When we use our cell phones and computers, our data is already transparent, why did my parents always tell me when I was little not to expose my information on social media platforms, but we set up our own blogs and post our daily life and personal information in “About”, is this really a deliberate way to keep our data from being lost? Is this really a deliberate way to keep data from being lost? I don’t think so, just like I would use instagram, not to get more attention, just to know what my friends and my favorite celebrities are up to, I do think there are some people who over share on social platforms, exposing their privacy and orientation. But if you really don’t post anything, is it true that your information won’t be freely accessible? I don’t think so.
After reading “Digital breadcrumbs: the data trail we leave behind us…” by George Philip, Jennifer Anne Lazo, Rooham Jamali and Rudy Al Jaroodi, the data trail is really amazing, for example, if I am blogging at home with wifi connected, anyone who uses this company’s network knows where I am currently located.
Like I said earlier, I will not deliberately hide my data, because in these times, there are too many b don’t want to be found data are exposed to the public, no matter what we do, go to buy a thing at the same time, let you join the membership will get a discount, I think I will go to do so, after all, I will not lose anything, just published my email, cell phone number, and home address, they also In this way to send emails to consumers to let them know some of their developments, are getting information data from both sides.
Overall, I think it’s normal to go ahead and publish appropriately while ensuring your y privacy. Nowadays, it’s very easy to find out your information, and also to raise the heart of vigilance on social media, while gaining benefits.
This week’s reading on 15 Reasons Why Your Business Absolutely Needs SEO makes me reflect on how challenging it is to have your website appear in searches. The article’s first point is titled “Organic Search is Most Often the Primary Source of Website Traffic” (Hollingsworth, 2021). However, how often does my website appear in an organic search?
My website analytics
Looking at my Google Site Kit, it appears that the Search feature is not doing much for my website. The only search query that led someone to my site was when “vanessa planet” was searched. I am guessing that this search was made by someone in this publishing class, most likely the student who was writing my peer review, as this is a really specific search. This shows that I must change my publishing strategy to show up in more search queries.
I do not mind if my site has no audience. I am mainly creating this blog for myself; however, I think it would be cool to have an audience, as it will allow individuals with similar interests as me to connect with my website. I will change my posting strategy by adding more keywords and tags to my post in the hopes of attracting an audience.
My final peer review is here! For the final one, I had the pleasure of exploring Jolene’s enchanting website:Mama Jo’s Family!
Mama Jo's Website HomePage
Introduction and first impression
Upon landing on her site, the first thing that caught my attention was the introductory paragraph, which provided a welcoming and family-oriented vibe. Jolene’s website is informative and engaging, with her about page particularly noteworthy. I was drawn to her mention of her First Nation heritage and culture, which reminded me of Suler’s article’s Personal and Cultural Values section on “the online disinhibition effect”. This section emphasizes the impact of our personal and cultural values on our online interactions and how we perceive ourselves, which is an important consideration when navigating online relationships with people from different cultures.
One suggestion for Jolene’s blog is to include a photograph of her family on the homepage and about page. Since Jolene introduces her sons and husband by name and age, it would be beneficial to see and recognize their faces. This would make it easier for her audience to follow their stories and create a more engaging experience.
Mama Jo's About Page
Audience and SEO
Referring to Campbell’s article “A personal cyberinfrastructure,” Jalone has demonstrated her cyberinfrastructure to her audiences. By exploring her blog content and photos, the target audience for Jolene Auger’s blog mainly consists of caring and compassionate parents in their 30s-50s who lead a busy and family-oriented lifestyle and juggle multiple responsibilities balancing work and family life. I believe Jolene’s sharing of her moments and experiences perfectly resonates with their interests, goals, and needs.
Although I’m not sure whether Jolene plans to use her blog for marketing and monetizing, I still recommend that she include ways to engage with her audience, such as a contact page, social media sharing buttons, adding her email, or a comment section below her posts if she decides to separate her posts from category pages. This would allow her to connect with her audience and interact with them.
Given that her audience is likely to relate to Jolene’s experiences, they may provide valuable feedback and suggestions for her blog posts and the concerns she has discussed. It would also be helpful for her to incorporate SEO strategies such as embedding videos from YouTube, adding appropriate keywords to her blog posts, and including related hyperlinks to increase credibility and engagement with her content.
As Hollingsworth mentions in “15 Reasons Why Your Business Needs SEO,” good SEO means good user experience, increasing the likelihood that more people will hear Jolene’s message. Implementing these strategies could help Jolene grow her audience and increase engagement with her content.
Content
Jolene’s blog topics are incredibly engaging, and I appreciate that they are pure and relevant to her daily routine. Parents with similar concerns to Jolene’s will also find her blog valuable. Like Basu’s digital gardens, Jolene’s blog truly resonates with her inner voice, which is reflected in her comfortable writing style.
