Critique the Exploring Adoption Blog; Win Two Books
Happy New Year! I'm kicking off 2008 by giving you a chance to win an autographed 2-pack of my books, The Adoption Decision: 15 Things You Want to Know Before Adopting, and The Adoption Network: Your Guide to Starting a Support System (a $24 retail value).
Every January, I give my Exploring Adoption blog an overhaul. I need your input, advice, and constructive criticism.
- What topics would you like me to address in the coming year?
- What would you like to see more of/less of on the Exploring Adoption blog?
- What adoption-related books/materials would you like me to preview or review?
- The sidebars of my blog are getting cluttered. What sidebar elements do you use most often? Least often?
- Are you interested in submitting a guest column to the Exploring Adoption blog? If so, what would your column be about? (you can email me this information if you prefer).
- Do you have recommendations for people you'd like to see profiled on this blog (adoption authors, adoption professionals, orphan care organization directors, etc.). Feel free to suggest that I profile you!
- What suggestions can you offer in terms of colors, type fonts, number of columns, etc. for redesigning my blog? I am not a designer, so I muddle along as best I can in terms of blog design. If anyone out there has a knack for blog design is interested in bartering or getting paid for giving my blog a design revamp, please e-mail me and we'll negotiate.
To enter my book giveaway contest, respond to any or all of the above questions in the Comments area below this post, or email me your suggestions. Please be direct and candid with your contents--I can take criticism and not get offended (well, at least not too offended). I'll put the names of everyone who comments/emails me in a hat and will announce the winner January 10.
Thanks so much for your help, readers!
For more news and information about adoption, visit www.laurachristianson.com, and
check out my Exploring
Adoption bookstore.
Topics in the coming year: Dealing with questions from your children about adoption; links between adoption and foster care.
More of: Reviews of adoption resources and adoption news; personal stories.
Less of: Nothing. More is better :-)
Preview/Review: hard to say - I'd suggest some things, but there's a good chance you've probably reviewed them already. I would like to see links to and summaries of various adoption organizations.
Blog design: OK, I'm an avid blog reader and a developer, so I've got definite thoughts on this.
Loose one of the columns - put everything in either the right hand or the left, and free up space for text.
The "optimized for 640 x 480" column layout is pretty annoying, too - on any reasonable modern screen, there's more white space than useful text.
Both of these suggestions are focused on allowing more text space for the articles, which are the meat of the blog. The links are nice, but they're not what's really critical.
"Visit Laura's Other Sites" - dump this, or put them into a blog posting you can link to (or put them on your bio page). If it's a blog posting, and people find it useful, it'll make it's way into the most popular articles, right?
Similarl advice for "Let's Meet", "Adoption Statistics", "Links to Laura's adoption and infertility articles", "Magazines for Infertility and Adoption", etc. Either put these in a blog post that you can reference elsewhere, or move them to a static page that you can reference from the sidebar. Reduce the clutter.
Search - swiki search? Never used it, don't want to. You already have a lost of categories, right? If I'm looking for something in particular on your site, I'll use Google with a "site:exploringadoptionblog.com" keyword.
If you find yourself updating the sidebar periodically, you should be posting a blog entry instead; one main blog entry for the event, and as it approaches, mention the event in a teaser/signature line at the end of other blog postings.
Guest column: I was going to just say "No", and then I realized that I'm starting to work with our pastor to start an adoption ministry at our church. I don't know if the occasional article about that would be interesting to you & your readers or not.
Profile recommendations: adoption organizations, adoption counselors, foster care advocates and CYS/CPS case workers, foreign orphanage directors and workers, adoption speakers, adoptive parents and family members, adult or young adult adopted children.
Redesign: A slightly larger font for main article text would be nice. Your use of colors, images, etc. is generally nice - no need to change anything there, IMHO. If your going to change anything, focus on the cleaning up the sidebars and giving yourself more room to do what you do best - communicate.
Posted by: Sam | Thursday, January 03, 2008 at 10:09 AM
I appreciate the comments and critiques that are rolling in (mostly via email). Keep them coming, folks!
Posted by: Laura Christianson | Thursday, January 03, 2008 at 07:33 PM
You're passion for adoption really shows in this blog, keep up the great work.
Was looking for the radio interview you recently did but was unable to find it from the link provided. Why not host the podcast from your own site?
Posted by: Matthew | Sunday, January 06, 2008 at 10:01 AM