couple things that I notice on your page.
      – your photos are all mainly soft and pretty, or at least don’t give the feeling of being “hard.” So I would choose a blog theme that goes along with that feel a bit more. Maybe somehting with lighter colors or less hard lines? That’s just my personal preference.
      – since this is a photography blog, I would also choose a theme that’s more suited to showcasing your work, because you have some striking photos to show off. Some templates, free or not, are specifically put together to be good at showing off pictures. They often have white backgrounds, I htink because it makes the pics appear brighter. idk.
      – my one last thought: put the photo first in the post, and make it BIG. You want to show off your photos, so make them the main event on every page. put them before text, enlarge them, give them a bright background to help highlight all the different light plays within the picture.

      You’re off to a great start, and trust me, blogging takes a lot of trial and error before you’ll get it just right! keep up the good work!

      p.s. would you mind reviewing my page and tell me what your impressions are? thanks! http://www.thehonestroot.com
      -april

      Like

      1. Hi April,
        Thank you so much for your fantastic feedback I really appreciate the time you took to reply. The theme I have chosen did actually come from a “photography” group of themes. Some of my future photos to go on the blog will be a bit harder so to say, some street black and white photography etc. I will look at some other themes and see how they look.

        I enjoyed reading your blog and think your’s is more unique than most others (including mine). You will be happy to know that here in Australia we have a group of shops called “Fair trade” where the products sold are ethically sourced and the original producers are paid fairly for their items.

        Thanks again for your feedback and I hope you will visit my site again in the future.

        Kind regards
        Mark (mondetrekker)

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Mark,
        Thank you for reading my blog as well! I have actually been to Australia for 7 months last year and used to buy gifts for people at the Oxfam shops all the time! 😀

        Liked by 1 person

    3. I think the site looks pretty good, I like that there is some txt there to explain the photograph, I think a few more words would be good but even as is the explanation is enough. I think I would like to see the initial photograph larger though, as a photographic, visual person I’d want those picture to leap off the page but not too large, and still with the text.

      For example the image on is it time for a mai tai, the small version has no impact (for me), but when I click on that link then wow, even though it is sparse in terms of the sea, sky, sun and two boats the colours and the ripples all make it seem lovely and really stands out as a good photograph.

      I would say look to have the image size the same as the pic under nice end to the day, if multiple larger images do not look good on that theme then change the theme 🙂

      I think the images would look better centred too.

      But yeah some pretty good pictures there.

      Like

      1. Hi, Thanks for taking the time to give me some feedback. I am very new to this blogging stuff so every little bit of advice helps. I was interested to read your post on the forum about people only using it to self promote. I can assure you my request for feedback was genuine. I really don’t have too many expectations that hundreds of people would follow me. I really started it it for a way to inspire myself to take more photos and try and improve. If people like my work along the way then all the better.

        Thanks again.

        Like

      2. I think there is a lot of self promotion on the spotlight, but yes sprinkled amongst that are the people like yourself that are actually looking for real feedback. You can kind of tell just by what they write in spotlight post.

        Like

  18. PLEASEvisit my site and tell me what kind of genre you like and I will try to post a story in that genre!!! Also COMMENT!!

    Liked by 2 people

  27. Hello, I made my first post on WordPress last night. While i’m not much of a writer, I’ve always enjoyed writing and found it very therapeutic. I would be interested in anyone’s feedback and it would be very much appreciated.
    Thank you!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Interesting writing style, it’s very poetic. I did struggle to read it though, with black text on a gray background. I would suggest looking into a more contrasting text color to make it easier to read.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Thank you very much for your response! I will work out how to change the visual. I hope by “interesting” you didn’t mean “awful” Haha. Actually, when i wrote that (at 3:00am) i never imagined anyone would actually read it! So thank you very much for your feedback! 🙂

        Like

    1. Congrats on your first post. It’s a great story. Just as suggestion: Can you make the photos larger and use them throughout to break up the large chunks of text? Well done, I can imagine you will find lots of people wanting to join you on your journey. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Wow, what a journey! Congratulations on getting fit, and fighting thru all that stuff as a child! I can only imagine what that must have been like.
      I think I agreethat with so much text, enlarged photos, distributed thru the post, would work well to break it up and make it easy to read…. because unfortunately people on the internet have pretty short attention spans.
      I would put the first photo at the top, the second photo after 3 paragraphs, the third photo after 3 more paragraphs, etc. or something liek that. That’s just me but you can come up with your own design I’m sure 😉
      p.s. would you mind reviewing my blog too? thanks!
      April

      Liked by 1 person

      4. Thank you so so much!! That encouragement means a lot to me.
        And to answer the hosting question, it is currently in the process of “migrating” from WP to Hostgator… because eventually I wanna open an online shop too. But what you see right now is all WP, yes.
        Also thanks for saying I could make a paper bag look good. I’m currently working on a post about how and where to thrift shop, cuz honestly you can score some wicked stuff there.

        Like

      5. I was just going to ask how to follow someone and it just popped up

        The blog you read was actually one i wrote about two years ago but i thought it was gone when i started using word press again. I had let my domain name expire i think

        The one i wrote recently was called the judge
        I’m not even sure i published it correctly
        I think one is a page and the other is a blog
        I’m actually a techy kind of guy but for the life of me i can’t figure out wordpress
        I think tomorrow i will read the tutorial

        Like

      6. Yeah it’s best to do the tutorial. I was getting so stressed and overwhelmed by WP at first… it’s best to just take it slow. Where is your other blog?

        Liked by 1 person

      13. Thnaks April…I figured out how to add instagram and other sites as well. I think im now done with the page layout. Time to write my next blog

        Its going to be about IIFYM
        If it fits your macros 🙂 Exciting stuff lol

        Like

    1. Hey Sherina, I thought your post was on point. Your writing style is easy to follow, and your convey your thoughts well. I started out disagreeing with you, but by the end of your post you had convinced me to see things your way, without feeling attacked. Well done. I also liked the layout of your blog. It’s clean and easy to look at .

      P.s. could you also review my blog? Thanks! http://www.thehonestroot.com
      -April

      Like

      1. Hi April, Thank you so much! I’m glad you liked it 🙂 I love the idea of your blog, and I can’t wait to read more from you! Your theme is perfect for your style of writing as well. Followed!

        Liked by 1 person