However, her content’s grammatical and punctuation errors could be easily corrected using AI grammar checkers like Grammarly. Overall, Jolene’s blog is an excellent resource that offers her audience a genuine and comforting perspective.
Design decisions
As Pagé suggested, having a visual hierarchy is one of the critical factors in website design. Using the same font sizes for headings and subheadings may decrease the visual hierarchy. I appreciate the font sizes and typeface choice, which are well-chosen and readable.
In order to meet “The Accessible Publishing Learning Network (APLN)” guidelines for accessibility on her website, I highly recommend incorporating plugins that providemultipleaccessibility options for different disabilities, as well as a dark/bright mode feature for improved vision during the day or at night.I am sharing my thoughts on the posts section of the menu bar. When I first clicked on it, I assumed it was a category page, and I thought I would be directed to its specific page by clicking on each process post. However, I later realized that no separate pages were intended for each process post.
To enhance the consistency and accessibility of the content and improve the user experience, I highly recommend creating separate pages for each process post. This will allow each post to be self-contained, organized, and more accessible for readers to navigate. Additionally, as Suzanne and Mickey suggested, adding images and bibliography to each process post would be a great way to improve the overall quality of the content. However, having numerous photos and bibliographies on a category page can be overwhelming and distracting for readers, so creating separate pages is the best option.
I also want to note that the lack of white space on a category page, as highlighted by the Pagé presentation, is another consideration. Creating separate pages for each process post allows her to utilize white space more effectively and create a cleaner, more visually appealing layout for her readers.
Mama Jo's Posts Page
I suggest applying the same recommendations for the assignments section as well. Additionally, for the mini assignments, I suggest providing short descriptions for some assignments that require extra information to improve user engagement, such as telling a story through media. Finally, I found the photos section lovely and exciting, and I appreciate Jolene’s family’s warm, sweet, and intimate vibe. I hope all the good vibes in the universe protect their energy! Thank you, Jolene, for sharing your moments with us!
Regarding aesthetics and design decisions, I suggest adding more storytelling and organization to the pictures from the audience’s perspective seeking family moments and stories. For example, adding dates under the photos and sorting them based on dates or dividing them into separate content posts, each with a unique story and related images. Another recommendation is to add a date for each post.
I recommend using a transparent logo for the homepage because it appears too large for its purpose and is challenging to recognize as a logo rather than a picture.
I suggest reconsidering the color theme. Pure black (RGB 0) can be hard on the eyes, and it may be beneficial to incorporate color principles discussed in Mauve’s presentation. On the other hand, given the family-oriented and joyful mood of the blog, a dark theme might not be the best decision, especially considering the many pictures with white backgrounds on the website. Additionally, the target audience is likely Gen X, who prefer bright themes over dark themes, which are more prevalent among Gen Z (Web flow, 2019).
I also appreciate the hyperlinks for referring to reading materials in the process posts, making it easier for readers to access the sources. However, I recommend using high-quality images instead of some outsourced images and mentioning the source of the photos due to copyright matters.
Mama Jo's Menu Bar
Menu Bar
The navigation bar is well-organized and easy to navigate. However, I found one aspect of it to be slightly unclear. Instead of using the word “posts,” it would be more helpful to use the term “process post” since it pertains to all posts related to a specific process in WP terminology. It’s worth noting that the navigation bar is solely used for process posts.
Additionally, the peer review section does not currently have any peer reviews available. Therefore, hiding this section might be more effective until content is added temporarily. At this point, it can be made public.
Final words
I believe Jolene’s blog has much potential to gain popularity among parents and even younger generations like myself. I’m particularly drawn to the sincerity and authenticity of her cyberinfrastructure, which is somewhat rare among people of my age group.
Upon exploring her blog, I found that it offers a unique perspective on topics related to motherhood and parenting. Her writing style is engaging and relatable, making it easy for readers to connect with her and her experiences. However, what sets her blog apart is the genuine and honest approach she takes toward her content.
Overall, her blog has the potential to become a go-to resource for mothers and parents who are seeking inspiration and a sense of community. Her commitment to authenticity and openness is commendable, and I look forward to seeing how her blog evolves and grows.
Bibliography:
Webflow. (2019, March 6). Generational marketing: How to use color to appeal to different age groups. Webflow Blog. Retrieved March 26, 2023, fromhttps://webflow.com/blog/generational-marketing-colors
Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 9). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs seo. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved March 26, 2023, fromhttps://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close
Campbell, G. (2009, September). A personal cyberinfrastructure. EDUCAUSE Review, 44(5), 58-59. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2009/9/a-personal-cyberinfrastructure
Basu, T. (2020, September 3). Digital Gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/03/1007716/digital-gardens-let-you-cultivate-your-own-little-bit-of-the-internet/
Page, M. (2023). Web Design and Type on Screens [PowerPoint Slides]. Department of Publishing, Simon Fraser University.
