Hi Readers!
I’ve now got over 160 posts on the site and I find that I often can’t find a post I’m looking for. I have some ideas, but I’d like some feedback before I make any big changes.
1st Small Change
On every post I write, I add a tag for the category or categories that apply. Things like Finance Basics, Budget & Saving, Investing, Opinion…
But I realized that the site doesn’t have the ability to search on category. I can search on Finance Basics, but only articles that contain that phrase show up. Search doesn’t recognize tags or categories.
So, this week, I changed the menu bar at the top of each page. Originally it read Home, Blog, About, Contact Us. I replaced this with the categories. So now you can click on Finance Basics and get all the posts with that tag.
I like this so far.
- Home no longer shows, but you can click on the logo and get to the home page
- Blog no longer shows, but the blog was over 10 pages of posts so it was impossible to navigate
- About gets some traffic, but you can now click on about (as well as home, blog and contact) in the footer
- Contact us has only been used once. It’s in the footer and likely won’t be missed
Like it, hate it, have a suggestion? Please put it in the comment section below or be the 2nd person to send a note through the contact us page.
Groupings
What’s the best way to group? Under the current categories, things like buying hearing aids and car buying get grouped under opinion with all my rants about the media.
Hearing aid posts continue to get a lot of traffic. They probably need their own category, but if I have too many categories, it gets hard to navigate?
What content would you come back to the site for, and what would help you find it more easily?
Other Thoughts?
- Would you like to be notified of new posts?
- If so, what’s the best way?
- What search terms would be helpful
- Is there a better way to group posts?
- Any other suggestions
- for site navigation/searching
- for topics you’d like me to write about
Wrap-Up
This isn’t a test. You don’t have to answer every question and you won’t be graded. I’d love to hear from all our readers to get some ideas of how to better organize the posts and make the site more easy to use.
**Quick Note** I am in the process of updating categories on many posts so if strange posts show up under a category, I’m working on it.
Thank you!
Change is always good.
Didn’t you have a search icon before?
What platform? I see a little magnifying glass to the right of the top menu on desktop. Do you? Let me know. I’ve made changes to one platform like phone, and screwed up tablet or desktop, so let me know where it’s missing. Thanks!
Not being funny but the simple answer is – make it easy for people to find stuff. 1st, if people have signed up for the blog, push out new content with an email & link directly to the content. You need to promote it in this busy world. Too many novices think they can just produce content & put it on a web site – THAT is not enough it must be promoted & pushed out. Some people will use the search function on the blog, some won’t because some search functions suck. The key is – build a dbase of emails & push the content out. There are reasons it is called “internet marketing” & “content marketing “ – you need to promote it more heavily in a noise-filled world. Consider sending out 3 messages to your dbase each time telling people there is new content available. One time is NOT enough.
you’re totally right. My problem is that I love to write but hate to market. I had the same problem with my classes. And without marketing, no one attends and no one reads. I will look into the push notifications. That’s a good idea (and easy – I hope). Thanks!