Readers, what can I do better?
I know I have readers, at the moment there are 75 people with my feed in their reader. I want to know what you, as a reader, want to see more of on this site.
More posts related to money? Financial aid/student loans? Entertainment?
What do you like best? What do you want me to stop posting about? How do you feel about weekend links posts?
I created this blog to entertain myself, but it’s turned into a blog with a pretty good following and I want to keep my readers happy. I have some current ideas and I’d appreciate some feedback on them, as well as anything else you want to say.
To Do List
- Upgrade Wordpress
- Change the nofollow plugin to Link Love plugin
- Add more plugins, such as DomTab for recent comments/top commentators/something else
- Add MyBlogLog readers widget
I was also toying with the idea of changing the layout. I get bored so very easily with my layouts and always want to change them, but I was thinking for this site, I’d just change the sidebar area around a little.
Please, readers and new visitors, would you please give me some feedback. Thanks.
This page was last modified on November 10, 2007 @ 12:18 am
7 Responses
I’m actually new; I added your feed to Google Reader today, actually. I like the layout although I obviously won’t be seeing much of it thanks to RSS. I’d love to see some more personal finance/money related posts…I’m a huge fan of Get Rich Slowly, The Simple Dollar, etc., which are all great and offer good advice to college students. But at the same time, I’m also definitely interested in hearing from other college students about their habits and tips/tricks. I feel like that’s really useful.
Also, more productivity! Maybe some examples or explanations on how you set up your work day and follow that up with questions that provoke readers to comment on their own schedules or systems.
Weekend links posts are a great idea, I think; you might get some more trackback pings and find yourself getting more traffic and vice versa.
Hope that helps! I really like your blog so far, and you’re doing a fantastic job.
Just like the previous commenter, I too have just stumbled across your blog (and immediately added it).
For me, the finance stuff is interesting but not that useful. Generally, finance tips only apply to readers in the USA, which is likely to be the majority of your audience, but don’t forget about those of us from abroad (tied into that, don’t forget that many of us don’t understand °F and the imperial system because we prefer °C and the metric system).
I think productivity and the like would be a great area to focus on, there are many productivity blogs out there, but none really cater to the academic setting (which I find surprising).
I have nothing against link posts, a post is better than no post. The layout is fine, but I’m not too hot on the clock icon (the favicon looks great, but the smiling clock is giving me the creeps… just me though). Don’t fret too much about the layout, because those 75 readers are looking at the feed, not your blog per se.
Anyway, best of luck with your blog.
I wouldn’t ditch the layout, I think it is amazing. I personally think you would spend countless hours on a new one and it wouldn’t come close to this one. Your current theme is easy to read and organized.
I suggest you make a survey trough an online survey maker and ask your readers to complete that. That way you can get everyones opinion on specific issues. I asked stuff such as their thoughts on advertising, which category they liked the most, etc. I got a lot of people to do it, because they didn’t have to write anything, rather just choose check-boxes.
I am going to be conducting another reader survey soon, and I am toying with the idea of offering some kind of freebie at the end as an incentive for people to participate.
I think you should also spruce up your sidebar. Put stuff like the MyBlogLog widget or the Amazon widget that are not essential to readers.
Upgrading Wordpress would be a big plus. Tags are great, although the related posts plugin does help with not having those so it’s not really urgent on that front.
I’m iffy on MyBlogLog. It doesn’t really look all that great, and doesn’t really tell you all that much. Mostly though, it just counts people who are also MyBlogLog members so it can give a false impression that you don’t have a lot of readers.
Thanks so much! I’ll take these into account this week. I’m planning on making most of these changes sometime this week. Hopefully I can upgrade Wordpress and get rid of the upgrade kinks with the layout/plugins (if there are any) by this weekend.
As far as the clock - I was trying to create some kind of logo, but I agree it is kind of weird. I think I might just add the graduation cap to the letters TCK…I tried that out in a banner and liked how it looked.
I’ll keep in mind everyone likes productivity.
Think the design is good and would agree with other comments that the clock is a little weird.
I actually like the clock. The hands look sort of like a mustache.