Do you have a blog?

Do you want more traffic?

Below are portions from our Facebook group where we feature different mom blogs daily. Our aim is to:

• Drive traffic to her blog
• Give her great feedback
• Share her content on social media
• Give her a little income boost by clicking on her ads

Click here to join our Facebook group today & your mom blog might be featured tomorrow!

Mom Blogs: Week 1

July 22, 2015: Family Vacations US

• I love your blog! The header and tagline are great. The clickable map is awesome and I loved the bright colors. The only things I would suggest is a subscription (I'm working on this for my blog too), pinnable images, and maybe pinning a tweet you want retweeted to your twitter account.
• I like your site. I agree with previous suggestions. A pinned tweet on your twitter account would be good. I would suggest you use the Great Wolf Lodge post for that. I would also suggest doing more linky parties for comments and the possibilities of feature on other sites. I left you two comments to get it started. Comments will show more engagement and features will raise your SEO. I would also suggest guest posting. This will help raise your SEO. I will be glad to talk to you about guest posting on my site. I also have a question for you. On the social media shares bar on the left hand margin – are you able to control the message?
• I see you ladies sharing links to the site on Twitter.
• Thank you guys! I haven't added a subscription because I find the pop ups really annoying so I need to figure out a plug in for just the side bar.
• These are the kinds of “pinnable” images she's talking about. They are a specific size, with a little writing, so people can pin & save & share on Pinterest (Pinterest = FREE marketing!). You can use a free website called CANVA to create & they have the Pinterest dimensions already pre-set.

• 


I love your blog. It's so fun and very informative. I think that the interactive map is great. I love that you can choose your state and find information on it. I am from Wyoming and so I clicked on it. Great ideas for places to see in Wyoming. I could share many more ideas for vacation in Wyoming with you. I pinned all your pics on the Wyoming one. I think that a subscription to your blog would establish good group of followers coming to your site all the time. I use Hello Bar at a subscription for my followers. It sends out an email with updated posts. Pinterest is so important for bloggers. Its a easy way to promote your blog. Use pinterest lots!!!
• 

Do you just have the one ad running?? I thought since I was there, I might as well click on your ads….
• I just have one ad. I don't do ad sense or anything like that.
• I love your site! How will you be getting content? Guest contributions or your own experiences? Just curious.
• We are always open to guest content so if anyone wants to shoot something over I am SUPER willing to feature that and give you a link back. A lot of it is on my own experiences or the experiences of my friends.
• Oh, I love your blog! The concept is great and it looks great! I'll be sharing your stuff! Also, As soon as I went to your site I saw the subscribe box to my right so I think it works! I'm with you about the pop ups. I know they are said to work but I can't make myself do it.
• Gals- I am so thankful for all of the feedback today. It was all so valuable and I have started implementing the things that we have discussed. I am looking forward to looking at all of your sites and offering help where I can! Also, if anyone wants to do a guest post I am totally open to that.
• 

Very well written. Love how candid you are! Love the button to add me to an email list when I left a comment. My recommendations are really around mobile use… Not sure what control you have but the map click (which was super cool) didn't work on my iPhone – I also love visuals. I think you could go with 20-25% more images in your posts… And make them pinnable. Thank u for letting us in your world!!!
• So when I talked about pinning a tweet we were talking about doing it on your twitter account. Here is how it is done. http://www.wikihow.com/Pin-a-Tweet-to-Your-Twitter-Home-Page

