Feb 22, 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:

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!
  • 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!
  • If you haven’t looked at our Commenting Guidelines in a while, now might be a good time.
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    1. Going to try and reply again! I visited your site, and really liked your About page. How awesome (and accomplished) that you’ve already written a novel. What’s the goal of the 5-year journal? Is it a future book?
      Blessings, Crystal

      Liked by 3 people

      1. It’s to look back and see how things and even you have changed. Or that is why I’m doing the 5 year journal.

        And thank you! 🙂 I felt pretty am accomplished when I finished my novel as well. 🙂

        Liked by 3 people

  3. hey family,

    This week has been a crazy week on my blog – wrote a reflection on a Passion worship event that happened in Cape Town and had 4500 visitors on one day on my blog which is unheard of – a lot of people thought it was the best thing ever and a lot of people the worst thing ever so definitely got people talking…

    But this week i would rather have your eyes on a piece i wrote about being colourblind as so many people suggest that as the answer to race issues and i have some questions about that:

    Can’t we All just be Colourblind?

    One of the people that appreciated my Passion piece less than others literally told me to “Shut my Pie Hole” on Facebook and so i wrote a piece called Coffee over Pie Holes where i addressed some helpful ideas for when you disagree with someone online:

    Coffee over Pie Holes

    Hope you can check one or both of them out and would love to come and visit some of yours tomorrow when i’m back online

    Til then, good nite
    love brett fish

    Liked by 2 people

    1. When I just visited both links, I got this message: “The resource limits for this website have been reached, please return in a few minutes.

      Are you the owner of this website?

      You can view the history of these limits being exceeded in your cPanel under Logs -> Resources Usage

      The potential limits reached include:

      Memory (each hosting account is allocated a % of the total server memory)
      CPU (each hosting account is allocated a % of the total server CPU)
      Inodes (number of files on the account)
      I/O Usage (number of read/writes on the account)
      Entry Processes (the number of processes running concurrently)”

      Hope this helps you fix it somehow :/

      Basant She
      https://thoughtsofasociallyanxiousextrovert.wordpress.com/

      Liked by 1 person

  4. Hi everyone! I started blogging for the first time last Sunday and would love some feedback on the quality of my content as well as any tips on whether the format and design of my sign works. Feel free to post here or email send me me an email. I appreciate brutal honesty especially since I don’t know what I’m doing yet. Thanks! My site is http://www.beligerentbetty.com

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Even with just a few posts, I’m already interested in your stories. They’re well organized, well written and it sounds like you’ll have plenty of things to write about. Just your tagline with ‘American Foreigner’ has me intrigued.

      The format and design is nice, simple and clean, without being boring. I would say it’s better than the majority of blogs I’ve seen 🙂 .

      One minor critique I have is the layout of the main photo. Somehow it stands out too much, but I’m having trouble deciding what it is. I would keep the photo itself because it goes well with your color scheme and tagline, but play around with a few things such as: turning it into a band/banner, with the photo in the center and a light complimentary color or making the photo a little shorter or overlaying the title and/or tagline over the photo.

      Liked by 4 people

      1. Thanks for feedback I really really appreciate! I agree with you on the photo. It’s too I. Your face and am going to have to figure out how to tinker with it and make it a little smaller somehow or maybe use a different image.

        I’m not used to writing in “blog format” since most of my experience comes from writing half assed college papers haha so I really appreciate the content feedback! Thanks again!

        Liked by 3 people

      1. Thanks very much for the feedback you provided! I looked over your articles and I really liked them especially the one regarding girl on girl hate and having to let go. I can definitely relate to your material especially through my experiences in the military with women being hateful to one another instead of working through achieving solidarity. So thank you for your inspiring articles!

        Liked by 2 people

    1. Hi! I’m a children’s counselor in the Austin area, so the link you posted caught my eye! I left a comment on your actual post, but also wanted to tell you that I really like the layout of your blog. It’s clean, easy to read, and easy to navigate 🙂

      Liked by 3 people

    2. “We are talking about youth ages 13 to 18. These are the ages where we get our first jobs, meet our first loves, breathe in the first fresh breath of independence. We’re fighting for an identity and, along the way, we often convince ourselves that we are adults. But teenagers are not adults.” Such a great flow of words, I really love your writing! Good luck with your blog and I hope you have a lovely day!

      Basant She
      https://thoughtsofasociallyanxiousextrovert.wordpress.com/

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Thank you so much for your kind words! I’ve seen your blog a few times before and I honestly thought I was following it already. Love what I’m seeing. 🙂

        Liked by 2 people

      2. Thank you so much! I wanted to invite you over to a blogging event I’m holding on a monthly basis, it would be absolutely lovely having you partake as well. It consists of you documenting your life every month through your memories.
        I already posted my writing about my month and I have the rules here: https://thoughtsofasociallyanxiousextrovert.wordpress.com/my-monthly-memories-monthly-blogging-event/ It’d be lovely reading one of your My Monthly Memories posts. Thanks again and I hope you have a wonderful day!