Website accessibility archives. APLN. (n.d.). Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://apln.ca/category/website-accessibility/
Suler, J. (2004). Psychology of cyberspace – the online disinhibition effect. Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://truecenterpublishing.com/psycyber/disinhibit.html
For my final peer review, I looked at Mercy’s blog, MindMediaRes, which is a website that analyzes media through personality theory, as stated in the tagline. In his about page, he explains that he’s been interested in psychology his whole life, and when he got into personality theory, he found the competitiveness of the community extremely toxic. Therefore, with his blog, he wants to create a space where he can safely write about his opinions and invite others to share theirs too.
Who is the Target Audience?
Through exploring Mercy’s content, it becomes clear that his target audience is composed of personality theory enthusiasts, or more specifically, personality theory enthusiasts who are interested in how it manifests itself in media.
Fattal explains that counterpublics are publics who oppose dominant discourses, and I think that Mercy’s target audience fits this explanation perfectly. Personality theory is a way of explaining the mind that isn’t rooted in science, which is the dominant discourse in our society in terms of psychology. By catering to this audience, (or counterpublic) of personality theory enthusiasts, Mercy successfully creates a public and generates discourse in a welcoming environment.
At the same time, Mercy makes it obvious that his intended audience is also himself. Basu explains that the creation of digital gardens is different than simply making a blog because it involves talking about niche interests and focuses on learning and growth, instead of growing large audiences.
In alignment with the concept of a digital garden, Mercy creates an environment dedicated to growth and the telling of his own thoughts and ideas, explained on his about page. He states that “this blog is based on my own thoughts, feelings, and ideas” and also emphasizes that he’s trying to learn more and is open to hearing other people’s opinions too. So with the digital garden in mind, he’s also marketing to himself, but for the purpose of this review, I’ll be focusing on the marketability of the counterpublic of personality theory enthusiasts (which he is a part of anyways).
Mercy’s “about” page, detailing the construction of his digital garden
Writing for an Audience
Looking at the content on Mercy’s blog, it becomes obvious that his content posts specifically cater to his target audience of personality theory enthusiasts who also enjoy media. Each content post focuses on an aspect of personality theory, either cognitive functions or the enneagram. Using these aspects of personality theory, Mercy analyzes different media, such as movies and shows. For example, his most recent content post surrounds the character, Trina from the 1992 musical, Falsettos. He analyzes Trina’s enneagram type through the songs she sings throughout the musical.
Mercy’s content also caters to all levels of personality theory enthusiasts, from beginners to experts, which increases the marketability of his website to a wider audience. This is evident through Mercy’s first two content posts, where he explains the two aspects of personality theory he tackles in his blog: cognitive functions and the enneagram. These explanations provide a solid framework from which beginner personality theory enthusiasts can start building their knowledge.
It is also obvious that Mercy’s blog content is more intellectually advanced. This is not only shown through the blog’s subject matter, but in the way the posts are written. The academic tone of the blog makes the content more exclusive, but I don’t think this is a bad thing at all. Hollenbaughexplains that when creating content, writers need to present themselves based on their imagined audiences. In this case, the imagined audience would be personality theory enthusiasts, who are assumed to be more intellectually inclined in the first place, just based on the academic subject matter. Take the first sentence in Mercy’s post, “Untangling Morality in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along” Blog as an example:
“Character archetypes have a fairly predictable lifespan of solidifying themselves in pop culture, going through subversions, and subsequently creating new archetypes based on those subversions over the course of many years.”
The vocabulary used in this sentence makes the blog content more exclusive in nature, making it difficult for a younger audience of children, per se, to understand the posts. Nonetheless, the language caters well to the target audience, who, judging by their interest in personality theory, is already intellectually advanced and can understand the vocabulary used in the blog.
Diving into Design
Judging by the blog’s target audience of personality theory enthusiasts and the content in each of the posts, I think that in terms of design, this makes for a more intellectual, serious, straightforward feel to the blog. Mercy uses elements that help maintain this aesthetic that align well with Mauvé Page’s suggestions for blog design. For example, the typeface personality works well with the more serious, intellectual aesthetic of the blog. It is clean, simple, and legible, and makes sure the g’s and q’s don’t mix up, and all those kinds of things.
Excerpt of a post from MindMediaRes, showing effective use of typography to convey the blog’s aesthetic
More generally, some other effective design elements include the fact that there is a good contrast between the black and white shades, making the writing clear and legible and adding to the “seriousness” of the blog aesthetic. The design is also very cohesive, with a limited amount of colour and one consistent font used throughout the blog.
Mercy’s website is also accessible, which makes it inclusive to everyone within his target audience. In alignment with Gaines’s explanation of the four principles of accessibility, Mercy’s blog is particularly perceivable. For example, he includes an accessibility plug in and all his hyperlinks are underlined, making them different from the rest of the content and reducing the need to look for them.