July 23, 2015: Adventures of a Cavemom

• I love your site, we tried to do Paleo for a while but I couldn't handle it! Your site makes me want to consider doing it again. I like the clean look. I do have a few suggestions: Instead of showing the whole post can you make it only show a snippet? It just makes the home page a bit long. I see that you are hosting with hostgator and your fabricon is that dinoguy, I would change that to something more you. If you need help I can help you with that!
• I have no idea how to do any of the formatting stuff. I can't pay for a custom layout yet, so I'm trying to make the best out of this free one. Any help you could offer, would be greatly appreciated.
• Are you in wordpress?
• I didn't see a comment spot on your page, but I used my mobile to look at it. Also, there's a lot of pop up advertising…which for me makes me want to close the site. I did enjoy the clean presentation and the little quotes for comments…cute.
• I loved it, I thought it was very clean, your pictures looked great and I enjoyed the stories that went along with your recipes.
• Some really neat recipes, the cucumber sandwich is great. I would consider moving the subscribe / follow me to the top right and keep together. Maybe even highlight in a box to help viewers find you more easily.
• You have a gorgeous website! It is a very clean presentation and easy to navigate. The only suggestion I would say is I had a hard time finding your ‘Follow Me” area on the main page. I actually clicked on Contact Me tab to find your social media.
• I've just been to your site, and I have to say the template you are using is so clean and pretty! Just a few things I picked up as a website graphic designer, though. Small things, but it might help improving the ease-of-use of your website:

1. Include HOME/BLOG link in your navigation. People might know how to go back to your blog (by clicking your logo), but you want their navigating experience as easy as possible. If you can help it, don't let them think when it comes to navigation.
2. Side bar: put archives in drop down menu if the option if available with your template – this will free up some space for your side bar.
3. Side bar: put a picture and a short intro about you on the top of side bar – you want people to have a sense of who you are.
4. Side bar: you have a lot of categories. Do you think it's possible to put them together with the navigation bar at the top so that's the first thing readers will see? They are the teasers of your content. If possible, group them further and use drop down menu for more concise navigation.
5. Put bloglovin', RSS feed and other social media follows together. This will make people easier to see what are their options when they decide to follow.
6. Is there any particular reason why you display comments on the side? If I were you I would scrap this one so I could free more space for recent posts.
7. Include pictures with your recent posts list. And when we're at it, include pinterest widget and possibly instagram (haven't done this myself, but I'd love to one day ;-))
8. There is this one thing that might just be personal but I feel that displaying link party banners on the side bar will clutter the page one day, especially if you attend a lot of parties. I saw a lot of bloggers put links to the parties they attend in one page, marked clearly in the main navigation
9. You might want to consider having your personal logo made in the future so your blog will have more personality graphically. Having a logo custom made could be expensive, but if you take a look at Etsy.com you might be able to personalise a ready-to-use logo for a relatively cheap price.
10. This is just purely aesthetic, but you might want to consider having your pictures set up full width, At least 600 pixel. They will have more impact to your written content. Remember, pictures worth a thousand words.

