Years ago I watched Morgan Spurlock's film Super Size Me. If you are not familiar with it, Spurlock documented himself eating nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days and tracked the consequences. They were not good. If you haven't seen it, highly recommend. That was years ago, and I haven't eaten McDonald's food since.
Anyway - the more relevant and ironic takeaway for today's purposes is that Mr. Spurlock supplanted my addiction to McDonald's French fries with one for 30-day projects. I love the idea of sampling something new for a relatively brief period of time to see what effect it has, hopefully positive. I dabbled with something similar a few times during Lent (raised Protestant, Lent was something of a novelty to me). I participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) a few times, completing the 50,000 word challenge all but once. I tried the 30 day Abs, Squats, Arms, Whatever fitness challenges online - failed all but always willing to try again!
So when I read an article by Darren Rowse +ProBlogger suggesting bloggers take a few minutes each day and browse other blogs, I plugged that into the 30-day model.
Rowse suggested this not to copy others' work, but to see what's out there, what others are doing, what looks like it's working and what isn't, all of which should improve our own efforts. I took his advice. I enjoyed the process. After 30 days of blog hopping, I can now do it fairly quickly so that it is a productive part of my routine rather than a rabbit hole. Here's what I learned.
Blog v website - First things first: let's clarify. When people say they have a blog, what exactly do they mean? Many of the sites I visited called themselves blogs, but they had all kinds of other pages included - merch for sale, bio, photo albums, links, you name it. On the flip side, many authors have robust websites that include one section classified as a blog. Okay, that's pretty straightforward. However. Often the home page to these combined sites is identical to the page you see when you click on their 'blog' link. So is the whole site a blog? Or just the pages that have posts and comments? So confused! Until I found 30 or Something's blog. It is a BLOG and nothing else. Every page is just posts and comments. That site really clarified things for me. Plus I LOVE their header design and how their blog topics are organized into individual tabs/pages.
Layouts - I discovered I don't like things too crowded. I prefer a large area for the blog posts and a right margin for the other stuff. I don't know why, but I just can't get with the marginalia on the left. I use WordPress via Bluehost, so the layouts are very simple to rearrange IMO. Spend some time playing around with it and use the Preview function to see if you likey before you save.
Favicon - while I was fiddling around with my layout, I noticed one area I had overlooked/ignored for years. The favicon is the little icon that appears on the browser tab when that tab is open to one of your site's pages. For instance, when you have a Twitter tab open, there is a little blue bird on that tab. It's just another way of branding. All you need is a small graphic, ideally your logo or something strongly related to your site or blog. Setting this up is a little different depending on your hosting site, so some Googling may be in order.
Social media bar - early on I didn't know what this was, nor did I care. But once I started upping my engagement game and actually wanted to follow people across their social media beyond just their website, it became huge. A social media bar in an obvious location really makes it easy for people to engage with you. Put another way, if I have to spend more than about thirty seconds hunting down your social media presences on your site, . . . NEXT! It's a pretty easy fix on most hosting sites. Just look for social media navigation. As Mike Allton says in this great article, it costs me nothing.
Backgrounds - Here's where I get into trouble. Ask me how many hours I have dawdled trying out new backgrounds for my website. During the 30-day challenge, I saw so many other great blog designs that I like! I gravitate towards color, but I also enjoy a well-designed minimalist/streamlined look. So often, beginners go a little crazy with too many choices and end up with a mishmash mess. My early websites were way too busy and loud. As you can see, I've let the design pendulum swing in the other direction for now.
Page jump - On several blogs I saw during the challenge, I noticed many had snippets of past articles (rather than the entire article) listed on the home page. I learned from this article by Rachel Sprung at Hubspot that these are called 'listing pages'. A listing page will give a sample of many blog posts, with 'read more' or continue' links that will take you to the full post if it strikes your fancy. I've been away from Blogger for a couple of years, so I'm not sure if this article is still relevant. But it did the trick for me. I'm able to do something similar here by selecting the previous post display format that suits me.
Subscription links - back to Mr. Allston's advice, adding an email subscribe gadget costs me nothing. May help, couldn't hurt. I copied the html code from my MailChimp account, and I insert it at the bottom of each new post. Subscribers will receive a newsletter from me whenever I get around to publishing one. Note this is separate from the subscription link to this blog, which notifies subscribers each time there's a new post.
Comments - last but not least, let's not forget the point of a blog hop: engagement. While you're scoping out other blogs for ideas, if you see a blog topic that interests you, take a sec and leave a comment. The wheel of karma will thank you.
30 days of #ablogaday was exhausting yet productive. No doubt there are other intangibles I gained, but that's enough for now. I enjoyed finding so many great new blogs and am very pleased with this new addition to my daily writing/blogging routine. Way more fun than the 30 Day Ab Challenge, but it didn't do much for my muffin top . . .
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Lots of good points. I think I'll try the 30-day blog hopping.
You can even do a week or whatever number suits your fancy. Presently I'm just doing the #MondayBlogs, but I always find something fun.
Great takeaway bits you've listed. I had blog hopped quite a bit in the past but haven't done much of that lately. You're results show me that this is a thing I need to do periodically. Thanks!
Never a bad idea to build up a little good karma 🙂
As someone who is just starting out in the blogging world, I found this rather helpful. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks and good luck!
I love Darren Rowse and have followed him even before I had a blog. I know his 30 Day model is great. Thanks for the reminder that I need to invest that 30 days again. The Favicon is top on the list
I'm a sucker for any type of hack. Always on the lookout.