Design Suggestions
Mercy uses a theme from Alx for his blog. While this template is effective in organizing his posts and laying out all the content in a logical way, Gertzwarns against using templates because they are often standardized and can take the personality away from websites. Therefore, I would suggest that Mercy thinks about building his website from scratch so that it reflects him and his audience better.
But if straying from a template is too much at the moment (which I completely understand as it’s also the reason why I’m still using one), I would suggest that Mercy creates a consistent identity and brand for his blog that caters well to his target audience of personality theory enthusiasts. This might be the “serious, intellectual, straightforward” feel that I talked about earlier, or any other kind of mood Mercy wants to create.
Subtle customizations that reflect aspects related to personality theory might be a good idea. For example, this might include creating a homepage, that, instead of simply featuring previews of posts, hosts a post carousel with pictures related to the content featuring aspects of personality theory. It might also involve playing around with more colours to convey a certain aesthetic if he sees fit.
Branding the site a little more strategically through design elements would create a clear mood and atmosphere for the audience, which, aside from the content, pulls viewers into the experience and shows them what the blog is about even before they read any of the posts.
Overall
All in all, I really appreciate the passion that Mercy puts into his blog. It’s clear that aside from being a school assignment, personality theory is something that he is truly interested in. His posts go above and beyond the course requirements and include in-depth, comprehensive explanations, thorough application of theory to case studies, and even several sources for readers to learn more. Because of this and so much more, I really hope that he continues working on this blog after the course is over and I will definitely stay updated so I can keep learning about personality theory!
Hollenbaugh, E. E. (2021). Self-presentation in social media: Review and research opportunities. Review of Communication Research, 9, 80–98. https://doi.org/10.12840/ISSN.2255-4165.027
I’m proud to present an experimental video that I shot with the lovely and talented Chieh Huang. This video merges the concept of spirit photography as well as the Japanese dance form known as Butoh. The experiment was to apply the practical effect (featured at the end of the film) with the haunting movement of Butoh. The song featured is by Francis Bebey, titled “Sanza Tristesse.”
Butoh (舞踏, Butō) is a form of Japanese dance theatre that encompasses a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement. Following World War II, butoh arose in 1959 through collaborations between its two key founders, Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. The art form is known to “resist fixity” and is difficult to define; notably, founder Hijikata Tatsumi viewed the formalization of butoh with “distress.” Common features of the art form include playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, and extreme or absurd environments. It is traditionally performed in white body makeup with slow hyper-controlled motion. However, with time butoh groups are increasingly being formed around the world, with their various aesthetic ideals and intentions.
Achieving your goals isn’t easy. It takes a great amount of time, effort and concentration to get the results you want. I’ve been lifting for 2 years now, and I am continuing to grow every day. This is what I was then, and what I am now. So much has changed, but it doesn’t end here.
Read more about my journey on this website, and contact me to learn more!
This week, we learned all about how to optimize our blogs for every website’s best friend and greatest enemy: Google. So I decided to look closer at Spilling the Royaltea’s analytics to see who is visiting my site. Then, I did the same to my search engine optimization or SEO to try to figure out how to grow my audience and rank higher on Google searches. (For an explanation of the random underlines, read further):
Diving into Analytics
This week, I did a deep dive into Google Analytics for my website, and looked at who’s been looking at Spilling the Royaltea. Here’s what I found in terms of website traffic:
Since Spilling the Royaltea’s inception, there have been exactly 100 new users and 745 page views! The number of users has stayed pretty consistent over time, with the occasional peak of 5 users a day. While it’s good to know that I haven’t been losing viewers, it would be nice to see this increase sometime soon. Hopefully, by improving my SEO in the coming weeks, I’ll see an improvement shortly.
Unfortunately, since I just recently enabled the option to view demographics, I am unable to see data on this section of my website analytics. Seeing my audience’s demographics would be extremely useful when ensuring I’m catering my data to the right people. For example, I am currently assuming that my audience consists mostly of young people, so I’m using quite a bit of Gen Z jargon in my content posts. But if mostly older people are looking at my blog, I’d have a little bit of a problem, since they might not understand the nuances of the language I’m using. When this part of Google Analytics updates, I’ll be sure to use it to help decide my content.
Implementing Effective SEO
Hollingsworth really drives home the importance of implementing SEO in businesses (and I guess Spilling the Royaltea could be considered one?) to help increase visitors to websites. For example, it builds trust and credibility. By creating an accessible, effective user experience that can be easily found on Google, people feel more comfortable going to my site for information. I’ll also get a larger audience by building this sense of trust and credibility. It even helps me with my knowledge of the web because I need to stay updated about who’s doing what to improve their SEO.
