Jan 9, 2017 / Community Pool

Community Pool

The place for feedback, advice, and conversations about blogging.

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

The Community Pool is for peer feedback and advice. Looking for more specific information? Check out some of these resources:

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).

Looking for free, self-guided courses to help you get started with your blog (or revive a dormant one)? Check out our current offerings at Blogging U.

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

  • 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, as well as for not starting numerous threads in a single Pool.
  • 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. Also note that including multiple links in your comment might automatically put it in the moderation queue, which will delay its publication.
  • Please keep all comments civil and constructive. The idea is to have fun — it’s a pool, after all!
  • 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.
  • If you haven’t looked at our Commenting Guidelines in a while, now might be a good time.
  • No running on the deck.

Are you a new blogger looking to share your very first post? We have a special forum for bloggers just like you in our weekly First Friday posts.

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  3. Hello, I have recently started a music blog, posting a different song daily and giving a brief review of it. I’m not sure if it should be less formal than it currently is though and would appreciate any insight people have into this. Similarly, if anyone has any advice on how to develop your own ‘voice’ in blogs I would be interested!
    https://insertsonghere.wordpress.com/

    Liked by 4 people

    1. I agree with you that songs are meant to be shared. I hadn’t heard of the bands being an oldie, but would have found it easier to work out which I might like if there was some reference to their style of music early on in the post. That might just be me though!

      Developing your voice comes with time. The more you write, the more confident you will feel to just be yourself. That’s what having a voice is all about. It’s not something you force, it’s something you have within you and relax into.

      Like

    2. Like the idea and I (try to) post a new song a day on my blog as well. I’m happy to see though that you are aiming for the not so famous bands and giving them some screen time. Some of your posts don’t have a video or link to the song so a bit hard to find the music sometimes but overall a good idea and love the insight as well.

      Like

    1. I like the overall look of your site. It would be nice to see an About page that tells us the purpose of your site. I read your Shower post and enjoyed it. To me, it was conversational with inter-twined humor, like talking to a friend. I wasn’t sure what “OU” is. https://gracelead.co

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Thanks for having a look. 🙂 I’ve been thinking about that but wasn’t sure if an About page was more than was needed this early on. The OU is the Open University I should probably not use acronyms without an explanation.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. I think it looks fine – as I said on the post, good luck! The best piece of advice for any new blogger is to look at the BloggingU courses – there is a link to these in Ben’s intro to this post. There’s no pressure to complete any of the tasks – just reading them tells you a lot, so there is nothing to lose by signing up.

      Liked by 1 person

    1. Now you’d want to spend an hour or two in the Customizer (make yourself a favorite beverage or something) messing around with your theme, finding out how it works, and generally adding/removing text to make your page a bit more like home. For example, there’s a Text Widget with the boilerplate WordPress “this is a text widget” text that you may want to fix. Also, your About page – why not talk about Hygge? Yes, people can Google it, but what is hygge from *your* perspective? After all, what is a blog but a means of expression?

      https://scicasual.wordpress.com

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Thanks Johnny – that’s all really useful. Thanks for letting me know about the Text Widget thing, I will get on to fixing that and, as you say, making it all a bit more personal. Have just read your post about puns – I’m a linguist by trade so find stuff like that really interesting.

        Liked by 2 people

    1. I was really mesmorized by your blog. Your son is adorable. Why have doctors and other professionals not been able to give you an official diagnosis? From what little I know and understand, it seems to me he would at least fall under the autism spectrum along with having sensory disorders. Like I said, I don’t know a whole lot, but have taken courses related to mental health and developmental disabilities.

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    1. Hey! This isn’t specific to your latest post, but it might be helpful to your readers if you update your “About” page from the default “This is an about page” statement so they can know a little bit more about you and your blog. Love the layout!

      Liked by 1 person

    1. Great work! You have some really good political content on here. My only advice is to make your online presence a little more approachable; try uploading a profile picture and including a little more personal information on your “About” page so we can get to know you. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

    1. I guess the move makes sense for some people. For me, I prefer the written word so I can ponder over it at my leisure. A video goes by too fast. If someone can do short videos, I would prefer a blend, a blog with a link to the video along with a written summary. https://gracelead.co

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  23. Recently started this blog, and was curious if anyone had feedback or suggestions with respect to post length? I’m not sure how long is *ideal* for keeping a reader’s attention but also covering what I’d like to say. Any & all input is welcome.
    http://asecondhandnature.wordpress.com

    Just as background I’m writing about my attempts to be more conscious of what I buy & where it comes from, attempting to buy only used or local items.

    Liked by 1 person

  27. Hi everyone! I just started a blog a few days ago. So far nothing special has happened, as I’m still just trying to figure out how it all works. Eventually I want to be able to have a “real” website, from where I can sell my art and illustrations. Do you have any tips for how I should proceed with this? Should I just go for it, upgrade, and put out some stuff for sale, or is it better to wait, figure everything out slowly, and try to get an audience before taking the big step?
    Thank you so much for feedback! I’ve already read through so many comments here, and it’s been fantastic, not just to see all these awesome blogs, but also seeing everyone willing to put in precious time to advice strangers. It made my day. Thanks!

    https://emblaester.wordpress.com/

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I’m no expert on selling things on here, but I would probably start off slow and research how to effectively develop your blog/website. Just build it at first and make sure that it is working for you for a few months before you pay to upgrade? That’s just my two cents. Love your sketches by the way! You are very talented!

      Like

    2. I believe that wordpress.com might not be the place for selling (ecommerce website), you may try wordpress.org instead for advanced features and flexibility in this side. However, personaly, for simple blog or personal website, I prefer wordpress.com

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    3. Sometimes, having products to sell can attract readers. It might help, for now, to try to sell them through Esty or Redbubble. You could continue building an audience on your blog here, do occasional product promos, and then down the road you can fully integrate your blog into an online shop.

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      1. In response to your actual question: I think this is an AWESOME idea for a blog! That heavy feeling of having a lot of leftover words you never get to share with someone probably resonates with a lot of people. This seems like a cathartic creative outlet for those frustrations.

        Like

    2. This is really fun! It reminds me of things like post secret and also the book this modern love by Will Darbyshire. Keep it up!!

      I noticed a text widget template still on your homepage that you might want to update and/or remove.

      Like

    1. I’m a recent college grad in the corporate world too! Scrolling through your blog is kind of fun because you really bring statistics to life. I can tell you’re numbers-oriented, which is an awesome trait for someone giving financial advice.

      Two ideas to make your blog a little more accessible:
      -Upload a profile pic
      -Come up with a category system so your posts are easier to navigate (maybe tips/tricks, personal stories, etc.)

      Great start! Good luck & happy blogging!

      Liked by 1 person