Getting the Most Out of SimpleProductivityBlog

Six Ways to Make the Blog More Useful

Posted on February 19, 2009 by LJ

Photo by .Martin. I recently ran this blog by someone who isn’t familiar with using blogs (thanks, Mom!) and came up with some ways that can make this blog more useful to you:

Use the Search

The search function (right had side of the page) will help you do a full-text search on the articles. With over 500 articles in this blog, it is often easier to do a search than to start paging through the articles. I use this function myself quite often, when I am trying to find specific articles to send to someone or to link to.

Use the Archives

The archives of the blog list all the articles by date. This is good if you don’t remember much about the article, but have some idea of when you might have read it. Organized by month and year, most recent on the top, it shows every article by date published.

Use the Categories

This blog has general categories of articles. The two main foci of the blog are productivity and simplicity. But there are other categories as well. You can access the categories on the right side of the page, right below the search box.

Get Updates Automatically

I know I rarely remember to check sites I like for updates, and I know I’m not alone in this. You can get the latest content delivered to you by two means: RSS or email. RSS uses a feed reader to consolidate all your blog reading in one place. Alternately, email subscription will deliver copies of the emails to your email inbox when they are published. Both means will give you the updates without you having to remember. You can get updates from the Get Updates page or by clicking on the update icon.

Just for the record, email subscriptions are handled via Feedburner, and your email address will never be sold or used for any purpose other than relating to subscribing to the blog.

Tell Me What You Want To See

I pretty much pick topics that suit my fancy, but on the occasions when people have suggested topics, I have been very happy to cover them. Please let me know what you would like to see more of, or less of. You can use the “Contact Me” form to send me a private email.

Leave Comments

All of my posts are open to comments. You can add comments at the bottom of any post by filling out the form found at the bottom of a post page. Note: this is not the main blog page; you can get to the post page by clicking on the post title from the main page.

While I do say I will delete rude comments, I have only had to delete one through the three-year life of the blog. I do read and approve all comments, and most times will respond to them.

I like getting comments: sometimes it brings up points I hadn’t thought of, or offers wonderful information. Other times comments will spark ideas for a new post.

There are two features currently in place on the blog to make commenting easier: one will notify you when a comment has been approved, and another will optionally notify you of any follow-up comments by selecting the checkbox when submitting a comment.

Use the Related Posts

Every article on the blog has a section at the bottom to point you in the direction of related posts. These are often auto-generated, but I will also include links to other articles on the blog that may be useful.

I hope that these tips give you some better ideas on how to access the information in the blog. Leave a comment, let me know what you think!

Photo by .Martin.

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