And in this week’s lecture, we learned exactly how we might go about improving our SEO, so I tried out a few of these tactics this week. Firstly, we learned about implementing effective keywords. These keywords are what searchers enter into Google, so I need to make sure I’m implementing enough of these to improve my ranking on Google searches. So for this process post, with the help of ChatGPT, I entered the prompt: Generate keywords for a blog post related to analytics and SEO, and here’s what it gave me:
And while I couldn’t include every single one of these keywords in my posts, I tried my best to organically include as many as I could (or slightly varied versions of them), the first occurrence of which I underlined throughout my post.
We also learned about including strategic headers. Although I thought I was already doing this pretty well, I learned about a few things I could do to further improve. For example, I should be using actionable headers, which I did for this post: I included the verbs “dive,” “implement,” and “create” to add some dimension and interest. I also included keywords in my headers, like “analytics” and “SEO.”
The final thing I want to do is work on the branding of my site. So far, although my website is consistent in its theme, nothing in terms of branding really makes it stand out and become memorable for visitors. I think that part of creating this “memorability” is making a logo. Coming soon…
Creating my Digital Garden?
But what about creating a digital garden just for me? In my previous process post about analytics, I spoke of maintaining my site as a digital garden instead of monetizing it and trying to grow my audience. Because of this, I concluded that I wouldn’t worry too much about gaining readers, just because I wanted to make it a space for just me and my own thoughts.
However, after learning about analytics and SEO this week, I realized that I’m already doing a bunch of the things I need to do to increase my audience like summarizing my article in the subheaders and writing high quality information. And after all, I realized that making a few improvements to potentially invite more people into my blog requires a few simple changes that don’t take away from the intimacy of my blog like I previously feared. So at the end of the day, having a big audience to share my interests with sounds like a pretty great thing to me.
Diving into Kristie’s site Thebaristababe, you have a very strong impression of what her blog is about, from the visuals of her holding cups of coffee to her heading “Everything Coffee”. Kristie has a very clear menu interface with all her assignments organized from this class, and her content pieces are easy to navigate. As Hollingsworth (2021) notes, “good SEO means a better user experience .. [it] offers users the information they are looking for in fewer clicks, quickly, and easily”. Further, it is an excellent way for readers to grasp what your blog is all about and increase user attention and behaviours via Google Analytics, which can help you improve your blog. Below the visual header, Kristies has an elaborate about section and explains what her blogs entail:” weekly content on my favourite coffee shops, and different specialty coffee that I make as my daily encounters with caffeine”. On the right hand, a search bar also makes her content more accessible to users.
Friendly Recommendations: I love the fun visuals you have added, but they may take up too much space where the reader might not realize you have put an intended about section below the visuals since it takes up the whole screen page. Likewise, the search bar is not as easily accessible if you do not scroll down to the entire page on mobile, which is essential as the data.ai findings showcase Gen Z being a mobile-first generation. Speaking of accessibility, you have yet to download the accessibility plug from WordPress which can prevent users from engaging with your site.
Content
I was unsure about what the section “Daily Doses of Caffeine” was about until I saw you explain it in your process post #3: “where I post all things coffee. Whatever is on my mind during the day or a random coffee thought that pops into my head, this is where it will get posted”. I enjoyed reading this section of your blog, and I loved the cute visuals you added. They also follow uniformity in formatting and are easy to follow with the break up of white space and text.
Friendly Recommendation: It would be beneficial if you had a subheading under the title “Daily Doses of Caffeine” explaining what the section is about because readers might not stumble across your process post like I did to understand the section.
As a reader, it can be hard to discern where one post ends and where a new one starts, and It could be helpful to break up the text by adding visuals, increasing the font size for headings, etc. Everything looks like a uniform long text, which can be hard to read.
As Hollingsworth (2021) states, “establishing a brand as an authority takes patience, effort, and commitment and relies on offering a valuable, quality product or service that allows customers to trust a brand”. Your coffee reviews consist of 5 main factors: the coffee shop, drink, ingredients, rating, and extra note that adds a nice touch of personalization. Further, I love the intimate visuals you choose to accompany your reviews, but apart from the visuals, it can be hard to discern where one review ends and starts, similar to your process post page.
Friendly Recommendation: The visuals do not align with the text correctly, so it can be hard to tell which visual matches the review. I’m unsure if it’s a template issue, but adding space between each post and emphasizing the size or bolding the text can create better fluidity, cohesiveness, and cleanliness.
Overall, Kristie has an intended audience targeted towards coffee drinkers and lovers; since her blog is intimate and personal, I am unsure of whether she wants to monetize her content. However, if she does, I have a few suggestions for revamping her site through a new rating system and social media interventions. Coffee rating reviews can be more concise with comments on coffee profiles such as acidity, bitterness, sweetness, sourness, and the overall body of the coffee. She can also link the social media handles to the coffee shop and create a google map of all the coffee shops you have reviewed for readers to have the ultimate coffee shop experience, boosting engagement and connectivity. Moreover, adding your social handles can create a closer connection to readers, and she can add a page on her blog dedicated to reader-suggested coffee shops that you go to and review.
