80 thoughts on “Are you Maximizing your Blog’s Visual Appeal Using Widgets?”

  1. This month I’m having a complete website re-do to usher in the new year and to maximize my blog’s visual appeal as you aptly point out. Today, as a matter of fact, I’m revising my “About” page with a freshbio. I’ve outgrown what’s there, so it needs updating.

    Like you, I’m irked when the blogger keeps his/her name a secret. You are off to a great start, Debby, sharing from your heart as you love to do – thank you! xo

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    1. Thanks so much Marian. And I do know what you mean about revising bios. I’m sure come spring, I’ll be revising mine yet again. Especially with every new book that comes out, those bios have to be tweaked, not only on the blog but on all social media accounts. That’s where a secretary would come in handy, lol. 🙂 ❤

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  6. Debby, these are all fantastic tips and tricks. Until recently, I didn’t know really how the dash board worked. I had to do a lot of trial and error, mostly error, ha ha. This is also a good reminder to update the About page. Thanks so much for the great info you share 😀

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    1. Oh good Lana, I’m glad this post was helpful to you. I think many of us learn by trial and error, that’s why I like to share what I’ve learned to help others. If it wasn’t for the kindness of others sharing their own blogging findings I wouldn’t have learned the ropes either. That’s what community is about. 🙂

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  7. Pingback: Smorgasbord Blogger Daily – Tuesday January 3rd 2017 – Blog invites,Tips and guests | Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life

  12. Thanks Debby I probably do most of these things, but I have to say I never understood the “press this” button. Great post and good information.

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    1. Hi Barbara, thanks for visiting. And I’m glad to hear you’re already using some of my tips and now have more insight into the ‘press this’ tool. 🙂

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  13. This is very informative and has pertinent advice, Debby! The About page should also change if the author of the blog has changed his or her direction. I started with one goal, chose a harder one and finally became more “accessible” as my marketing and communications college graduate daughter told me, “More people will read it, if you have pictures!” 🙂
    I also agree, saying something meaningful in comments rather than many times people simply press “like” or say, “Nice job!” There isn’t much to “connect with” in those choices.
    It is fine to say a light hearted comment, too. Humor makes distance between people evaporate! 😀

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    1. Thanks Robin. I see you’re on top of your game with the About Page, it’s just like an author bio, with each new book and more accumulated experience and accolades, these bios occasionally need overhauls. And yes, a little humor goes a long way. 🙂 ❤

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      1. I like the comparison between a writing blogger and a real book author. This is helpful to make our “About” more accessible yet professional. 🙂
        Humor is something I am still learning how to express through words, Debby. My family usually goofs around using physical or facial expressions. One out of seven adults is good at telling jokes! 😀

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      2. Laughter is the best medicine Robin. I’m glad you found this post helpful. Also, I fished you out of spam, WP does that sometimes, so it’s important to check spam frequently too. I saw your comment twice, so I know you had trouble commenting, thanks for trying twice. 🙂

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  14. WONDERFUL reminders (and I especially appreciated the links to a few how-tos). NOW, if you could only give us a few more hours in every day to have time to DO everything we want to!
    xx,
    mgh
    (Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMore dot com)
    – ADD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder –
    “It takes a village to educate a world!”

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      3. I’d keep it to myself for a few days or so to get caught up – THEN I’d share it with other folks who really need it — and FINALLY with the world (well, the kind & generous people in the world, anyway – selfish 1%-ers already manage way too well with their paid staff) 🙂
        xx, mgh

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    1. I haven’t added it to my blog yet, only because I need to rearrange my sidebar and having stepped up to the challenge on that one yet as a priority, but I will. Just go in your dashboard >widgets and you will find it there, and you can just add it wherever you like, sidebar, before a post, wherever you like. 🙂

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  17. Excellent post Debby…. Attractiveness is extremely important. Btw… Have you checked out my goodreads widget? I just updated it. ?

