Unique Times

Dear Friends,

In wrapping up the year, I am feeling particular grateful for your friendship, follow, comments and sharing my work. Thank so so much for being here to share insights, learn, grow and support each other in our journey together. It truly is a gift and I have learned so much from each of you which I am eternally grateful for, whether it be how to technically do something when posting, learning a new form of poetry, learning about history or admire your amazing photography! A picture or quote says a thousand words. I am so inspired by our community and apprecaite you.

I know it’s been a tough year with loss, changes which have called us to higher ground and finding meaning in tough times but we are doing it.

Alrighty, let’s get on to blogging. I don’t usually write about blogging because I like to stick to my strengths and this is not my area of expertise. However, after 7 months of blogging regularly, I have some opinions and Pet Peeves if you will, that I want to share. I hope you find my ideas helpful.

Mind you this is my complete bias and everyone will and should run their blogging page in their own way.  After all, it is YOUR POST and what you do with your site is up to you.  Do it your way. 

Write good content. 

What do you want to impart?  What is the purpose of your blog posts?  If you have lousy content:  NO ONE WANTS TO READ IT, EXCEPT YOU and perhaps the few others that find company in misery.  Again, that’s ok, if that’s all you care about. 

Edit your work!

Good editors will tell you straight up that it has to go to the chopping board if it’s not content worthy. Most of us won’t be hiring an editor for our blog post, so you’ll have to wear 2 hats… writer and editor. But you say, “oh it’s so good though.” Well, maybe to you but if you aren’t getting followers and you want them, get the chopping board out. And that means spelling, grammar, run on sentences etc.  You will be forgiven for an occasional slip up but after a while, people will get tired of it, when they can surf to the next good writer.  It’s a drag, I get it and as the queen of run on sentences and not framing my thoughts.  I know how painstaking it is to go over something umpteen times, only to still get it wrong at times. That’s where my kids ridiculing me has come in handy or my husband’s first comment in the morning;  “you have an error.”  I get so mad and  roll my eyes because I want to hear something positive after spending so much time checking it but it’s the best gift I could have been given.

Pictures and some Gify’s and emojis add a lot.

Start with one and grow from there.  I’m still trying to figure out why when I do a tile picture someone sees it all chopped up and it looks perfect in preview.  Do tell please, if you know the answer to this!  As you get better, you can add more and use applications such as Canva, Getty Images etc.  It’s been fun learning how to add words over pictures.  Practice a lot, because you’ll forget unless you do it a lot. 

SEO’s:  Search Engine Optimization:

I hear they are great… I do try to title my post with some words I will use again so when people search me they will find me, and use post tags as well… Refer to Rising Star, Ero, Pooja Shelly etc for great articles on this and others. They are the masterminds here. There are SEO plugins that you can look up and will do a lot of the work for you. SEO’s are essential if you are trying to grow your audience. Rising Star has great tips for SEO’s in blogging as well as other tips. This posts does a great job explaining your options and considerations when learning about SEO’s. It’s a rabbit hole but very useful information to know. Also, check out Pooja’s posts at lifesfinewhine for great ideas. Ero Eromonsele Emmanuel, from ericotrips just put out the Good Bad the bad and honorable mentions in his last post with some great tips I had never heard of either. They are really helpful. Do check it out. Also, Shelly from Growing With Swan also has some amazing posts on blogging so check her out too. All of these bloggers are multidimensional and are genuinly great people as well.

Liking and commenting on Blogs:

If you don’t like a post, don’t comment.  You can feel inauthenticity through the ethers. But if you do, acknowledge their work.  It’s the old adage, what goes around, comes around.  People say to me I write too much in comments and they have great tips where they copy and paste a few different line’s in people’s posts and rotate them which is a good idea and a great time saver,  I just can’t do that unfortunately.  I do end up way too long commenting but it’s because I only comment when I truly am moved and sometimes, it’s only a quick response.  It builds relationships though and I feel a genuine connection with that person and I know they do with me.  I actually search out some of my friends if I haven’t heard from them in a long time.  I am just seriously hoping everything is ok with them. 

Don’t like something?

Skip it altogether then.  The beauty of W.P, unlike other sites is, it’s not a pissing match and there is deep respect most of the time for others points of few.  I have only seen one or 2 times otherwise and it really is disturbing.  How not to win friends and influence people.  Lol.  It’s just plain rude.  Now, I love healthy bantering or questions and clarification etc. That is awesome and allows for learning about each other’s backgrounds and history where we can expand and grow in respect.

Share people’s names and site by referencing their content with a hyperlink or reblog. Referrals are the nicest form of flattery which is how I have single handedly built my business with a waiting list. 

