Jan 25, 2016 / Community Pool

Community Pool

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

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?

Did you just start blogging and you’re not sure how to get going? Has your blog been dormant for a while but you’d like to give it a jolt of life? Join our free Blogging 101 course (or any of our other offerings at Blogging U.).

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:

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  • 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. I can’t say for sure but I’d guess that since you have a pinned post on the home page, people scroll to the bottom and assume that’s it, even though you have a recent posts widget. Perhaps consider rearranging your layout so it’s easier to access more posts?
      Also, I couldn’t find an About page for you, so consider making one.
      Happy Blogging!

      Liked by 2 people

    2. Mostly it’s because you have only started your blog, and have only a few posts. I suggest you move the search widget down toward the bottom, and move the categories widget to the top. When you have more posts, with more categories, that might entice people to continue past the home page.

      Liked by 1 person

    3. There is something called as a Landing page and it seems in your case it is your first post. You should write an about page and the first post will work perfectly for the about page.

      Look into customize theme and then see the front page settings, you will realize what I am talking about.

      I really loved your writing by the way

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Thanks for the feedback – but I haven’t fully understood (yet) what you meant to say!

        Probably I’ll realize in a few minutes and remind myself how scatterbrained I am. Duh!

        Liked by 2 people

    1. I’d suggest taking WordPress’ Blogging 101 course to learn more on how to best blog.
      Your posts are really short and feel somewhat incomplete. I also suggest adding colour or pictures or widgets to personalize your blog! And make an About page so people can learn more!
      Good luck and happy blogging!

      Liked by 2 people

      1. There is so little to read on your blog. It seems as if the posts were just a thought and not followed through? Maybe a few pictures, or art work to go along with the posts? I would take the blogging course. 101 is a great help.

        Liked by 3 people

    2. wow. For a 14 year old, you are erudite! I actually learned about heifers from reading your blog, so I’d say you are on the right track. When someone reads your post and comes away with new knowledge, that is special. Keep on writing.

      Liked by 2 people

  8. Hello again all, besides what I write in my blog its self, I started a Twitter account to try and help draw readers. I’m not really sure it’s been very successful though. I’ve tried to find relevant Twitter pages and interact with them, but I’ve only had a small amount of success. Would anyone mind taking a look at what I’m doing on Twitter and telling me what you think? Thanks in advance to all who do.

    Liked by 2 people

  9. Hello everyone, I started my blog a couple of years ago with my old e-mail address. I’ve since started blogging more regularly but don’t have access to the old e-mail account. So I went to change it on my settings but all that does is send a request to my old e-mail address which I can’t access to approve. Anybody come across this problem before?

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Thanks Suze. I don’t want to make a new blog just change e-mail address but looks like I will have to start again or at least import to a new one like you said. Thanks for your help.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. oh crappola…i was afraid you were going to say that. the only solution (here’s hoping your email server dudes were nice guys) is to send an email to the old server. call server dudes and beg them to open the mail and approve it. it took me six months but I finally got my dudes to do it for me.

        Liked by 2 people

      3. Thanks Suze. I already contacted them and they said it is no longer active and can’t be accessed. I left it too late. I was just hoping WordPress would let me change it on my settings. Makes sense really. Oh well. Thank you for your help

        Liked by 2 people

    3. Hi Lloyd — I’m happy to report that when you change your email address on file with us at WordPress.com (by going to this page: https://wordpress.com/me/account), we don’t send an email to your old email address, but rather a confirmation email to the address you just changed to. So I’m not sure what went wrong for you there. You can read more about changing email addresses here:
      https://wordpress.com/support/email-address/

      Of course, if you still encounter issues, reach out to our Support team, and a Happiness Engineer will sort you out:

      Contact

      Liked by 1 person

  10. Hey there! I just made this blog a few weeks ago and I was hoping for some feedback. There isn’t much content yet, but it’s getting there. If you could just take a look and maybe like or comment on your favorite post, that would be extremely appreciated. Thank you!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. I read two of your posts: latest two.