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  18. very interesting and useful post(reminder) for bloggers, but as you know, I have a playground, not a real blog… 😀
    * * *
    my very best for 2017: health, joy, love, serenity and… tons of inspiration, of course! 🙂
    bonne et heureuse année, friendly hugs & cheers! 🙂

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    1. Thanks so much Melanie for dropping by and leaving your good wishes! Most appreciated, and Bonne et heureuse annee to you too my friend. Big hugs back! 🙂 ❤

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  19. It is truly surprising how many bloggers don’t do this, which is the very basics of blogging. When I participate to blog events (notably the AtoZ Challenge) and I visit many new blogs a day, I find that a noticable part of them don’t have any means to share the blog post easily. Many don’t have an about page. Many don’t have a way of contacting the blogger. Some don’t even sport social media links.
    It’s a true pity, becuase sometimes I’m not able to follow a blogger because I don’t know how to do it.

    So thanks very much for sharing this 🙂

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    1. Thanks so much for visiting and sharing your thoughts. These are the reasons I thought I should mention these basics. After all, we spend the time creating our blogs, we do want people to read them and hopefully connect with us. Not leaving a means to connect won’t bring back those same readers. And it’s important for other bloggers to be familiar with available tools in the dashboard, particularly, the ‘press this’ tool which allows us to reblog a blog from a self hosted site (such as mine) which aren’t afforded a ‘reblog’ button 🙂

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  20. Fantastic tips, Debby, that hit all those blogging nails right on the head. The ‘about me’ page is so important, but also needs to be easy to find. If I haven’t found it within 20 seconds, I usually give up and move on and away from the blog. So, another tip, make sure the ‘about me’ page is easy to find. ?

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    1. Thanks for the seal of approval Hugh, lol. I know you’ve talked about some of these points in your blogging tips. I thought by sharing my own findings it may help people with their blogs and in turn be more visible in the community. 🙂

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      1. I agree, Debby. The more we share these tips the more help we’ll give, especially to those new to blogging. We all remember coming here for the first time. Finding those first posts that contained blogging tips was like a breath of fresh air that kept us going. Keep on publishing them.

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      2. You’re so right! There’s so much to blogging that we could spend years learning, especially SEO, but best to start with basics to grow. 🙂

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  21. These are all great tips Debby – I think I’m doing most of them. When I started I didn’t use my name or photo, but it didn’t take long for me to realize how much I enjoy seeing who other bloggers are and it deepens the connection as soon as you have a name and face to put to the writer of the blog.

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      1. I realized something after commenting. It takes forever to go anywhere else on your site, Deb, after putting up a comment; the page spins endlessly. I don’t mind if you edit out this part of my feedback or even remove it altogether (feel free) but it hit me that perhaps it’s the number of widgets that’s delaying things over there. I plan to visit other posts on your blog but am held up, and juggling other tabs that are open on my screen before being called away by family, it is too late in the day when I get back to do anything else. I know prob’s not on my end bc I don’t have this trouble on other blogs. Hope this helps.

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      2. Thanks for letting me know this Diana. I will look into it. Ironically, I can bounce around from page to page on my blog with not glitch. But there were some problems on my site last week where I didn’t even have the patience to be on my own blog. I”m just playing with some new SEO now, so please do let me know if this persists next time, I appreciate it. Is this just recent? Gosh, I hope so. 😦

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      4. That is strange. But I remember a few months ago a few blogging friends were having trouble and found it was their antivirus that wasn’t playing nice with my site and they had to manually allow by typing my site in. There were 2 people and they both used McAfee. Other than that, I can’t find the problem as of yet. I’ll keep searching. Thanks. 🙂

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  23. A very beneficial post Debby. Some good reminders for me to smarten up, I really do need to update my ‘about’ page. We seem to be evolving all the time and a good gauge is how quickly our ‘about’ page gets outdated.
    Loving your posts on the Blogger’s Pit Stop
    Kahtleen

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  24. Thank you. I also look for an about author page and feel frustrated if I can’t find the author’s name or anything about them. A good name such as Sally’s is helpful, too, but I still want to know about Sally. I like a to know something about the writer. With that in mind, my site is set up for easy navigation to a page about me and from there my resume, list of publications, etc. (Gotta check to make sure the about page me is up to date, so thanks for reminder.