• Your site looks great! I pinned your paleo cinnamon coffee cake to my “good eats” board on Pinterest (because I seriously want some). When I clicked the Pinterest button to share it, two of the same image came up. One had an actual title and the other had an image name like: random letters and numbers dot jpeg. The only suggestion I have (which I need to start following myself) is that you make sure your images have titles you would want to show on Pinterest. I love the left sidebar sharing. It made it really easy to share in multiple places quickly!
• What are a hostgator and a fabricon? It's great you know the blogging platform so you can help her this is a new one for me! I agree with you on summarizing on the home page.
• I love your voice in your writing. I just now got the cavemon/paleo connection. Maybe I am slow. I am a big believer in “contact me” pages. I would also add a “home” page as not every one knows how to get back to the home page by clicking the header. How about adding little “You might also like” links at the bottom of each post? I don't know what your bounce rate is but mine is terrible. One last thing. I tried the link in the coffee cake post and it takes you away form your blog. I am a strong believer that every link going outside the blog should open in a new window. I try to lose as few readers as possible. And this is posed more as a question to the group than a suggestion. The post says she found the recipe on Pinterest. What about the link going to her Pinterest board pin than the other blog? If it goes to her Pinterest board she will get more traffic there and maybe some followers. But would it irritate you the reader to have one more click to get the recipe? Your blog is great. These may seem like a lot of items but they are all little and cosmetic. I am very intrigued by your store page.
• Yes, I'm in WordPress. There is so much great feedback coming in!!
• I love your blog and your writing. I agree with the other that it has a really clean look! My suggestions are to have more pinnable images and to pin a tweet on your Twitter page. Also, I couldn't find a place to comment on your posts. The only other thing I can think of is to have a home page to navigate back too on your menu. I can't figure out how to change my Fabricon (thanks for telling me what it's called) either. Is this something that's easy to change?
• Pinned it!!! I'm reading a book right now called ‘Cave women don't get fat'….kinda just getting into the paleo thing. Your site will be a great resource
• The comment section only shows up when you click on the post title. I have tried to fix it, but I can't seem to get it work. Although, if I can change things to show just a preview, then people would be clicking on the posts anyway, and the comment box would be there.
• WOW! Such fantastic feedback. I am going to have to re-read a few of these comments to fully digest some of your suggestions (and incorporate them into my site!!!). For the website comments issue, I use a plugin called Disqus which helps weed out spam & I find easy to use.
• On the logo idea… pic monkey and canva are two great free places to make logos!!! I'm using them right now. Might take you awhile but cheaper than paying someone to create something they have to try and extract from your head wink emoticon I LOVE the post! Your humor is right up my alley wink emoticon Your niche is a great one to get i to…everybody's looking for stuff like this! Try editing your photo – or retaking it – to lighten it up, make it sharper, to make it more pinnable. Hope this helps!!
• Suggested you get a graphic for your header. I agree! A few inexpensive options are to use fivver.com. I purchased my graphic for branding from there. Each one cost $5. (header, logo for Sew Book Inspired, business card design and a few other ideas were just $5 a request) I have several blogging buddies who use PicMonkey to design their own I have no talent in that regard (either technically or artistically. Now for my secret plan, I hate pictures and I look awful in them. I am going to use fivver to either airbrush a pic or do a caricature for me for my “about” info. I am going for airbrush if they can airbrush me into Meryl Streep or someone equally as beautiful.
• I would try my hand at pic monkey, but it's not tablet friendly. I had a water mishap a few months ago with my laptop, so I have been trying to make due with a kindle until we can get a new one. It has not been the easiest to do, in terms of even basic photo editing, but I am plugging away at it.
• I also clicked on all of your ads. I've been trying to make it a habit to click the ads of each blog I visit.
