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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  2. Heyo! I know it said to have specific questions, but I don’t think I’m quite there yet. I’m fairly new to this kind of thing, so just take a look and tell me what you think? I promise I’ll do the same for yours 🙂
    verybiasedreviews.wordpress.com

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    1. Cute blog. I thought the tagline was funny and clever. I browsed a few of your posts (planning to comment on the Sense8 one) and it looks like you have good content. Your style is fun, approachable, and casual–but you still offer valuable commentary. The only thing I’m not sold on is the blog theme. I think it’s the background color. If the BG were white and the text black, I think that would amp up the professional polish. Then again, you’re free to totally ignore my advice because it is your blog, after all.

      Another suggestion might be to include some sort of up-front rating system. Or maybe, at the beginning of the post, briefly bullet point the hits and misses. It doesn’t “give away” your valuable review, but it does let audiences know you angle right off the bat. Such an approach is typical of other view sites like IGN, Rotten Tomatoes, and so forth.

      Anyway, sorry to throw a wall of text at you. I think you have a great foundation and I wish the best for you and your blog 🙂

      Like

  3. Alright, New Year, New resolutions. Time to step up my efforts after a slow end to the year.
    Take a peak into my slightly inappropriate life and tell me what you think.
    Always looking for new Cractpots to invite round for tea 🙂

    The Rule of T

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  7. Hello bloggers! I just started my own blog on gardening yesterday. I am looking for suggestions as I am new at this. I love to be outdoors and work in the garden. I want to reach out and let people know that anyone can be a gardner no matter where they live. Gardening is very therapeutic and having plants around the house can be good for your health.

    https://gardening2017.wordpress.com/

    Like

  11. I am completely new to this and really finding my feet. I cannot say things are off to a flying start yet. I would love some feedback on my blog

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  13. Sorry should have been a bit clearer. My blog is mainly about CrossFit but has elements of Health and Fitness. Welcome constructive criticism

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    2. Overall, your site is visually pleasing and well-organized. I did notice on your latest post that you have many tags and categories. If you want your post to show up in the WordPress Reader, you need to have no more than 15 tags + categories. https://gracelead.co

      Like

    1. The tone of your writing is good; however, the formatting and grammar issues make it difficult to read. The one big paragraph could be several smaller paragraphs. Some sentences are long and rambling. For instance, here’s an edited verion of one long sentence, “I’m young. Because of that, I don’t have many responsibilities. This helps, though in my case, while still in school, I have the responsibilities of homework, assessments, and doing well in reports. However, I figure that if I don’t travel and try new things now, it will be harder to find time in the future. Between a job and a busy life, it will be difficult to actually see the world and experience it first hand. The weight of job responsibilities will hold me back.” https://gracelead.co

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Thank you very much for stopping by and your opinion 🙂 Because I am a beginner, I tried to do it as best as possible. It took time, but the painting has sort of calmness and mystery in itself which I like. Your blog is really interesting, I have never seen anything like this before. Mainly, it’s cool 🙂

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  20. Hey everyone. Just put up a new book review. Check it out. Feel free to comment, like and follow. I also post a couple of my own poems so have a look.
    bookhuntressblog.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/another-page-turner-the-alchemist-book-review/

    Liked by 2 people

  25. I was meowed at by a naked man wearing a tail.

    My second blog and questions on how to use tags. I decided I saw alot of specific blog types. Whether it be fashion, or crafts, to working out. My blog is really a journey through my daily life and I wanted to showcase awesome travel finds, cool gadgets I pick up ( I am techie) to chronicles of my dating life (as shown above) I can only assume tags are what render blogs searchable by keywords is that correct? So for each blog I can use tags to accentuate the them of that days blog content?

    Please take a look and let me know if I am using it correctly!

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    1. Categories and Tags: You could set up CATEGORIES such as fashion, crafts, fitness. gadgets, dating. When you write a post, you would assign it to one of your categories. You can set up your blog site to display your categories in your Menu. That way visitors can go directly to their category of interest. On each post, you would put TAGS that are like key-words to describe your post. Those help people doing an internet search find your post. For instance, if you write a post about knitting a wool sweater, you would assign it to your crafts category and put tags on it such as knitting, wool sweater, how to knit a sweater. For an example of a site with categories and tags, see my site: https://gracelead.co

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