        Basant She
        https://thoughtsofasociallyanxiousextrovert.wordpress.com/

        Liked by 1 person

  6. Hi guys. I am starting out and I am totally new at this. I want to share everything I think about. Its something to keep me busy. Any advise please? My blog is somethingabouteverything508

    Liked by 2 people

    1. I have a personal blog similar to what you want to do. My advice – find a niche or a unique angle. You talk about breaking routine, so maybe you could blog about what you do to achieve that.

      Liked by 2 people

    3. Hi – I enjoyed your post on Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and I thought you did well to tell the story without ruining the ending. You said enough to make a new reader pick up the book.

      Are you aiming at Colombian readers? I suppose, unless you’re aiming at Spanish speakers, you’ll need to decide how to deal with language difficulties for other readers. It’s very time-consuming to translate everything yourself, but automatic translations can be dreadful.

      Good luck with your blog
      Elaine

      Liked by 3 people

      1. Thanks a lot For your comment Elaine, I’m starting to think I’ll create a duplicate blog to have it both in English and Spanish so I can reach a bigger audience.

        Liked by 3 people

      2. Not sure what the problem was, but it seems to have been resolved and I can connect to your blog fine now. Always good to see more lefty rants in this increasingly crazed right wing world.

        Good luck with it 🙂

        Liked by 2 people

  9. I’d like to invite any poetry people, alt rockers, 90s kids, and anyone else who I may have forgot to to mention to stop by my blog and read “Nevermind.” It’s a poem I wrote Kurt Cobain, his birthday was Saturday.

    Liked by 2 people

      2. Friends is eternally awesome. I haven’t watched it in a while, it’s probably more relevant now than ever as I enter my mid-twenties! Yes, please do make more F.r.i.e.n.d.s related posts 🙂

        Liked by 2 people

      2. Don’t worry about it! I wanted to invite you over to a blogging event I’m holding on a monthly basis, it would be absolutely lovely having you partake as well. It consists of you documenting your life every month through your memories.
        I already posted my writing about my month and I have the rules here: https://thoughtsofasociallyanxiousextrovert.wordpress.com/my-monthly-memories-monthly-blogging-event/ It’d be lovely reading one of your My Monthly Memories posts. Thanks again and I hope you have a wonderful day!

        Basant She
        https://thoughtsofasociallyanxiousextrovert.wordpress.com/

        Liked by 1 person

      1. I’m glad you liked what you read on my blog, especially the Racism piece. I’m also very happy that you decided to follow. I look forward to talking to you more in the future.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. No problem at all, I truly enjoyed it! Hi! I wanted to invite you over to a blogging event I’m holding on a monthly basis, it would be absolutely lovely having you partake as well. It consists of you documenting your life every month through your memories.
        I already posted my writing about my month and I have the rules here: https://thoughtsofasociallyanxiousextrovert.wordpress.com/my-monthly-memories-monthly-blogging-event/ It’d be lovely reading one of your My Monthly Memories posts. Thanks again and I hope you have a wonderful day!

        Basant She
        https://thoughtsofasociallyanxiousextrovert.wordpress.com/

        Liked by 1 person

    1. Oh snap! Your blog is awesome. Your words have a nice flow. Expand your About page so your audience will know more about you (your journey, quirks, likes etc.) Most of all, enjoy college my friend. Keep reading, and please keep writing. It gets profoundly better.
      Blessings, Crystal

      Liked by 3 people

  14. Hi everyone,

    My blog at datebynumb3r.com is about how I’m getting a start on dating a lot later in my life than most people, after leaving a strict religion. I’m a data analyst, so I incorporate some math into it (but not too much!).

    If any of that interests you at all, feel free to check it out. Also, if you know of any bloggers with a related theme, please let me know!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Looks like you’re doing well finding your feet. I’m well past dating (rapidly approaching 25th wedding anniversary actually) but a) I like the cartoons/comics & b) us analysts have to stick together 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

      2. Thank you so much! I wanted to invite you over to a blogging event I’m holding on a monthly basis, it would be absolutely lovely having you partake as well. It consists of you documenting your life every month through your memories.
        I already posted my writing about my month and I have the rules here: https://thoughtsofasociallyanxiousextrovert.wordpress.com/my-monthly-memories-monthly-blogging-event/ It’d be lovely reading one of your My Monthly Memories posts. Thanks again and I hope you have a wonderful day!