• Thank you so much! When I first joined this group, and Saira Perl checked out my blog, she clicked on my ads. It was such a wonderful thing to see, so I try to do it when I look at blogs now.
• I also had a mishap with my laptop quite a while back and just did everything I needed to do on my ipad. Then when I started blogging it became clear that it would be so much easier on a laptop. I finally did get a cheap laptop (as cheap as I could) and regretted it. That monster now sits at home for the purposes of digital storage and I do all my blogging from a Chromebook. I got it on sale for $150 at Walmart and I can use PicMonkey, WordPress.org – all the web based stuff you can do on a laptop. The only thing I can't do is video edit. Just a thought if you are looking for something more affordable and if you have a google account already.
• Really? I had ruled the idea of a chromebook out because I thought that they fell into the “mobile device” category and would give me limited functionality. Thanks for the tip!!!
• Wow some amazing input coming in! You'll have enough to do for the next week lol. Now I'm going to give you some more work smile emoticon I suggest you add the many contacts bar on the top of your blog, it works on mobile and tablets too. This will increase your subscriptions (which means repeat visitors/increase in traffic). ps. I “yummed” your recipe, I'm very intrigued by paleo..
• I am trying to improve things as we go today. I am still trying to figure out how to edit my top navigation to include a home page, but I figured some of the other things out. wink emoticon
• What a great site! I have recently taken out dairy and am so excited to learn more about other ways to cook! smile emoticon
• The MANY CONTACTS bar is super easy. You go to their site, add your site name and they send you the code to paste in your header.
• Wow, what a knowledgeable group! So many things I didn't know about. I don't have a lot to add, I love your site layout. The food looks so good but maybe have larger images and vertical images for pinning.
• To create a homepage just create a page and title it home then add it to your menu. If you are using WordPress you can go to Settings-Reading and set Front Page Displays to a static page. Next to Posts Page: select Home. I hope that makes sense. This is how I did it and I don't know if there are other ways.
• I love your website. It has great recipes on it. One thing that I think that would be helpful is large images. People love images. Also have a pin it button on your images, so that it is easier for people to pin them. I pinned one of your recipes, tweeted it. Oh and clicked on one of your ads smile emoticon
• Nice! Everything looked great on my phone. I didn't see any buttons to follow you on the Paleo Sandwich Hacks post.
• I had one more question. I did a view page source on your blog and I see that you have Yost SEO. Do you customize the Page Title and the Meta Description every time you post? This = Super important.
• I'm feeling dumb when it comes to improving SEO I've tried lots— favorite article to help????
• I do use Yoast SEO, and I customize the meta description and all of those options at the bottom for each post. I just changed my title settings because they were set to the date, as opposed to the post title, with keywords.
• Which web host do you use
• Just wanted to say that this was such a great idea! As we were helping today, I was going back and fixing some things on my website too. Wonderful advice today!!~*
• I use host gator and Yoast SEO is a plug in that dumbs the SEO stuff down quite a bit. It gives you a place to check your SEO and tells you what to improve for each post until it falls into the “good” category.
• Love the website and the recipes you have posted. I like the header a lot and the menu is easy to navigate. Two things I would think about adding is a picture and little bio of yourself somewhere at the top of your sidebar. Also, maybe move your follow buttons higher up in your sidebr. Your share buttons are very visible which is great. Hope these suggestions are helpful!
• Hi ladies I've been reading everyones comments and just wanted to say that I wrote a blog post on using the Yoast SEO plugin. Here it is if you're interested and I hope it helps someone! http://www.flavoursandfrosting.com/how-to-improve-seo-on-wordpress-site/
• I'm behind on reading the (MANY MANY) comments, but in case it wasn't already suggested, I would make the pictures click through to the posts. I'm too LAZY to look for links & I just click on the pictures, but when I click on the carne aside picture, I just see the bigger photo, rather than the recipe.