    Avatar? Check. I also put lots of information in a wide page format with the blog being one column–but I think it’s important not to get too cluttered or have too many pop-ups going on. (Showing my age here.)

    I never got the exact share button set-up I preferred because each WordPress format comes with a set of possibilities. What I have is fine, but I like yours better.

    And in the end, I’m never sure when a post will be a semi-dud, popular, or super popular. I simply post what appeals to me and where I feel my own creative energy. Hence, lots of photos for me.

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    1. Elaine, your blog is beautiful. It’s easy to navigate and I’d never consider any one of your posts ‘a dud’. We are writers, we must write what comes to us, sure everything won’t appeal to everyone, but that doesn’t make it a dud. I like to think of my variety of posts as ‘there’s something for everyone’. 🙂
      Oh, btw, I remember you asking me awhile back about Twitter cards and I think you got it working with Yoast? I recently upgraded my SEO with a different plugin and was pleasantly surprised to find the availability of Twitter cards. 🙂

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  25. Debby, I agree an “About” page is important. I look for it before deciding to subscribe to blogs. I have tried to apply most of your tips in my blogs, and I’ve been redoing a lot of my widgets lately. There is always something to improve or a post to update.

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    1. Thanks so much Barbara. That is so true, as we add things to our bios and social activities there will occasionally be things to add and update. They key is not to forget to ‘clean house’ once in awhile on our blogs too as it is basically like our office. 🙂

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  26. Great Advice…Im new to blogging and absolutely love it and I love reading others. I have so many favourites i’s sometimes hard to keep up. Thanks for sharing this..it will really help

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    1. Thanks for stopping by! I’m glad you found this post helpful. And yes, the more you enjoy blogging and communing with others, it does become overwhelming to keep up. We all have to find our best method of how we organize our blogging time. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. 🙂

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  27. Great tips Debby. reminds me to go and review my Avatar and About Page. Like you, I look for these first so I have a sense of who the author is and what they are blogging about. I get a number of new followers who have no information at all – I get they are new, but there is absolutely nothing I can do to even thank them for the follow. Surprisingly many also have no options for likes or comments.

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    1. So glad you found this post useful Raili. It makes sense right? It’s the foundation for growing our blogs I believe. I hope by spreading my blogging tips around that perhaps other new bloggers will catch on. Thank you for visiting. 🙂

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  29. Nicely done, Debby. It’s hard enough for me to keep up with the blogs I follow and write a good blog every now and again. I know I should review my blog and update it—do a bit of Spring Cleaning on it. But that seems like work. Work that will feel so good once it’s done, I know! 😉

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  30. You’ve got lots of great advice in this article, Debby. I won’t respond to each one, but will pick one that rather irks me when I am reading blogs. If I read a post I enjoy, then I like to share it on social media. So many bloggers don’t add their name or handle to the generated share. I rarely share them if they don’t. The bloggers wouldn’t know if their post has been shared, and no one would know who it’s by. I have sometimes contacted bloggers (privately) to inform them of the omission, but most do not change it. I’m not sure why. It doesn’t seem to make sense to me.That’s my rant! 🙂

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    1. Thanks Norah, for chiming in. I’m so with you on that point. And I’ve written posts about the importance of adding our names to our share buttons to get credit and obtain more views, but some people aren’t quite well versed in the techy part of the backend of their blogs, and there are others who write merely for the pleasure of blogging itself and don’t really care about gaining traffic. We can only offer our suggestions – you know the old saying: ‘You can lead a horse to water . . .’ LOL 🙂

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  31. Pingback: Blogger's Pit Stop #56 | Mostly Blogging

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