Jun 29, 2015 / Community Pool

Community Pool

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

Photo by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/63057306@N04/5734415538">Beachfront Solutions</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!
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  1. Hello Community Pool, aka guys.
    ah i’m an amateur writer and photographer, i think they are one and the same because they do the same thing, tell stories. So i merge the two together, poetry, free style, articles sort of. Would really appreciate some feedback so i can be better, so please look at my blog and tell me what you think, honestly. Thank you 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Hi Trudy,

      First off, I’m curious why you call it a lifestyle blog. I’d definitely think of it as a photo blog, as your photos of the city seem to feature most prominently. Just might confuse people that are looking for something else. Something to think about.

      Also your header is gorgeous and captures the city, but the white text of your blog title and tagline against it is nearly impossible to read. You might try playing around with some different colors for the text if that’s an option your theme offers.

      Other than that, I think it’s a great little slice of life in the city. I used to live in NYC, and it made me miss it greatly! Keep it up!

      P.S. I’d love it if you’d return the favor and give me any constructive criticism on mine. My comment thread is waaay down on pg 3. http://aurelmedia.wordpress.com Thanks.

      Like

      1. I’m taking a photo 101 course that’s why there are photos predominately in the last month. And you have to post your assignments. And as far as the title color, I can’t change it with the theme I have. And I’m not looking to change the header, just the pictures which are changed randomly each time you visit.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. Lifestyle blog part would entail seeing all the things I do in my life including where I go, what I eat, shopping and etc and the only way to convey most of that besides description is through pictures . For example I can only tell you so much about an art installation without showing you the art I saw , or the food I ate , or the park I went to..most people take in those things visually .

        Liked by 2 people

      3. That’s cool. I didn’t even realize the pictures in the header changed, that’s a cool feature, and unfortunately sometimes we have to put up with a lack of other features to get some that we want.

        And yeah, I’m not saying it’s NOT a lifestyle blog by any means, I just think it’s definitely a photo blog too! And you might gain followers that are looking for photo blogs of NYC if you describe it that way. 🙂

        Like

    1. Hey! I’ve just had a look at your blog, and I really like it (not just because we use the same theme, haha!). In terms of struggling with traffic to your blog, it’s hard when you don’t post often; there was one week in which I posted everyday, and I got great views and interactions that week because I was posting so frequently. I’d suggest trying to promote your posts (eg. on social media) so that even when you’re not blogging, you’re still trying to get traffic to your posts. Hope this helps! 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

  5. I have been observing the chaos that prevails all around the world due to religion, and decided to go for a blog ! I meant no offence anywhere in the excerpt ! Taking offence, in any case would defy the law of conservation of offence !
    Holier than thou….

    Holier Than Thou

    .
    Anticipating feedbacks
    Thank you

    Liked by 2 people

  7. Hi! I have just started a new travel blog ‘Real Life Snapshots’. It’s my first time blogging as part of a blogging community-any tips and advice are welcome! Would really appreciate it if anyone could give my blog a read and to lend me your thoughts! Thank you so much x

    Liked by 3 people

  8. Hello! I would like to have some quality feedback from all of you. Please be honest with your feedback and in return I’ll check out your blog and give you some feedback as well 🙂

    Like

    1. Love it, love it. You are quite the poet. Love the clean theme, and the dark emotive header image, and your deep ponderance of life themes sometimes in the mundane. New follower. Do you write poetry only or other types of writing as well? Are you published?

      I’d love any criticism on my lit blog. My comment thread is waaay down on pg 3. Thanks!

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Hey! Thank you so much for that comment! It means a lot to me! Feels so nice to be appreciated this way. No, I’m not published. I’m an engineering student and writing is only a hobby for me. I have written essays on the blog as well which includes essays on movies, art and society. I will now head over to your blog.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. I really like your poetic voice, it’s very consistent and hard-hitting, which is something I work very hard on attempting to cultivate, though I don’t always succeed! Really great site, keep up the good work 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      2. Okay I’m really sorry about that there seems to be some problem with the app *sigh*
        I did check it out on my browser though. And hey! Good stuff! I especially loved that little poem called ‘A trust Reborn’. I like poetry and you seem to be really good at it. I would love to have some feedback from you as well. I dabble in poetry myself. 🙂

        Like

  10. Hello! I wouldn’t mind some feedback. I know I need to add pictures. I have two blogs, C3Crochet Designs and Honey & Hooks. I’ve stalled a bit on C3, since I need pictures of finished pieces (or even in progress) to post there. H&H is more fun. If you do take a glance at them, thank you! and please post any insights or tips here!