        Basant She
        https://thoughtsofasociallyanxiousextrovert.wordpress.com/

        Liked by 1 person

  20. Hi guys! I am an aspiring journalist and author and I was hoping you guys would check out my blog! I am really interested in learning more about the lay out of my blog and making it much easier for readers to navigate through the site.

    mcchesneyblogs.wordpress.com

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Hi Alec,

      Nothing wrong with the content. I would suggesting adding an image to accompany each blog post. Also, formatting some of the text – bold – italics – it just breaks things up a little and makes it more compelling to read. Also a header would be nice or some widgets to add a splash of colour?

      Best of luck,
      Aidan

      Liked by 3 people

    2. Hi Alec, I have to agree on the addition of images to your blog. It would really help bring what you’re saying to life. It would also help give your blog some warmth 🙂 Keep up the good work! Also, feel free to come check out our food and decor blog.

      gaiascure.wordpress.com

      Liked by 2 people

    1. Hi Jonathan,

      I like your idea of fixing the newsletter option in the corner. Something I had never considered before. I also like your theme. I would suggest making your posts available as several paragraphs and giving me the option to click to read more. There is a lot to scroll through to get from one post to the next as it stands and it’s a little overwhelming especially on a mobile device.

      Hope that helps,
      Aidan

      Liked by 3 people

  24. Hi everyone! I’ve had this blog for some time now, but i’ve always stopped and started due to lack of inspiration. But I really want to keep at it this time, and think it’ll be good for me in the long run. If you have any time can you just check in out? Open to advice, tips, critiques on any, and everythinggg. Mostly my blog posts! Thank you.

    https://liyahsworld.wordpress.com

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Hi Aaliyah,

      I really like the theme and look of your blog. The content is also fresh and I enjoyed reading your Part 1 post about College life. I’d suggest tidying up some of the widgets on the side – perhaps putting in some social icons so similarly younger people, and students can connect with you?

      I really like your photos too. Looks like you’ve got plenty of potential, if you keep it up. In my experience, consistency is key – 2/3 times per week is better than a bunch at the start and the end of the month. Search engines look more favourably and rank your pages higher when you are consistent with your schedule.

      Best of luck,
      Aidan

      Liked by 3 people

    3. Hi! I wanted to invite you over to a blogging event I’m holding on a monthly basis, it would be absolutely lovely having you partake as well. It consists of you documenting your life every month through your memories.
      I already posted my writing about my month and I have the rules here: https://thoughtsofasociallyanxiousextrovert.wordpress.com/my-monthly-memories-monthly-blogging-event/ It’d be lovely reading one of your My Monthly Memories posts. Thanks again and I hope you have a wonderful day!

      Basant She
      https://thoughtsofasociallyanxiousextrovert.wordpress.com/

      Liked by 2 people

    1. Hi Babbitman,

      I would suggest making your pictures smaller – perhaps 300×300 so that I don’t have to scroll to read the remainder of the article. Wrapping your test around a smaller image will help you better manage the space – especially useful if your blog reader is using a mobile device.

      Best of luck!
      Aidan

      Liked by 3 people

      1. I’ll definitely have to bear that in mind, thanks. I had major hassles trying to wrap text on my post about the cardboard piano though. I think the layout settings on some themes are a bit basic and don’t handle text & multiple pictures too well.
        I had kind of thought bigger pics with better resolution would be the best option but that’s not necessarily the case!
        Cheers!

        Liked by 3 people

  26. Good Day Blogging Folks – Hope this message reaches you well. My blog went live about a week ago to encourage, Salesxiety.com. I am a big fan of your writing and your personality SPIN. While I am a classic case of keeping my ideas close to the chest the majority of my days, this process is profoundly more liberating than I had thought. My site is impossibly rough at the present, but the idea is dialed in. Would be my pleasure if you would have a glance. Sincerely look forward to hearing back a pulse in any case.

    http://salesxiety.com/

    All My Best,
    William

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Hi William,

      I’ve worked in Sales for a decade and can definitely relate to your posts. I read the Emotionally Intelligent post and thought it was well written. There are plenty of hungry readers out there that will definitely subscribe to your site for sales advice/self-help, with the more keyword optimised content you start to create.

      Best of luck,
      Aidan

      Liked by 3 people

  27. Hey fellow swimmers,

    It has been a couple of weeks, but we’ve finally managed to find time to put together a couple more posts. If a weekend in Istanbul, day trip to Cambridge or whiskey tour in Scotland sound like your thing – come check them out.
    https://bridgetandalex.wordpress.com/

    Loving the writing at the moment, so any feedback or tips will definitely be appreciated, and of course reciprocated.

    Always good to see everyone out having fun on a Monday.
    Take care,
    Alex

    Liked by 4 people

  28. Very nice post, will definitely check out some of the blogs here! I just recently started a blog about useful Dating Advice to build up a community and promote my new book. I would appreciate some honest feedback. If anyone finds this stuff interesting, check out https://saulisdating.wordpress.com

    Liked by 3 people