3/28/12

Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge--Make some pages!

Yay for every one who took part in this challenge! Here's the list of page-makers as of Sunday afternoon.

It's Bloggiesta time, a wild and whacky marathon of blog improvement. Whether it's simply writing posts for the future, or doing major revamps of your layout, Bloggiesta is the time to make your blog better! Bloggiesta runs from March 30, 31 & April 1, and it's not too late to sign up!

One of the most enjoyable parts of Bloggiesta is taking part in mini-challenges--I know that I myself have found tips and tricks that never occured to me taking part in these in the past. This year I'm hosting my own mini-challenge, and, since the organizers have asked for links to be sent to the main site in advance of the weekend, I'm posting it now (I'll be adding a link to the challenge site when it's up).

Here's my challenge--Make Pages!

Pages are simply permentent posts that contain whatever information you want--the titles of your pages generally appear at the top of a blog, beneath the header. Lots of bloggers use pages for information about themselves and their review policies, which is fine, and clears the sidebar nicely. If you haven't done this, it's an easy and useful thing to do.

But I'm challenging you to put pages to an even better use!

If you are like me, you feel sad that so many great reviews are languishing in the depths of your blog, unvisited and unappreciated. You can use a permanent page to index your reviews, which is fine; however, this might not actually draw that many new readers. Instead, or in addition, why not have themed pages?

I myself have several of these. I have permanent pages in which I've organized links to all my time travel reviews, my multicultural sci fi/fantasy reviews, my fairy tale retelling posts, and my reviews of historical fantasy. Because these pages have titles that are search engine friendly ("time travel books"), they bring many more visitors to my blog than searches for specific books. I've also noticed that many more visitors click on my pages than on my labels--labels will pull up a thematic group of posts, but it's hard to skim a large number of reviews presented in their entirety.

My Time Travel page is the fourth most visited part of my blog, and it is awfully pleasing to see visitors click on multiple review links. At the top and bottom of this example pulled from yesterday's blogcounter log are examples of regular visitors; in the middle is someone who came to my blog, saw the time travel page, and stayed for almost 42 minutes to click through a gratifying number of the links (the bright pink box is the Time Travel page, the white boxes are mostly specific reviews. You can click on them for yourself, if you are very curious!):





ip98-163-107-32.dc.dc.cox.net [Srv] [entrypoint  #16] /2010/01/cover-of-magic-under-glass.html Mar 27, 15:23:43[0:00:00] views: 1
rrcs-64-183-221-202.sw.biz.rr.com [Srv] [entrypoint  #1] / Mar 27, 15:17:00[0:41:58] views: 44
#1  / #1805  /2012/03/scary-school-by-derek-ghost.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #795  /2011/07/stones-of-green-knowe-by-lm-boston-for.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #64  /2008/09/timeslip-tuesday-ghosts-by-antonia.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #25  /2008/08/toms-midnight-garden.html #1  / #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #1129  /2011/05/websters-leap-by-eileen-dunlop-for.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #203  /2010/02/middle-window-by-elizabeth-goudge-for.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #100  /2010/02/old-magic-by-marianne-curley-for.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #1169  /2011/10/bassumtyte-treasure-by-jane-louise.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #1094  /2012/01/freedom-maze-by-delia-sherman-for.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #283  /2009/03/timeslip-tuesday-devils-arithmetic.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #1188  /2011/08/dark-mirror-by-mj-putney.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #76  /2009/10/magic-half-by-annie-barrows-for.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #568  /2010/03/puzzle-ring-by-kate-forsyth.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #232  /2010/08/frozen-in-time-by-ali-sparkes-for.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #565  /2009/01/house-of-arden-for-timeslip-tuesday.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #384  /2011/03/can-i-get-there-by-candlelight-by-jean.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #165  /2010/04/sixty-eight-rooms-by-marianne-malone.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #301  /2009/11/hotel-under-sand-by-kage-baker.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #739  /2011/08/hourglass-myra-mcentire-for-timeslip.html #4  /p/time-travel-books.html #75  /p/fairy-tale-retellings.html #523  /2011/04/my-unfair-godmother-by-janette-rallison.html #75  /p/fairy-tale-retellings.html
c-24-60-121-73.hsd1.ma.comcast.net [Srv] [entrypoint  #70] /2010/04/rules-of-attraction-by-simone-elkeles.html Mar 27, 15:12:59[0:00:00] views: 1













As a blog writer, this sort of visitor makes me feel like it's all worthwhile, and that I've created a Resource. As a blog reader, I'd love it if more people had thematic lists for me to peruse!