    Liked by 3 people

    1. I couldn’t get to you’re h+h blog but loved you’re c3 blog. Lovely writing skills and pictures. Especially loved the crowns! When I am on my computer I will head over again and hopefully find you’re other blog too! Keep up the good work

      Like

  11. Hello everyone!
    So, today I decided I would have a clear up of my Blog, I got rid of some posts and some of my side bar things, cleaned up its appearance a bit. At least that’s what I hope anyway.
    Just looking for some feedback really, just overall, I realise my topics won’t appeal to everyone but would really like to see what people think of how it looks. All feedback welcome, thanks guys 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Hey! The layout is great! Very suitable for the kind of stuff you post about! It enhances the positivity and generally happy kinda mood your blog has. Also, nice pictures. I would appreciate some quality feedback as well 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      2. Your blog is good. You’re poetry seems dark, but you capture it well. The words you use are good and the pictures are commentary. It’s very clean and well presented, nothing to take the eye away from you’re writing. Good stuff! 👍🏼👍🏼

        Liked by 1 person

    1. Hey! That was interesting. I like how it is written but it’d have been great if you could have elaborated the rituals (or whatever they are) since I have absolutely no knowledge about these things! I even checked the ‘metal hunks’ post because I thought it would be about metalhead dudes haha 😅
      Would appreciate some quality feedback as well 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Haha, oh sorry, a rather misleading old post title there with the metal hunks! That’s a very good point, thank you, I should have thought about those not in the UK. It’s basically the English equivalent of a Bachelor and Bachelorette party (I’m not sure if you’re more familiar with those terms?). But here it’s called a hen party and a stag party. And I don’t have a clue why. I shall head over to you now 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

  13. Hi,
    I’m Janice. I offer blogging advice to bloggers. Tips for engaging readers, improving content, and increasing traffic are waiting for you at my site. I am trying to expand my readership, so check it out. Here is the link

    About Me

    There is even a free incentive for signing up. Thanks,
    Janice

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Hello, I’m an art, poetry, fiction, daily-life, biological science blogger (say that three-times fast). I just bought a premium theme, and I was wondering what, as a reader (or blog ganderer), you think of it. I’ve been trying to find the ‘right’ kind of theme for my blog for a while so whatever advice or criticism you can add is helpful.

    The blog: http://heathernotes.com/

    Liked by 3 people

      2. Thank you Heather. You are doing great!!! Art is subjective and unique just like our handwriting. Just enjoy the experiences you have!

        Liked by 1 person

    2. Hi Heather,

      Love the subject of your blog, or rather the subjects, I’m trying to expand the scope of my lit blog right now to encompass some more topics so it’s good to see how others are doing this.

      I like the theme, it’s got some great features. I do have some suggestion though for the way you have it set up. Take into account though, some of this is just subjective opinion.

      I’m really not crazy about the green background with the white foreground. It sort of closes everything in and makes it feel smaller, more claustrophobic. Why not just match the colors to make it feel more expansive. If you are set on having a background, try a pretty pattern perhaps, or just a different color, that green just didn’t do anything for me, personally.

      The header Logo I guess you would call it could use some tweaking. I’d separate the spaces between the words so they aren’t on top of each other quite so much and bring the brackets in so there isn’t so much white space between them and the words.

      Finally, you have tab categories for Fiction and Writing. I assumed that Writing would be your writing and Fiction would be you talking about other people’s Fiction, so I was a bit confused when I got there. People will figure it out if they are regulars, and it might look odd in your menu to change it to My Fiction and On Writing, but that would be more clear.

      Oh, one more thing, your About Me photo isn’t loading on the front page.

