This is Day 14 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, a group project 60+ of us bloggers are doing together in an effort to help each other become better bloggers.
Today’s lesson and assignment is pretty straight forward – update a key page on your blog. After you’ve been blogging for a while, you tend to focus day in and day out on new posts and new comments. It’s easy to end up neglecting the static pages on your blog for months or even years.
If you haven’t already done so, go ahead and read all of your static pages. Static pages are the pages that don’t change, pages that are not blog posts or automatically generated category/tag/archive pages.
Typical pages include:
- Homepage
- About
- Contact
I was surprised that revising the homepage was included in today’s assignment. I would consider redesigning the header/logo one day’s assignment all by itself. I would also consider revising the sidebar(s) a big enough assignment to get its own day as well. But it’s in there, so give it some thought.
Adding Pages
If your blog is new, perhaps you don’t have an about or contact page. This would be a great time to add them. Other pages you may want to write include:
- Advertising info – If you have ads on your site, provide information about rates and how a person should proceed if they’d like to purchase advertising on your blog.
- Guest blogging info – If you’d like guest bloggers to write posts, it’s a good idea to add a page with guidelines and instructions.
- Topical pages – If you’ve done a popular series, consider creating a special page with links to all the posts in that series. Or if there is a topic you write about that is particularly popular, consider creating a special page with links to your best posts on that topic. For example, we have a Church Website Tips page here on Christian Web Trends (which needs to be updated, by the way).
Discussion
- What page(s) did you update or add? What changes did you make and why?
- Did you make any changes to the header or sidebar? If not, do you intend to later?
The Extra Mile
A few other things you can do to take your blog, other bloggers, and this project even further today…
- Reply & give other bloggers feedback on the little things they do.
- When other bloggers include a link to a new article they’ve posted today, click, read, and comment on it.
- Check previous posts in the series for new comments.
- Tweet, share, & bookmark this post.
- Please review Wendy Spoon’s blog, and give her some feedback.
86 Comments
Well, I revamped the About page on LiveIntentionally.org on Day 1 when I did the elevator pitch. And I tweaked the sidebar here on Christian Web Trends about a week ago to add the "Top Posts" segment.
What I'm dying to do, though, is develop a completely new template for both blogs. I think they both look too cluttered. I just don't have the time to do that today.
But I do have a new post on LiveIntentionally.org for all the parents out there…
4 Things You’ll Never Be Able to Do as a Parent (and 4 Things You Can)
http://www.liveintentionally.org/2010/05/20/4-thi…
Whilst I semi agree that this blog is more cluttered than your other one, neither of them are that bad. Maybe just a tweak or two in colours to identify where the sidebar starts or similar.
So I figured out how to add tab pages on Blogger. Added an "About Me" page and a "Become a Jesus Follower" page that has the gospel message on it. This was a good exercise as it challenged me to find out how to do it. –Richard
Cool! I'll have to come check it out!
Man.. is it Thursday already? I have been a very bad boy and not done a single lesson this week.. Wrapped up in fixing a car, putting together a BBQ grill, preparing for our daughter's 4 year birthday party Saturday and etc..
Hoping to get back on the wagon later today..
My blog is brand new so it's not old enough really for me to evaluate what's working and what isn't. I will be changing some of the content on the static pages though.
I actually did some of this not long ago. I updated my "About" page. It really needed some updating. I also added a "Contact" page with my e-mail address and Twitter username on it. I changed WordPress themes too, added some widgets to the sidebar, and had some feedback that my blog was much easier to read!
My post today was "The Flip Side: When the Worst Happens" http://jenniferjanes.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/the…
~Jennifer
Hi Everyone,
I finally got two pages updated with the help of my Oldest–the real "techy" guy here. I added a Contact Me page with all of his cautions about not putting myself out there 🙂 I'm glad he watches out for his Mom.
And I updated my About Me page, calling it Getting to Know Me. Updated the About Me under my picture on the Home Page. Still want to add a blog descriptor and do some more work there.
Stop by and see the Updated Me:http://openmyearslord.blogspot.com
I'm DONE!!!
Janis
The evening is coming to a close again. I liked this lesson because it is something that I have been working on over the last while. I am finding that most of the suggestions made in these assignments will be completed over more than the span of this course.
Love this post….so true! I WISH I could make them have a 40yo brain sometimes=) Oh well…
Busy day–I like the idea, and will probably work on it tomorrow. I recently updated my about page–in fact, I did that on the first day when we were developing the little blurb thingy. I realized then that the "about" page needed changing. Plus, the theme, the header, and the name of the blog. "lol"
Anyway, I'd been thinking about adding a topical page for my commentary on 1 Corinthians and maybe some of my other types of posts as well, so I think that's what I'll work on.
Blessings, Cindy
OK I WAS inspired this time…really..
I have been wanting to start my funny fridays page and add it to my blog so here it is=)
Feel free to join FUNNY FRIDAYS…make us laugh
http://parentingtwinsandmore.com/2010/05/21/funny…
really nice information to get the best ranking in search engine like google, yahoo, bing