So here's how to make a page in blogger (you can have up to twenty):

click on new post
click on edit pages
click on new page
fill your new page with whatever you want it to have!
click publish

And here's how to do it in Wordpress:

Select the Administration > Pages > Add New option to begin writing a new Page.

The amount of information you put in your pages is of course up to you. I think the point is to make it easier for people to find books that interest them, and so whatever you think is useful should go into your list. Here's an example of a nice list at Ms Yingling Reads--the title of the page is "Adventure Books," and inside she's broken her list into various subcategories--outdoor adventures, spies, etc. She's also gone the extra step of short summaries.

So I challenge you--make a page! Make lots of pages! Use your labels as a starting point, perhaps. If you've reviewed lots of books about ghosts, or werewolves, or France, or hedgehogs--stick links to them all in a page on Sunday! Bring your old reviews out into the open again!

And just because challenges are more fun if there's a giveaway, anyone that makes a new page during Bloggiesta, and comes back to leave a link to it here (and I'll add all the links to this post) will be entered to win their choice of the following:

An ARC of Unbreak My Heart, by Melissa Walker (YA)

or

An ARC of Above, by Leah Bobet (YA)

Happy Bloggiesta! And many thanks to our hosts, Danielle of There's a Book, and Suey from It’s All About Books.

57 comments:

  1. This is one challenge I will be doing. I have always admired your pages and realized I could do the same type of thing. Thanks for hosting this mini=challenge.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll look forward too seeing what you come up with!

      Delete
  2. I love pages and your ideas for making them more specific. And when I figure out how to make two rows for my pages (there are...a few too many) I think I'll try it.

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    Replies
    1. Blogger just naturally started another row for my pages...I guess the all just build up there at the top of the blog until you've reached the maximum!

      Delete
  3. I hope I don't sound stupid :( but, I created a page (in blogger) but when I click it, ALL my posts are in there. How do I get the right posts in there? thanks!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not sure how you did that! I see that you deleted the monster page...so starting again, there you are with your blank page in front of you. Type, or paste the content you want your page to have, just as you woud a blogger post. Then copy the link to a blog post, and add it to the appropriate bit of the page in the text, again, just like you would make a link in a post. So when I'm adding a book to one of my lists, I type in the title and author, and then make the title a link back to the original post.

      I hope this helps! Let me know!

      Delete
    2. I did it!!!

      I only have one page - but, it works, and I am going to make more! THANK YOU :)

      Delete
  4. i am going to have pages with better titles, as you suggested.. will participate in this mini challenge

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  5. LOVE this post! I was planning on making a page for book award winners and this post just motivated me to get started. I'll come back when it's all done so I can link to it for the mini-challenge.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Book award winners sounds like a great page to me--I'll look forward to seeing it!

      Delete
  6. I love having pages! It's so nice to have a place where I can keep several links and information about the blog and books. It looks so much better than having it on the sidebar! My Discussions page is one of my top 5 most visited "posts". It's now something I try and keep updated regularly and talk a lot about!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your discussions page looks great--I'll have to go back and click through the links later this weekend.

      Delete
  7. I didn't have pages before (due to the low amount of posts I had). But now seemed like a good time to make them. To bad though that the base colour of the link's was different from the rest, thus I had to manually edit all colours T_T
    http://zeronicsgamerslounge.blogspot.com

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  8. This is a great post. I love the pages feature on Blogger and am still tweaking my blog. Your post has given me a few ideas. Thanks!

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  9. I love this idea. I try use pages to manage the visual clutter. I have a reading challenges page.

    Last month I ran a Hunger Games trivia contest. It was a lot of work, so why not get more mileage out of it by putting all the questions and answers on a page?

    Today, inspired by your post, I did that:

    http://jenryland.blogspot.com/p/hunger-games-giveaway.html

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  10. Very cool! I use pages and LOVE them but like your idea of drawing traffic to your blog with them.... hmmm.... I am in :) I will be back.

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  11. Great info! thank you for hosting this challenge! I just started working on mine. I have a lot of info to post about our Craft Showcases!
    http://craftyfridays.blogspot.com/p/craft-showcases.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cool page! I'm so glad the challenge was helpful.