      I really loved the poem that you wrote; the blog is simple without any complicated stuff and I liked it that way. I think I will follow you as well

      Oh and lastly, why NRZY? maybe something to add in About page

      Liked by 2 people

    1. Well, well, very interesting! Great job! Well-researched, quite readable and I praise your writing skills, knowing that English is not your primary language. Here are a few tips that in my humble opinion could help improve your article

      – Use a bigger font size, bold ink, those sweet quote blocks, whatever, to point out the most important facts or statements, so that I, as a reader, can easily find the most important part of each paragraph.

      – Maybe instead of just listing the sources you’ve used, you could also provide the link to them. (A neat way of doing this is to combine the link with the source, i.e, if I click on the word ‘Wikipedia’, it should lead me to the article where you found it.)

      I’m looking forward to more of your posts!

      –

      Liked by 3 people

      1. Thanks for your support. I never thought about doing it this way. It’s a great way to organize my content. That will definitely help me to drive the readers to what matters the most. So I’m gonna take your advice for my next posts.

        Liked by 1 person

    1. unfortunately, I have been married for a bazillion years and have no idea. Maybe fine tune your audience? comment on other blo9gs similar to yours or that enhance yours? like if you connect to a food critic or restaurant critics blog? people do still go out to dinner when they date, don’t they? just a thought.

      Liked by 2 people

    1. Amazing website you have over there! A warm writing style, great content, very enticing in general! You’ve earned yourself a new follower.

      Keep up the good work!

      Liked by 2 people

    1. Great work! Wow, alluring, rich of vocabulary… I envy you so much! I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write in such a beautiful, charming way. You even made me feel your words. Oh, dearie me!

      Thank you so much! Keep up the good work!

      Liked by 2 people

    1. there is a “read more” thing in the wp editor that you can add. I don’t know exactly how it works but as soon as I do will let you know. 😀

      Liked by 1 person

    1. Sometimes people just lurk around. If you’re looking for something like feedback, maybe you should try to prompt the reader with a “What do you think?” “Would you …..” or something like that at the end of each post would do the job. Do notice that not everyone, sometimes nobody will comment on your posts.

      Good luck!

      Liked by 2 people

    1. I think you can change that under your account settings. there is a spot for a http:. take out the fb address and insert your blog address. I couldn’t find you blog.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. It isn’t broken; his blog is an advertising blog.

        And, well, to be honest, I don’t like it. At all. It is really boring; it lacks structure.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. oh………..well darn I was hoping my first impression was totally wrong. rats. okay, silly question time….why would someone do that anyway? lol

        Liked by 1 person

    1. Great work, Carolyn. Let me point out a few things that you might find interesting:

      – In the post, “Lights”, you had created a perfect environment. You had already caught me with the very first sentence… but then, BAM! You broke the 4th wall with the parenthesis in the 4th line. Ah! It cost me a lot to get again into the story.

      – (I’ll try to express myself but I think I cannot) Your site lacks structure. I mean, posts don’t seem to be related to anything, not even the author, who we don’t know anything about because of her extremely short and disappointing about page. They are just random posts. There’s nothing with random posts… unless they are ENTIRELY random.

      Hope this helps. Happy blogging!

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Thanks for the feedback. Whenever I show stuff to friends they tend to just say they like it, so it’s really useful to get something more honest and objective.

        Liked by 1 person

  29. I’ve been blogging my own poetry for a while at “My Life in Poems”. How can I encourage people to look beyond the most recent posts? There are – what I believe to be – a number of good earlier poems I posted when I first started the blog but nobody gets to see them. Your feedback on this would be much appreciated. Thanks!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. I’ve noticed the same thing on my blog. Most visits are triggered only by the most recent post. People seldom go any further.

      If you have poems that you feel deserve more notice, you can always re-post them.

      Perhaps you could make the categories in your menu more enticing?

      Good luck.

      Liked by 2 people

    3. I’ve seen another creative writing blog that had a menu item for Best Work (I can’t remember what they called it exactly). I found that helpful and it did make me look in there.

      Liked by 2 people

    1. Good going. Keep it up. But if I may, then I’ll suggest reducing the title of your site to something precise.
      Thanks.

      Liked by 2 people