When someone follows you

Thank them and review their content and if you like their work, follow back.  If you want to play, you gotta pay.  It’s a 2 way street.  I want to go to someone’s site naturally when they follow me because I’m so appreciative. You don’t have to follow but it’s nice if you are inclined and like their work. If you don’t, search out other blogs you connect with.  It’s important you honor your interests.  I sometimes follow people in another language even though I don’t know what they are saying because I’m drawn to them by their pictures, their smile etc. Sometimes I think, “God I hope they aren’t an axe murderer or something” but so far, my intuition has been right I think. 🤣. I also might not have an interest in their subject but I like them and want to acknowledge them.  Sometimes I look for underdogs that have good content but no one sees it and I want to let them know they are valuable, so I like their work.  It’s the life coach in me I guess. 

Check you spam in comments:

Regularly for followers.  Often your followers will end up in spam for a few reasons, either a misclick by you or they were flagged by WordPress.  So, if you haven’t seen them for a while check and take them out if they were flagged incorrectly. If someone seems suspicious or is trying to post links in your comments, they may be a scammer and should be left in your spam folder. Scammers will use disguised links and proxies to lure you into websites with viruses or other scams.

Contests and Awards: 

Up to you and it’s such an awesome way to make friends right away, acknowledge new bloggers in particular to motivate them and keep them writing. It also builds a following but let me warn you, it takes a lot of time, so be ready for the onslaught.  It’s really fun at first ’cause it gets you out of the gate running but you will keep that race up and it can be exhausting. However, just know a lot of these people will be your forever friends because you started out together and are helping each other grow and thrive. It’s fine to have an award free site and write that on your site when people go to your site.  It helps when people who want to give you an award know that you don’t participate.  It’s a lot of work researching bloggers etc., so it saves them time and the hassle of explaining that you don’t participate in them. I should write that on my site but I truly want to help them and I think “oh, I can do this and I really can’t.

I just want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH to all of you who gifted me awards this year and the ones I never got to even with the best of intentions. You know who you are and I am so appreciative and apologize for not having the time to participate.

A huge thanks to Kally at Middleme for doing an interview on me in the begining of Covid. She writes incredible interviews and career posts. It was well received and I was honored to be invited. Also, thank you Yvette from Priorhouse for the kind mini interview that came out last week. I will repost in January in case you miss it. I appreciate both of you for kindness and vauling my work and featuring me on your posts.

Make as many tags as possible so a greater audience can find your post .

Scheduling Posts is a great way to get a head start and make sure a post will go up at a reasonable time to be seen by others. TIP: WordPress uses UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). So you will have to look up which UTC time correlates to the time you want your post to go live. 

Pet Peeves:

Listing your whole post in someone’s comments.  Hello?  What is that about?  Acknowledge the writer you are commenting about.  DO NOT AND I REPEAT DO NOT POST YOUR POST IN THEIR COMMENTS.  It’s like showing up at a party you weren’t invited too!  If you are one that does this, go online immediately and order an etiquette book or just take my word for it;  it’s damn straight annoying. 

Writing too much in a day:

Knock yourself out if that’s what you love to do and there are some writers that turn things out that are awesome every time.  I can’t figure out how they can do this but they are a faucet connected to the powers that be which is commendable.  But if I’m to be completely honest, I don’t want to see you show up with umpteen posts that require my attention. I want to like all of it because you’re so good but I just don’t have time. I want to like everyone of them but begin to feel overwhelmed because as your following grows you have limited time and I personally want to see all of my followers work. Posting 1-5 times a week is about right, again IMHO.

Apologizing for being gone.
It’s not like anyone or most really care, seriously as much as is said about posting regularly etc. While there is some truth to that, come back with no apologies.  You owe it to yourself to do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself.

Now, if you are going to be gone for awhile or on a break, it is nice to let people know  because some of us legitimately care and will worry about you or wonder if all is well.  

Ragging and brain dumping

It’s like getting a call from someone and before you even say hello the person goes straight into emoting and throwing up without as much as a hello or a breath. 

We hear that all day long.  On the news, from people, t.v. etc. Give us the lesson, what you’re dealing with, how you’re struggling or share something of meaning.  We all get that because we all struggle and are working on growing, learning etc but ADD to our day, don’t just throw your garbage onto someone else’s page so you can get rid of it.  Words have power so mindfully choose how you want to affect people.  

Word Press Glitches

Not being able to edit because you’re in classic or block and cannot get out.

Timing Out

You’re almost done with your likes, comments and shares and somehow you can’t hit the like button. I have heard many things from too many people on the internet at that time, or you can only like so many at a time. I don’t know but if you know, I’d be so grateful if you would tell me.

Care to add to this list?

In closing I just want to say thanks for all of your support by reading my posts, commenting and sharing your heart with me.  It has been a great honor getting to know so many of you and it truly makes my day to see you have visited and see your comments!  

We as a community educate, enlighten and give voice to so many topics and I have personally grown so much reading your posts.  

Have a wonderful holiday however you spend it and remember, we are almost there and we can say hello to 2021.

I will be on a break from writing posts because I think I will get kicked out from my family if I don’t 🤣 😝 but I’ll be back the second week of January and will definately be checking in on your writing. Hopefully, I can do this!!!

❤️

Cindy

Thanks for reading and liking (if you do of course), commenting and or sharing if you are inclined.

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