      Delete
    2. eek--the links to your blogs and page aren't working for me, so I can't include you in the page round-up! If you read this, try sending me the link again....

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  12. I am back! I started a page that I have been meaning to post about anyway so here it is:

    http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/book-club-recommendations/

    Thanks for the push to get it done! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Now I need to figure out how to chance the clot or these page titles so they stand out more. *sign* Perhaps a tonight project :)

      Delete
    2. Oh...I see what you mean! Good luck with it!

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    3. goodness! It's changed since Friday!

      Delete
  13. Great post! I'm working on a new page right now. :)

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  14. I don't think I'll make a new page for the Bloggiesta, since I already have my pages organized the way I want them, but great tutorial!:)

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  15. I've put up a few pages, but I can see I need to take a look at them and see if they could be more useful and maybe add a few. Great idea for a challenge!

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  16. I didn't really utilize the pages before so this gave me some good ideas to make some changes (and it's going along with my goal to clean up my sidebars too!) and so far it looks good. As long as you don't click on the pages write now cause they still empty lol.

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  17. Hi! Here's my page. And how fitting that it's a page for BLOGGIESTA 2012! It will be updated throughout the weekend as I continue with the challenges and in the creation of new posts.

    http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/bloggiesta-ole-2012/

    Thanks for hosting a challenge. I'm learning a lot and it's just the first day!

    Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez
    zgarcia(dot)alvarez(at)gmail(dot)com
    On Twitter: @ZaraAlexis

    ReplyDelete
  18. I did my page :) I made an Archive of all of my reviews, alphabetical order by authors last name first.
    http://www.booksandbeyond.net/p/review-archives.html
    I am glad u motivated me to do this. I had been wanting to do it forever..

    ReplyDelete
  19. I made a page for all my art-related posts: http://heidenkind.blogspot.com/p/art-art-history-posts.html There were a lot more than I thought!

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  20. I did it! I now have 4 pages of different genre books, and one for the specifically YA books, since a lot of people are looking for those. This is one of the genre ones (Fairy Tale and Myth retellings) and the rest are under the reviews tab on my nav-bar.

    I never thought of this before, but I think it's a great idea! Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  21. Being able to create pages is why I initially went to Word Press. I still have two Blogger sites, so I'm going to experiment and try to create some pages there.

    I'm still not quite sure how it would work...and the "linking" part sounds interesting. I might just have to play with it.

    I'll come back and tell you how it went!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I probably need someone to draw me a picture! lol

      Delete
    2. I'm back to report that I created two additional pages on my Rainy Days and Mondays blog (Blogger); I'm very excited! Thanks! I created an About page and an Awards page. I'll spend more time adding other pages later. A review policy page springs to mind. Later I can try out those themed reviews.

      Even though my WP site Curl up and Read is the focus of this Bloggiesta, I do enjoy taking what I'm learning to other blogs.

      Delete
  22. Such a clever idea! I do have a page for reviews, but I agree that it is so much more searchable if you have a specific page for specific categories of reviews.

    Buona fortuna!

    I'm Bloggista-ing all weekend! I love to have old and new blogging friends stop by and say hello!

    ReplyDelete
  23. I never thought about making pages for reviews...but it's so clever! I already started with the easiest for me, Middle Grade Books (http://oh-my-books.blogspot.com/p/middle-grade-books.html) but I'll keep doing, it's so much fun :)

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  24. I love pages. I always check them out on other blogs and have a bunch of my own (for reviews, guest spots, reading challenges, and policies). You have a great idea with the themes though. I need to think of a way to make my pages more fun. I think for this mini-challenge, instead of creating a new one I'm going to revamp one of the pages I already have. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I finished! Here's my final product. It looks completely different than the original:

      http://oneadayya.blogspot.ca/p/guests.html

      Delete
  25. I"m so glad to see you all joining in the page fun! Thanks.

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  26. I've made pages in the past, but have updated them recently :) Thanks so much for sharing... here is a link to my Book Reviews page http://simplykayla0203.blogspot.com/p/review-archive.html and here is a link to my Author Interview page http://simplykayla0203.blogspot.com/p/author-interviews.html

    Happy Blogiesta!!!
    Kayla @ Bengal Reads

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  27. Blogger says I can only have 11 pages. Ideas?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. gee, Jenny--I dunno why that would be. I checked the blogger help page about pages, and it confirms that 20 is the upper limit. Maybe you have nine pages already, although it doesn't look like that's the case...

