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1. leahzero
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   http://words.leahraeder.com/

   After a desperate, fruitless search for a theme that matched my three criteria (simple; classy; readable), I decided I was just going to have to design one myself.

   I hope I've succeeded in designing a pleasantly readable text-based site. Check out the Fiction section for examples of the custom post template for my short stories, with pull quotes on the side.

   Example post in Creative Writing category: "Disinherited"

   Example normal post with comments: Writer's notebooks: Moleskine & Rite in the Rain

   Still to do: style the archive and category pages.

2. FaithMechanic
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   Interesting, your site has a similar feel to mine, and our focus is similar - content, content, and content. Readability is key!

   I like your site and will bookmark it to see your progress. I want to track how you respond to things. Again, we seem to have a similar design attitude. I hope you agree and that you think that is positive.

   One immediate comment - your horizontal black separation bars seem to strong. They are overpowering the other page elements. They need to be strong enough to separate and organize but not too strong to detract.

   Sometimes, it is helpful to squint with your eyes at something and see what stands out. There should be balance, not mush, but balance.

   There is so much about your site that I like. Oh, whenever you create a link to another site, i.e. Moleskin (great notebooks by the way), have them open in another tab so you don't lose the individual to that other site.

   And another thing, I am learning that post/page titles are very very important for higher SEO. They need to be catchy to pull you in but they should pull from words and thoughts in the article. If someone were to find the article in a search, would words in the title be ones that they would think of using as keywords?

   Enough, God bless

   Rex

3. leahzero
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   Rex, thanks very much for your feedback.

   I changed all external links to open in a new window, as well as revised the description of the blog and included it in the title of each page for keyword purposes.

   I'll definitely consider the black bar issue; the style isn't final yet.

   Thanks again for your helpful suggestions!

4. FaithMechanic
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   Don't get me wrong. I like the black bars. They just might be too strong.

   One more SEO thought - having a central topic or theme helps in building a high search rating on that particular subject. If the topics are more varied or general it hurts, because your (keyword) emphasis is diluted. I get very high search ratings because my content is focused very heavily on things faith. So, any searches including the words hope, faith, word, etc., give me page one search results. I didn't do this on purpose; it just happened. Faith is my focus. Content is king, and focused content is divine.

   Still another thought, everyone says that a consistent content flow is absolutely essential. Keep the articles coming! Write them and schedule the publish dates for a consistent even release. I make sure that I release something every 2 or 3 days.

   The plugin Google XML Sitemaps works great, so does WordPress.com Stats in managing and tracking search results.

5. leahzero
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   Yep, good advice. I run WP.com Stats on all of my blogs. Planning to use Google XML Sitemaps soon too.

   I'm trying to be SEO-friendly without being too obnoxious about it. Since I'm not advertising or selling any products (yet), I'm not desperate to pull in readers. I'd prefer to gradually cultivate a readership that has high interest in my topic (reading/writing fiction). I advertise by posting quality comments on forums and blogs of similar topic. As the content continues to build, I don't anticipate any problems reaching a respectable position in search engines.

   (I ran another topic-oriented blog before this at my root domain, and this strategy worked well.)

   By the way, I'd be happy to take a look at your blog. I don't know if you're seeking feedback or not, but since you've been so helpful, I'd be pleased to return the favor.

6. FaithMechanic
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   I have no agenda. I like your site.

   Maybe you can add a section on zombie health tips, favorite zombie recipes, or a personal interest section highlighting zombies that you know who are struggling with incipient diabetes….just trying to help.

7. leahzero
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   That's brilliant. I may take you up on that suggestion. :D

8. Thomas Griffin
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   I'm definitely sending a few of my friends a link to this site. They are nuts about zombies, and I am sure they would love reading your stuff. I like the layout - stylish and easy to navigate.

9. directorysieve
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   that's a very nice blog, is it a custom theme?

   i see that a few of your posts on the homepage has snippets and is linked to the post page while some of them are displayed in full on the homepage, perhaps you can put read-more links to all the posts,

   also, why don't you add social bookmarking buttons on your blog, like facebook share and the retweet button, social media works nicely to bring more traffic to blogs :)

10. leahzero
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    @griffinjt - Awesome, thank you! I'm a zombie lover too--I'm writing a novel about them. :D

    @directorysieve - Yep, custom theme, based on the column layout of the Inverted Headline theme. I completely gutted it, redid the CSS, widgetized the footer, etc.

    I'm debating whether to use "read more" links on every long post. So far, I'm just using them on the short stories I post; normal blog posts show in full. It does feel like the front page is too long, though.

11. leahzero
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    Oh, and as for the social media bookmarks--my content is only interesting to a certain niche, and I don't want to clutter up my blog with social bookmarking links that will rarely get used. I prefer to build my audience the old-school way, by just linking to others and being an active commenter.

    Am considering a "tweet this" plugin at some point, though.

12. leahzero
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    Anyone know of a plugin that automatically uses the "read more" link for everything except the first post on the blog home page?

13. sonotaverage
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    First thought: Wow BLINDING! But maybe thats because I have a slight headache...

14. directorysieve
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    @leahzero, i don't think there is any plugin to do it, but certain themes can do it and if you are a bit of a coder you can manage it.

    You can put the readmore tag anywhere in the article and edit it anytime you wish, so you can do it manually,

15. leahzero
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    Thanks, directorysieve. I'm just doing as you suggested and manually adding the readmore tag to posts as they get older.

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