One of my
Birth of a Novel goals this week was to decide on my new blog labels. Labels can be used by readers to more easily find the thing they are looking for so keeping them organized is important.
Laura Barnes states this often in her blog critiques. From reading these critiques, I have learned that some bloggers struggle with this so I decided to write a post describing my process in the hopes that it would help. :)
- Labels describe what your posts are about. Take the time to consider what you blog about, starting with the broadest categories then dividing those up into smaller and smaller topics. This will be the basis for your labels.
If you want, you can create a diagram like the one below.
- On your Blogger dashboard, there is an icon with an arrow next to it at the top. If you click on the arrow and go down to "Layout" you can change the features of your Labels widget by clicking "edit" in the box that represents that widget. In the edit dialog box, there is an area marked "Show." This feature allows you to decide whether or not all your labels should be displayed on your Label widget and, if not all, which ones.
Decide which of your prospective labels is important enough to be displayed and which ones, while you will still use them and have them show up on your posts, are not. Note that you do not have to use every subject matter you wrote down if you decide against it.
If you are using the diagram, I suggest using different colored highlighters to help you with this.
- Once you have done step two, make sure all of your labels are named in a way that you like and that makes it clear to the reader what kind of posts the labels will lead them to.
- If you're just starting your blog, get to writing posts you can attach your labels to!
If you've already got an established blog, you have a bit more work ahead of you. You can't just start using your labels for every post you write from now on. You must go back and rewrite the labels for the posts you have already written as well. I assure you, however, that the work will be worth it to have a more efficient blog.
I will be working on doing that last step myself in the next month or so.
I tend to have in my 'label cloud' just the things listed that I'm currently working on, generally a small handful of labels (maybe no more than 15-20). Some things will stay permanent, i.e. my "Reading" label, but when I start new goals I will have a new label for that year's goals, and remove the one from last year's. and yet the label from last year still exists on my posts where I talked about that year's goals.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your process as well, Trisha. :) Also, thank you for being the one to turn me on to the fact that not all of your labels have to be shown.
DeleteI would approach creating a blog differently based on what I know now if I were to do it again. But I'd focus first on the appearance of the blog. There's so much stuff you can do with HTML to make a blog look super nice, but doing it after the fact is risky because it can really mess up your blog template.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to do another one on blogspot, I'd make sure it had all that stuff from the get go. It'd have the super cool Flash header or an accordian slider for news (you see these on Wordpress). But I'm not going to install any of that now because I don't want to destroy my template and have to reload it.
If you really wanted to change it, Michael, you could always experiment on another "test" blog to make sure something works before uploading it to your for real blog.
DeleteI have changed my blog appearance many times, but I think I'm finally set on this template. It's pretty. :)
You're so organized! I could really learn a lesson from you and work on this. I guess it makes a good December post NaNo project though!
ReplyDeleteI have to be or it drives me absolutely insane! And yes, it does. Have to stay busy, busy, busy.
DeleteThis is a really good idea, Brooke! I admire you so much! Keep up the good work. :)
ReplyDeleteSince I have a wordpress blog I just use categories and tags to label mine. I don't think there is a special widget for labels. Do you know about it?
I watched your vlogs, Brooke, and the sound was really low and of poor quality. Anything you can do to fix it? Now or in the future? Just so you know. Thanks for being the guinea pigs on this. :)
ReplyDeleteI've never used Wordpress so I don't know if they have a widget that displays all the labels you use. I would try a Google search though because it can be a useful search tool for readers.
DeleteAnd yes, I know the sound is not the best. :/ The microphone on my camera is very small. I've been working on speaking louder when I use it, but sometimes I forget...
What a great idea! Thanks for the tip because my labels are looking out of control.
ReplyDeleteGlad I could help, Charity. :)
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