      Hope that helps some. Happy Blogging!

      I’d love any criticism you can give me on my mostly lit blog. My thread is waaay down on pg 3. http://aurelmedia.wordpress.com.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. That helps a lot!!! I fixed everything, but the about me widget, which seems to be working on my end, and the header, which was creating on a different web platform. I’m not sure why the about me widget isn’t working.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. I love the theme Apostrophe, but it seems that you have some dead space that the widgets are taken up. I love the header.
        I would suggest making all the featured photos the same size, some of them take up a lot of space. You can do that through your computer paint program. I can tell you how if you like.

        Liked by 1 person

  16. Hello there, thought I’d put myself out there and see if anybody new has any interesting thoughts on my blog or my photography in general.
    Here’s a recent example of a post;

    Rome

    I welcome any helpful feedback, insight, guidance or just general comments be they good or bad 🙂

    Thanks

    Liked by 2 people

  19. Hi pool friends. I’ve heard through the grapevine that if one tries to sell products on their blog that WordPress will shut them down. Is this true? I’m an artist and am selling through my newsletter in the mean time. Just would like to know the truth. Thanks so much!

    Liked by 2 people

    2. I’m happy to confirm that it’s absolutely not true — in fact, thousands of people use their WordPress.com sites to sell stuff (from products to services to artwork and beyond) all the time.

      Freelancers and smaller businesses might make do with a simple PayPal button, which you’re free to add to your site:
      https://wordpress.com/support/paypal/

      For a more integrated solution, we offer WordPress.com Business users full eCommerce capabilities; you can read more about it here:
      https://wordpress.com/support/ecommerce/

      Liked by 1 person

  24. Hi guys, this is my first time in the Community Pool, just found this and it’s awesome, I’m loving finding new blogs and seeing everyone’s advice. I have what was a traditional book blog that I’m trying to expand to cover a more broad range of topics, but not too broad, basically keeping in line with my tagline: Lit. Geek. Chic. I want to cover sci-fi, films, geeky interests, writing, and art and fashion that are book or geek related. All this of course keeping the books as the main focus.

    Question #1 Does the title Aurelia {Lit} still work with the expanded focus I’m planning?

    Question #2 Theme. I like the clean layout of a magazine style theme, but I’m getting lots of hits to my main page that never click through to any posts. This is a problem. Suggestions?

    Any other insights would be greatly appreciated.

    http://aurelmedia.wordpress.com

    Now, I’m off to look at more of your lovely blogs!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Hi there! I just checked your blog and it’s really interesting so I followed.

      For the first question, taking into account the fact that you want to expand your range of topics, I think the {Lit} part could confuse your visitors into thinking you only blog about literature. I’d suggest you change it into something else, but I don’t really have any ideas to what you could change it.

      As for your second question, your theme is nice, but maybe you could make all your post images the same size because some are bigger and some are smaller. This results into the font size of your titles to be different too. Personally, I would much rather read a post when I see that the whole layout is nicely ordered.

      I hope this helped, and that I wasn’t criticizing too much!

      E.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. Thanks E, no bring on the criticism! That’s a feature of this theme I’ve been playing around with where it FEATURES some posts and makes them bigger than others. I was wondering how it played. The advantage is I can keep those posts near the top of the page, but yah, the disadvantage is the wonky fonts and sizes. I’m really thinking of scrapping this theme altogether, but I really appreciate the feedback, and I’ll give some more thought to the name. I think just going with Aurelia {Lit. Geek. Chic.} is too long? Thanks for the follow!

        Liked by 1 person

    2. I took a look and the different sizes of the entries is very jarring, the color scheme is great and airy but the look is too much like a collage . I think if there was a uniform look to each it would be easier to find where to rest your pointer, maybe if each was posted one after the other with larger and same size pictures. And the title I think doesn’t fit what you are trying to grow into. Can the tagline become your title and you add by Aurelia, then everything is encompassed? Good luck!

