Blogging Bits and Bytes: Gentle Encouragement

As part of my Blogging Bits and Bytes series I randomly send quick notes to subscribers containing what I call “gentle encouragement”.

The simple definition of encouragement is:

♥ the act of making something more appealing or more likely to happen
♥ something that makes someone more determined, hopeful, or confident
♥ something that makes someone more likely to do something

This month I ‘fessed up as to how I was doing on my goals:

TRUTH:
I succeeded on keeping an editorial calendar, but I dropped the ball on my goal of posting every day in February, and you can read about it here.

REVISED GOAL:
I’m now aiming to post twice a week until I get back on my feet (one post will be my Sunday Sundries series.)

Blogging Bits and Bytes: Gentle Encouragement

In times when I’m having trouble blogging, I find doing a bit of blog housekeeping is akin to cleaning my house and putting it in order (which always makes me feel better.)

So here are five things to think about when it comes to blog housekeeping:

1. Stand back a few feet and look your home page. Examine it on your computer; I use a large screen, and a laptop, so I check both. Now, do the same on an iPad, and a phone … have a friend check it on their devices. Does it fit on the screen? Is it easy to read? More and more people are reading blogs on their mobile devices and if it’s hard to read … well, quite honestly, they are going to move on. As well, Google does not like it. To analyze your blog, try this Mobile-Friendly Test. I’m only asking you to think about this one because to switch to a mobile-friendly theme is not a quick fix, and I had a professional do it for me. He recommended Lifestyle Pro, a mobile responsive Genesis theme. OK! Let’s move on to four gentler ideas!
2. Spiff up your header. Add a seasonal touch. Last month I changed the colour of my font, and added little hearts.
3. Check your sidebar! Do you have widgets that are no longer relevant? Old memes that have faded away? Remove them!! They are clutter, plain and simple.
4. Worse yet, do you have widgets that are too large for the sidebar? Ones that stick out and don’t seem to fit? I’m assuming you knew how to put them there in the first place, so you most likely know how to resize them … take them into an editing program and reduce the dimensions, then add them back to your blog. If you have questions, shoot me an email.
5. Try a new background! Backgrounds are a personal preference, but they are fun to play around with. Changing them keeps things fresh (but remember, keep it simple).

If you keep your blog clean, and switch things around from time-to-time, readers may not realize why, but when they visit, they know someone is home.

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… lotsa “Ifs” there :)

Have a wonderful day!!