Hey loves!
I want to thank you SO much for all the heartfelt comments on yesterday’s post! Knowing that I have your support and encouragement during these recent struggles means the absolute WORLD to me! While I feel a little better after some sleep yesterday, I plan on doing more catching up over the weekend and hopefully be good as new come Monday!
Since my eats have been off lately, I thought instead of food post, I’d do something a little different today! Perhaps you guys have noticed a few changes popping up here recently? Well, I’m no techno genius, but I HAVE managed to do some things to give the ol’ broccoli a bit of a sprucing up! 😀
A few of weeks ago, while catching up with Allison, I discovered the Octoblog Challenge! It’s totally free and while there are no “real” winners, it really helps motivate and inspire bloggers to update and enhance their websites, social media spaces and more!
I have a bad habit of creating a bloggy to-do list and then promptly forgetting about it. While I tend to be a bit OCD in real life (the man-friend oogles over my super-organized filing cabinet), the inside of my laptop tends to be a dark and scary place! So when I saw this challenge, after already getting pumped reading HLS recaps, I finally got the fire lit under me and set to work!
I still hope to update my “About Me” section before the end of the month…I haven’t touched it since I started blogging almost 3 years ago! 😯
But this is what I’ve done so far…
I created a new header!
Then I created ANOTHER ONE a week later after you guys failed to clue me in on the fact that I spelled broccoli with THREE FREAKIN’ C’s?! Seriously people?! You’re lucky I like ya! Otherwise I wouldn’t remind you to check out this tutorial for making your OWN header with Pic Monkey…but I do hope you screw it up a few times before you’re done! 😉
I started making good use out of some old plugins!
FYI, when I’ve posted screenshots of my site stats before, it was from Jetpack. There are SO many customizations you can do with this plugin and it’s incredibly easy to use! I love it!
Oh and speaking of site stats, let me just share a little happy dance moment with you all…those two big columns there would represent the traffic KMB received after I posted my Peanut Butter Pumpkin Pancakes! Woop Woop! 😀
Not only can you keep up with site stats, track the sources of your blog traffic, and view your top posts, but you can ALSO make this sweet little Twitter widget!
And speaking of widgets, I’ve basically done an overhaul of my sidebar if you haven’t noticed. I cleaned up my welcome blurb, added a Bloglovin’ widget, and my two FAVORITE additions…
Social Media Widget for super cute follow icons and…
SnapWidget’s customizable SCROLLING Instagram feed! 🙂
I also added the Shareaholic and the JQuery Pin It plugins for more social media shares which I showed Meghan last week! Check out this post for her step-by-step tutorial!
Other than that, I’ve been working behind the scenes to make things easier to navigate her in Broccoli Land…transferring old recipes to Recipage (a never-ending task!), cleaning up categories and tags, and going back and LABELING my images! Seriously, I can’t believe I didn’t start adding titles to my pictures until last year…it’s been SO hard to find things! Which reminds me of one last little tip I want to share…
When you label your pictures, make them Pinterest friendly!
The “Pin It” plugin just adds the post title to the image description box (so think about titling your posts to go along with the images), but before I activated the plugin, I started labeling my pictures for people pinning on their own. I make sure to describe the recipe and also add a link to my blog which will help drive in more traffic!
Edited to add: Megan just informed me that if you go into “settings” under the “Pin It” plugin, you can change the default to your individual photo titles! 😀
Now, while this post may seem that I’m totally obsessed with blog traffic and statistics, that is SO not the case. Honestly, I rarely ever look at my stats and, besides a couple of compensated product reviews, I haven’t made any money doing this…until now! I actually just had my application to GLAM media accepted yesterday (yay)! I’m not looking to make a career out of blogging, but will be nice to get a little money for all the hard work I put into this! 🙂
Bloggers: What are some of your favorite plugins/widgets?
Everyone: What do you think of the changes I’ve made?
Any requests/recommendations for more user-friendly additions?