I recently hired blogging extraordinaire Sarah Lewis to help me overhaul my blog. I’m quite clueless when it comes to CSS – and Sarah is both talented, fun to work with, and a dang cool lady. I should have my new template up and running by the end of February.

Because of this, I’ve been doing a little housekeeping around here.

Although the work I’ve been doing is minor in the big picture of things, even small tweaks are making a big difference, so I wanted to share them with you.

I was surprised at the time I put in (less than 2 hours on all of these combined) vs. the results, which were way more than I expected.

1. I swapped out my old small RSS icon :::: for a spiffy new one in my right sidebar. Within 24 hours, my subscribers increased to my highest number of all time. Lesson Learned :: In this case, Bigger is indeed Better!
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2. I moved my “Add this Blog to my Technorati Faves” button higher, above the fold – no impact yet, but I’m counting on it happening. [Especially since as I was moving it, I found I had the link wrong!]And if you haven’t already, adding this blog to your Technorati Favorites would be a great thing to do right now, wouldn’t it? Did you know I’m only 80 ‘votes’ away from getting into Technorati’s Top 100?! Nudge. Wink. Smile.

   Lesson Learned :: We all need a little shameless promotion!
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3. Back onto the RSS subscribers topic, I noticed that Ben Yoskovitz has a nifty link next to his RSS icon helping his readers with a “Learn How to Subscribe” page. I copied the idea and created a RSS for Newbies page that in 48 hours has already seen 20 hits. I was surprised at that number – so I think this has also helped to increase my subscriber base. Lesson Learned :: Make subscribing EASY for everyone!
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4. I have been working to clean up my categories and archives, which have gotten a little out of hand over the months.Here is where I am seeking your input: Do you prefer to have both monthly archives and categories in the sidebar (like they are now)? -OR- would you prefer to have an archives link added to the main navigation and simply move around from this page?

   Lesson Learned :: Site navigation changes are serious business – make these decisions very carefully!
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5. Interestingly, the longer I blogged, the less I wanted to write about blogging. But even when I hadn’t written about it in any depth in over a month, I was finding in my page hits that it was still the most popular category on this blog. So I carefully stepped back into blogging about blogging – and you wonderful readers definitely responded.Not-so-surprisingly, I have found a renewed interest in this topic – especially knowing how important it is to you. I’ve also been giving some thought to ways I can offer more blogging content – and I’m dedicating a whole section to it on the new site.

   Lesson Learned :: Web stats allow you to peek into your reader’s minds – so LISTEN to them!!
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6. Lastly, my patience was wearing a little thin with Text Link Ads – I couldn’t find my own links on their site even when I did a keyword search with “eMoms”!! Yikes! But time has been on my side, and my TLA ads are finally selling. I’m finding I rather like their system, and can happily recommend it – if you haven’t already signed up for an account – it’s totally worth it.Lesson Learned :: First impressions are indeed not always what they seem to be!