References: Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 6). 15 Reasons Why Your Business Absolutely Needs SEO. Search Engine Journal. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close
According to Data. ai’s, State of Mobile 2022 report people, on average, spend 4 hours 48 minutes on their mobile devices, which equates to 1/3 of our day. This is important to remember because as someone who is cultivating and growing a brand/website, it is important to think about how my website designs translate on mobile devices. I have to consider if my website is accessible and easy to use on mobile devices to capture the attention of more readers. It is essential to have well-functioning and mobile adaptability because that is the new target audience; with Gen Z being a mobile-first society, it is paving the way for the future of technology and media (Data.ai., n.d.).
SEO is another crucial component in a well-functioning website as it enables us to understand and reach readers and can help create better user experiences for them to be captivated (Hollingsworth, 2021). Further, SEO “establish[s] a strong foundation for a beautiful website with a clean, effective user experience that is easily discoverable in search, thanks to the trust and credibility of the brand and its digital properties” (Hollingsworth, 2021). SEO is important to consider when creating a website because our words and hashtags matter to create visibility. A good heading should never be too long, and I heard that the best titles fall short of 6 words. Technology and the internet will continue evolving and changing, but SEO can help us stay relevant.
Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 6). 15 Reasons Why Your Business Absolutely Needs SEO. Search Engine Journal. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close
For the third and final peer review of the semester, I was assigned to review Roland’s website; however, due to Roland’s website being incomplete as well as lacking content, I randomized another person and am now going to peer review Emerson’s website. This was finalized on Saturday, March 25, 2023, anything posted after this date were not included.
At first glance, Emerson’s website can be seen as a dark hole, a bit bland with nothing behind the surface, but then you would be quite wrong. The first thing I checked out was the “About” tab on the menu, it was only then was I able to understand what I was getting into. Emerson’s creative take on creating your website was shown, and I started to believe that I was able to get away from it all with dripowensonline.
Emerson’s audience is himself, and he doesn’t sugarcoat it. He states it in “Process Post #5”, “I don’t expect others to find it”. Rather than trying to state that their audience is whoever comes upon it, Emerson admits that they are writing to themselves and does not need to adapt to anyone’s comfort levels as it all depends on what he believes is true. Since his website audience is so small, relative to who Emerson lets into his digital garden, it allows it to be comfortable and welcoming. The minimalistic-ness of the “Home” page allows for a personal aroma for the user and reader.
I like to take a look at what other people are doing in class. I check out the google sheets page with all the websites and inquire what people are writing about or posting. Having looked at Emerson’s website I can say that I haven’t seen anything like it. In the recommended reading “How to Survive the Digital Apocalypse” by Travis Gertz, he talks about copycat culture and how companies are looking at the most successful websites and copying what they are doing. “When another company achieves success, there’s a lot of pressure to investigate what they did right and apply that to our own organizations” (Gertz, 2015). Looking at all the different websites in the class, I can say without a doubt, I haven’t seen something like Emerson’s. As I mentioned previously, his audience is himself, and because of that, he doesn’t need to copy others because he doesn’t have the same audience.
As a reader, of course, my perspective on Emerson’s website is going to be different than his perspective or even someone else’s. Because of this, it’s hard to say what I would think needs changing on his website. I am not his intended audience so of course, I am going to think of things differently than he would or he would want to. I would say, if it was my website, I would change the titles of my process posts. I like to make my posts engaging, even if it’s just for myself, so possibly changing the titles of your process posts could make your website just a little more interesting.
Altogether, I enjoyed Emerson’s website immensely and look forward to seeing more interesting and creative photos in his “Archive”.
This week, I was assigned to peer review the website sixtyfortythree by Darien Smallboy. The website showcases all of the photography work that the author has done in a very aesthetic way. As a user, I am quite pleased with the design of the website as it is minimalistic and easy to use but still shows the work in very nice way. Any buttons about where to contact Darien, where to find more of their work, and where to learn about the brand are all very easy to find and even encouraged to click on. I think this is useful especially if someone who does not know how to use technology very well finds this website as they will be able to navigate through it quite smoothly. I also like that there is a portion of the website that talks about the sixtyfortythree brand, why it was created, and the credentials that Darien has as a photographer to gain the trust of the users. In Sam Hollingsworth’s writing about SEO and why they are important, he states that “establishing a brand as an authority takes patience, effort, and commitment and relies on offering a valuable, quality product or service that allows customers to trust a brand” (Hollingsworth, 2021). Which is why I appreciate the use of examples of the photography that Darien has included to show experience in order to gain the trust of the website’s users.