July 24, 2015: Tickled Pink Confetti

• I love your comic strips – they are so clever. Maybe add a couple more menus at the top of the page with the tags you are using: family, comic strip, motherhood. That would give visitors a quick idea of what they'll find on your site & make it easier to navigate through a topic.
• I love your site. It's beautiful and clean and all the pink makes me glad I'm a girl. The comic strips are super cute too! I agree, I would add more category headings to make people find your content more easily and to stay longer. Good job girl!
• I love the aesthetic of your blog, it is very clean and easy to look at. I would suggest maybe moving the categories up higher in your sidebar. Also, for tutorials maybe number the steps and include some step by step pictures. (This is also something I am trying to work on with my blog). Overall it is great design and looks really good!
• Beautiful! It is so obvious to me that you are a graphic designer because your blog is so wonderfully designed. I wish I could have had you do mine! I love your about photo and the quote on your about page. I also LOVE your illustrations! Have you thought about using your blog to offer your artistic services to other bloggers? I see it says you make a living as a graphic designer and you might want to keep that separate from this blog, but you could put a link there or make it mart of your menu. I loved the terrible twos post! Great blog. I clicked on a few of your ads and will get to sharing now!
• Your site is so beautiful and I love the pink. The comic strips are brilliant. Did you draw these!? I agree about the headings, although I still can't figure out how to put categories into headings on my blog. The only other thing I can suggest is sharing your posts to Twitter and Google +. Pinning a tweet to Twitter is a good way to let people know what you want them to read and what you want re-tweeted.
• Your page is beautiful. Can I just say that the idea that you have links on Modcloth for that clothes that the characters in your cartoon are wearing is brilliant!
• Awwww…thank you so much, ladies… I totally feel the love! I really love this reviewing session because others' perspective opened our eyes on things otherwise we couldn't see. Thank you for the kind words and suggestions. To put my categories up on the top is a great idea. Honestly I haven't thought of this. I've been meaning to expand on my top navigation to reflect more on my contents but haven't got the faintest idea. Thanks, again! Creating numbered steps are something I would love to do in the future. Thank you so much for the reminder!
• To tell the truth, I'm actually racking my brain on a great way to introduce my service in the blog. Illustrating is nice, but my main expertise is graphic and website design and most of the website designer bloggers I follow mainly write about blogging and business – a topic that I enjoy reading immensely but dread to write. I'm trying to find a way so I could provide a nice big umbrella for all these topics (DIY, everyday life and designing) to connect seamlessly so people who reads the blog will trust me with their projects. My main fear is that, if I start writing about website design, it will not be relevant at all to my existing readers. Or do you think I should just brave it? Let me know if anyone has any thoughts on this.
• Love your site!!!!! I would suggest putting in a jump break, though, so that the home page isn't one long stream. Plus you get more page views since visitors will need to click over to read the rest. I think including your services would be fantastic!! Just add a page called services! If you want to include the topic in your blogging, I think you should! Just categorize accordingly, and keep it light, fluffy, and simple at first. Just my thoughts!!
• If I were a brand new blogger or someone looking to start a blog (and I am still pretty new actually) and I were looking at your blog illustrations, if I saw something on the page that said: “Like my artwork and graphic design? Click here to find out more about the artistic services I offer…” Something like that – I would have clicked in a heartbeat. That ties it in right there because believe me, as a blogger, you are going to have a lot of other bloggers checking out your site even if they are not particularly interested in the main subject matter. I have a category on mine that I recently started called, “Bloggers Bonus Posts” for just that reason. It's not my main thing to write about blogging but knowing I have a lot of bloggers who stop by (thanks mainly to linky parties) I added it, and it has been one of my most read categories (even though there are only like two posts in that category right now LOL). You could also have a shop page where you sell your digital artwork for other bloggers to use. You could even have a “subscribe to my blog for tips and tricks in graphic design for your blog.” type thing. Since graphic design is an area I know nothing about but as a blogger I know how important it is that my site look professional – this is the type of thing that would catch me attention quick!
• You could figure out the links to each of your categories by clicking on them and copy the http:// in the address field. For example, with my Home+Garden category, the link http://www.tickledpinkconfetti.com.au/blog/… will appear in the address field on your browser when you clicked on it. I could use this address to link to it from my top navigation. Would that help?
• I'm still no good with Google+. I'm a Facebook person. Thanks for the suggestion, need to invest some time in Google+
• Yes yes what she said!! I would click too!!!
• Wow, that's one big homework for me. Right, will get onto it the first chance I get. Thanks for the suggestion!
• Bahaha sorry!
• I could kiss you right now, mwah! Why didn't I think of it that way before? well, d'uh! I love all of you ladies. You all come up with invaluable suggestions. Thank you very much again for the kind words and encouragement. You have no idea how much this session means for me.
• Yes that does help! I'll have to try it if I get a chance today.
• This peer review thing is so powerful. The synergy is awesome. I have been reading all the comments and I only have a few things to add. You are extremely talented. I love your sense of humor that shines through your wonderful artwork. In the nav section I would change it to “Home” instead of “Blog” It feels friendlier. Writing a tut is not easy. It does not feel that you original had the intent of doing a tut on the wreath because you do not have pictures of the steps. You can remedy that by just recreating little pieces of the wreath. For example Take pictures of one small bunch of baby breath bundles illustrating what you explained in text. Numbering you steps is a very simple edit you can do right now. Don't wait until the next tut. Edit your current tut. I am having computer issues. I will finish this later.
• Thanks for your suggestions. Yep, writing a tut is a lot of work, I agree i was going to do illustrated tut with the wreath for a change, but I ran out of time. Making a small bundle of flowers is a great idea, actually. It's better than no step pictures at all.
• You use the same platform as I do – Squarespace. I recognize some of the same issues that I have. None of the fabulous free WordPress plug-ins work for us and we end up writing code for stuff that is so easy for everyone else.
• You need to summarize your posts on the home page. I can help with that, if you need it. This is something I do manually for each past. I can’t help with the archive issue. I am still working on the problem myself.
• I do want to talk to you off list about your “related content” feature. I am not happy with the way mine is working.  Us Squarespace gals gotta’ stick together.
• Oh wow! how did you know I use Squarespace? Well, having summarised blog list is in the plan, just trying to find the time to commit to it. I plan to use summary blocks, actually. Is that what you're doing? I also do alot of manual coding, and just recently found a way to insert customised social media icons. Let's talk more about squarespace off the list We'll have plenty to share about.
• I love your blog. I love how organized and beautiful it is. Love the title. I went a head and clicked on some of your ads for you. Your blog is a great inspiration for ideas. Thanks for sharing your talent.
• What a beautiful blog!

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