      Delete
  28. Ooo, I had thought about doing this before, but never really did, except for tracking in-progress challenges. So now I've gone through and made theme pages for all sorts of books that I seem to read in clumps (esp. Islam/Middle East, Canadiana, mental illness, etc.) and linked to them from the "Reviews" page I already had set up. Just another way of finding things ... great idea! Thanks. :-)

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  29. Great challenge! I already had pages for my reading challenges and book reviews, but like your idea of themes. My newest page is for BEA-related posts, and I'm thinking about doing an About Me page as well. Thanks for the inspiration!

    Here's the link to my newest page: http://alexia561.blogspot.com/p/my-bea.html

    ReplyDelete
  30. I've been thinking about making a page for all the challenges I'm doing this year and this challenge was the motivation for me to finally do it! Maybe later I'll even make different pages for my middle grade and YA reviews.

    It's all shiny and put together now, see http://aroomwithbooks.blogspot.com/p/2012-challenges.html

    ReplyDelete
  31. Cool beans. I hadn't thought about using pages to organize my reviews beyond by author or title. Great idea. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Need to clean up the look of the pages but have the pages out there (names ok?) and the content is there too - just needs some TLC to spruce up the looks - for tomorrow..
    http://myrandrspace.blogspot.com/p/links.html
    http://myrandrspace.blogspot.com/p/my-kitchen-corner.html
    http://myrandrspace.blogspot.com/p/book-reviews-z.html
    http://myrandrspace.blogspot.com/p/my-everything-to-do-with-reading-and.html

    ReplyDelete
  33. I already used pages :) On my bento blog I have:
    a recipe page (now categorized!) http://shelikesbento.blogspot.com/p/recipe-index.html
    a cookbook page: http://shelikesbento.blogspot.com/p/cookbook-reviews.html
    a snack review page: http://shelikesbento.blogspot.com/p/snack-reviews.html

    On my book/creative blog this is a bit harder. I have one page all book reviews, but if I would devide them into themes it would crowd the other subjects on my blog. But it is something to think about :)

    ReplyDelete
  34. I made pages! I have yet to sort my reviews out by genre, so I still have them alphabetically but maybe I'll get to that another time! :D Thanks for the tip, anyhow!

    Pages I made: http://xxdaydreamer21xx.blogspot.co.uk/p/policies.html and http://xxdaydreamer21xx.blogspot.co.uk/p/book-tours.html
    and at some point soon I'll be making a Blogroll page too :D
    Wooo!
    Thanks :D
    Faye

    ReplyDelete
  35. Thank you for making me do this. I've been wanting to make a nonfiction listing on my blog but put it off because it would take too long. I never thought about separating it into some topics. I made a parenting books list: http://smsbookreviews.blogspot.com/p/parenting-books.html

    ReplyDelete
  36. I've been using pages to just show information, but never thought of making themed pages. I made a Review Archives page for Bloggiesta (it was on my to-do list), but wanted to make a themed page after seeing this challenge! I created a Romance Reads page, because I mostly read romance. :)

    http://bookgeekdiaries.blogspot.com/p/romantic-reads.html

    ReplyDelete
  37. Yay! I set up the first few pages that I plan to do. Here's my Romantic Reads page, full of links to my YA book recommendations that are love, love, love: http://booksyalove.blogspot.com/p/romantic-reading.html

    Thanks for hosting this mini-challenge which got me going (had meant to do it so long).

    **Katy M
    Recommending YA books beyond the bestsellers at http://BooksYALove.blogspot.com
    Follow me on Twitter @BooksYALove

    ReplyDelete
  38. I definitely agree that pages are great. I've got several going on on my blog
    http://dianasamazingbookadventures.blogspot.com/
    I've created a few pages dedicated to Latter-day Saint authors which contain alphabetical lists. I figured out how to do the whole go to a certain place on the page thing which makes it a lot more easy to navigate. ex: http://dianasamazingbookadventures.blogspot.com/p/lds-ya-authors.html

    Thanks for your post and the idea of making themed pages! I like that a lot, I may give it a go soon!

    ReplyDelete

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