Regarding the marketability of this website, I am not sure if Darien is planning on monetizing the website and making a profit off the content, but I think it would be a great opportunity to! I think one great way to engage with the audience a little but more would be to introduce social media platforms, if possible. Danah Boyd writes about using social media as a tool for creating publics as it builds a network of people and connections. Social media allows users to access their friends and introduces them to a broader world, making them feel like they are a part of something bigger and important to it. “Through engagement with publics, people develop a sense of others that ideally manifests as tolerance and respect” (Boyd, 2014). That being said, I think if Darien linked some social media platforms that also showed more photography it would encourage a specific public. Additionally, these social media accounts could be used to further promote the website.
Overall, I think Darien has done a great job with the website so far with its marketability as I can determine his intended audience based on the design, and I can see a lot of potential for how this audience can be marketed to, and how the website could possibly be monetized and used to support Darien’s future in photography!
When opening Victor’s website you are first presented with a fullscreen image of Ash Ketchum with Pikachu on his shoulder. I like this design choice and think it gives the reader a glimpse of what his website is about without using any words which is a good thing. At the top left of the page there is a title for his website in a nice simple bold font, and just to the right of that is a navigation menu that allows readers to access each part of his website. Both use a white font which provides a good contrast to the dark blue background making it easier to read. While I think this is a good start, there are a few things I would change. For starters I would replace the default text over the image, currently, it says “My Blog” and “Just another WordPress site”. I think if he replaced that with his website title and then centered the navigation menu at the top it would be more balanced and remove some unnecessary text. Moreover, if he would like to keep the two text boxes he could also add the text just underneath the image that says “VP CARD COLLECTIONS IS A PLACE TO SHARE STORIES AND IN-DEPTH REVIEWS ABOUT A VARIETY OF TRADING CARD PRODUCTS”, that way when someone opens his site they get the title and a short description of it without having to scroll at all.
Scrolling down, there is a detailed about me section with a good picture followed by a section talking about pokemon as it’s one of the main topics of the website and finally at the bottom, there is a gallery of pictures of different card packs he has opened. I think everything here is well done and valid to have on the homepage. The theme of the homepage is very good and looks professional, some may critique the fact that the background changes from black to white to black again as it is inconsistent but I like it and think it provides distinct indicators that you are on a new section of the homepage. The design is kept consistent throughout the entirety of his website, overall a very simple and minimal design that just works very well for this kind of blog. One thing to note is that not all of the content is showing up in the navigation menu which makes it a little confusing to find all his posts. The actual content itself is well done, his content posts examine many different trading cards/card sets from pokemon to the NHL. Reading the posts you can tell this is something he is passionate about, he goes over how many cards are in each set, the prices, the rarity of certain cards, cards that have special qualities, and the artwork on the cards. The process posts do a good job of examining the readings from each week and providing his thoughts on them, but in his more recent ones, he doesn’t include any changes he made to his website or details on his process of content creation for that week which is an important part of the process posts. Since this week is all about blog marketability and search engine optimization I thought I would outline some things that are done well and things that could help improve this for Victor’s blog. The article 15 Reasons Why Your Business Absolutely Needs SEO outlines 15 reasons search engine optimization is so important for reachability and every one of these points can translate to any website not only businesses. “With the rise and growing domination of mobile traffic, local search has become a fundamental part of… Success”(Hollingsworth, 2021). The article explains the importance of mobile support for reachability and this is something Victor has done well. Everything on his site works on mobile just as well as on desktop and the navigation bar is put into a three-line icon that just makes more sense for mobile. The article also explains the importance of having keywords on your website so your content will show up more frequently in people’s search results. Pokemon is a massive brand with millions of searches each day so it’ll be hard to optimize this for his website but I think if he used specific pack names as titles for his content posts that it would show up more for people looking for information on those packs. Overall I enjoyed reviewing Victor’s website as someone who grew up playing pokemon games and had tons of pokemon cards as a kid. It was interesting to hear about recent information on the subject and I think with a little more polishing this website would be very good.
My Own Experience: How I Learned to Recognize and Avoid Different Types of Toxic People
Image source: Unsplash
As I sit down to pen my experience, my mind wanders back to when I realized the power of courage and overcame the guilt of being entangled in toxic relationships. It was a life-changing journey that taught me how to identify and avoid different types of toxic people. Growing up, various personalities surrounded me, and it was difficult to differentiate between good and bad relationships. As a result, my emotional and mental well-being was negatively impacted. It took me a long time to recognize and understand the different types of toxic people and their behaviour. In this post, I will share my personal journey of recognizing and avoiding toxic people. In addition, I will offer tips and tricks that worked for me and recommend books, podcasts, and videos that helped me in my journey of personal growth.
Recognizing Toxic People: Different Types of Toxic Personalities
Image source: sainttwenty.com
Navigating through life, I met various individuals with toxic personalities. Toxic people come in all forms – some are overt, while others are more subtle. The different types of toxic characters that I have encountered include:
·The Manipulator: Manipulative individuals use deception, coercion, or intimidation to control others. They have hidden agendas and will stop at nothing to get what they want.
·The Victim: Individuals with a victim mentality often blame others for their problems and refuse to take responsibility for their actions. They seek sympathy and attention, and their presence can be emotionally draining.