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Thanks for taking a look, Trudy! Yeah, that seems to be a consensus about the disuniformity of the posts. I can easily change the different size posts back to one size, I just lose the feature positioning, which is fine. This theme does default to two side by side though. I think my solution is going to be another theme altogether. Giving more thought to the title. Lit. Geek. Chic. alone is a little too generic maybe? and by Aurelia doesn’t quite work because it almost implies Aurelia is a person instead of an entity. I also have a twitter following built up around the Aurelia Lit name. Twitter handles are hard to change because it’s hard for people to have to re-learn the new ones once they are familiar with one already. Food for more thought anyway. Thanks so much!

        Liked by 1 person

      2. If you change the handle for people who are already following you they probably wont notice till weeks later, believe me. As far as new people you just have to be vigilant about changing it everywhere on your social media so its consistent. I don’t think its too generic, its just not as narrow which gives you the width you wanted . Hope it works out.

        Like

      3. For example the theme gridsby would let you use the covers but they would be all one size and it highlights as you go over it with your pointer.

        Liked by 1 person

    1. Hello and welcome to blogging:)
      Your blog is looking good, very neat and just ready to absorb your personality:)
      I love your header picture…
      As feedback, and this is from personal experience…add pictures to your posts, categorise and tag…your readers will find old posts very easy this way, plus everyone is more visual these days so photos are a ‘must’:)
      Keep coming back to the Community Pool and connect with others to grow your followers:)
      Julia

      Liked by 1 person

    1. I was about to say it, but I think I’ll comment on the post instead. Yeah. No need for everyone to see my continued weirdness about food.

      Unrelated to the post, love your site. Personally I’d rearrange the widgets a bit for better flow (I find it’s better to have the social media stuffs towards the top). Well done. I will follow you and your bacon to the ends of the earth.

      Like

      2. Not to be ‘that person’, but check my widget layout out (since we use the same theme and all). That may give you an idea of what flows together a little better (at least I hope so; I spent weeks getting them ‘just so’).

        Liked by 1 person

      3. I do like the way yours lays out. I’ve been toying with a few things, including a complete redesign, but I’m not sure what I’ll do photo wise since I went long in all of them. I guess I’ll just have to keep playing with it.

        Liked by 1 person

  29. I am writing more in the attempt to organize my thoughts. it reads like a book . I write, on average, 1000 words a day. I have a little over 30 posts so far. I started a facebook page/group where I post my blogs. I am always open to feedback and search for blogs here to follow. thanks in advance if you check me out twistedmedic.wordpress.com

    Liked by 3 people

    2. So obviously I like your blog, since I am now following you, but you’re a good story teller (bringing the reader into your story to feel it themselves).
      One thing I did notice is you still have the message of what a “page” is when you first click on your name that you can delete. If you can’t find it let me know and I’ll be more specific.
      Thanks!

      Liked by 3 people

      1. First thank you for your words!! I really appreciate you saying them. I am going to check out your blog tonight when I get home from coaching my daughters softball team. Single daddy …. doubling as mommie… go go go. Second, I need your help with the “page” message because I don’t know what that is. TwistedMedic

        Like

      2. Thanks! That’s great you’re coaching 🙂 My dad was my soccer coach a few seasons and I loved it. I’m sure that definitely keeps you on your toes though. I’m glad you’re doing something for yourself too (your blog).
        If you go on your website https://twistedmedic.wordpress.com/
        under your intro is this paragraph:

        This is an example of a page. Unlike posts, which are displayed on your blog’s front page in the order they’re published, pages are better suited for more timeless content that you want to be easily accessible, like your About or Contact information. Click the Edit link to make changes to this page or add another page.

        You need to edit it under My Site – WP Admin – Pages – All Pages – About Me (let me know if you can’t find it).

        Liked by 1 person

  30. Hey everybody! Gaurav here, I’ve recently done post called: 6 Bitter Truths of Life, with a bit of a twist, I’ll love your feedback and would also love some tips on how I could improve my writing and my blog, thanks!

    Liked by 3 people

      1. Hi. I just read your post, and I really enjoyed it. I like how you listed all the “bitter” truths first and then had a refreshing positive spin. It was easy to read and relate to. I followed your blog too. Thanks for sharing.

        Liked by 1 person