Major Redesign of Blog!! Please Subscribe and Follow!!

Today I had the opportunity to work “behind the scenes” on my blog site, with the ultimate goal to make the site more user-friendly.

This is the second major redesign of the site over the past year (last year I switched from the default WordPress 2014 theme to the default WordPress 2015 theme. That update probably took a good five minutes to implement, but thinking about whether to do it or not took a couple of weeks.)

At first glance, you may not notice anything different about the web site, but upon closer inspection, you will notice that there are two significant changes that have been made to the site.

First, there is now a place where you can subscribe to the blog. This enables you to receive all new posts automatically in your email account – no more worries about forgetting to check my web site or Facebook account to see when I have posted that day’s blog.

After I lamented back in October about the lack of subscribers to my blog, Suzy Taylor Oakley, who has two great blogs at To Well With You and Suzy and Spice, pointed out to me that my site did not have a Subscribe form.  I guess it’s hard to get subscribers when there’s no way for someone to sign-up as a subscriber. It’s also hard to get subscribers when a few, some, many, most of the posts are nonsensical.

So even though it took less than three minutes to add the subscriber button to my site, there was a lot of thought (and procrastination) that went into finally deciding where it should be placed so that I could optimize the site for CSS, CTR, CPA, CPM, CPC, geo-targeting, PPC, RSS, ROI, SEM, SEO, and XML.

The second change was that I added buttons that link to my Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts in case you would like to follow me on any or all of those platforms. Like adding the subscriber button, this change also involved adding a widget to my sidebar, typing in my account name for those three services, and hitting Save. Total time, two minutes.

Looking back on my day, it’s amazing how I was able to take a five-minute task, spread it out so that it took up most of my day, and then have the nerve to write about it.

Anyway, I’d be honored if any of you would try out these new features. I think I’ve found the key to getting thousands, hundreds, dozens, more than seven followers.