·The Narcissist:These individuals are self-absorbed, lack empathy, and have a grandiose sense of self-importance. They are attention seekers and will go to any lengths to obtain validation.
Recognizing Toxic Behaviours: Signs to Look Out For
Recognizing toxic behaviours is critical in avoiding toxic people. Constant criticism, manipulation, gaslighting, bullying, and belittling are some behaviours to look out for. Toxic people often exhibit controlling behaviour and try to dominate others. They lack empathy and are self-centred. They blame others for their mistakes and lack accountability.
The Impact of Toxic People on Mental Health
Toxic people can significantly impact an individual’s mental and emotional well-being. Being around toxic people can lead to anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. As a result, an individual may experience constant stress, feel drained, and be exhausted. Toxic people can also cause feelings of guilt and self-blame, leading to a loss of self-worth and confidence.
Coping with Toxic People at Work, School, Family, Friends, and in Personal Relationships
Dealing with toxic people can be challenging, especially if they are family members, close friends, or coworkers. However, it is essential to set boundaries and communicate assertively. It is crucial to understand that you cannot change a toxic person, and it is not your responsibility to fix them. Avoid engaging in their toxic behaviour and practice self-care. Seeking support from a trusted friend, family member, or mental health professional is also crucial.
My journey to Finding Courage and Overcoming Guilt
During my transformation journey to becoming Roj, I used to feel guilty in front of toxic people. However, I eventually realized that I was not responsible for their behaviour and could not change them. I found courage and strength in setting boundaries and removing myself from toxic situations. I learned to prioritize my mental and emotional well-being and started engaging in self-care practices.
Experimented Tips and Tricks to Avoid Toxic People
Here are some tips and tricks that I experimented with to avoid toxic people:
Identify toxic people and their behaviours and avoid engaging with them.
Surround yourself with positive people who uplift and support you.
Practice self-care and engage in activities that bring you joy.
Set boundaries and communicate assertively.
Offer compassion, but don’t try to fix them.
Remember, you aren’t at fault.
Don’t expect change!
Understand the cycle!
Recommended Videos, Books, and Podcasts That Have Helped Me on My Journey:
click for more info
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click for more info
Eliminating Toxic People from Your Life: When It’s Necessary
While trying to avoid toxic people is essential, sometimes it’s necessary to eliminate them from your life entirely. This can be a difficult decision, but it’s essential to prioritize your well-being. For example, if the person is causing you more harm than good, it may be time to say goodbye.
Living a Happy Life Without Toxic People: Conclusion
Toxic people can have a profound impact on your mental health and well-being. It’s crucial to recognize toxic behaviours and set boundaries to protect yourself. Remember that your mental health should always come first. Don’t be afraid to eliminate toxic people from your life if necessary. By surrounding yourself with positive and supportive people, practicing self-care, and trusting your instincts, you can live a happy, healthy life free from toxic people. Ultimately, the only way to win with toxic people is not to play.
Bibliography:
Smith, J. (2022, March 15). The Mental Health Effects of Toxic People. Wanderdolls. https://wanderdolls.com/the-mental-health-effects-of-toxic-people/
Saint Twenty. (2022, June 20). Types of Toxic People to Ditch. Retrieved from https://sainttwenty.com/2022/06/20/types-of-toxic-people-to-ditch/
For my third peer review, I had the opportunity to look at Melvin’s website called Smile Host Dream. Right off the bat, I really love the aesthetic and style of his blog and I love that he’s using his website to share a passion of his which is creating and editing documentaries, stop motion animation, and machinima. As a viewer and reader, I also really appreciate that his mission and explanation for his website is on his homepage and that I don’t need to scroll to far to find it. He has a very specific niche and a very clear purpose for his page, which I think it great!
At the moment, as a viewer I feel that his website is more of a personal blog than a business with a business strategy and plan. However, I think Smile Host Dream has great potential with growing his page and potentially monetization. Although I am not a part of his target audience, I do think that people would be inclined to engage with his call to actions. Specifically, his call to action on his homepage that suggests his reader to comment on his videos and engage with them! I think that it’s really inviting and that it would make someone who enjoys the content he posts write him comments and keep up to date with his content.
To showcase his productions he has linked the video thumbnail to the full video on his YouTube channel, and I really like that he did that because it could possibly allow him to gain more traction to his YouTube channel from his website. On the other hand, I think that Melvin could definitely leverage social media platforms by posting shorter versions of his videos in order to get his audience interested in watching his full creations on YouTube and also learning more about his production process on his website. In terms of monetization, I think that his website would be great with Google Ads and that it could be a main source of income for him if he developed his page into a business. Melvin’s YouTube channel also has monetization potential if he continues to develop it further and post videos more consistently.
One key suggestion from Melvin’s second peer review was to link his social accounts to his website for cross-promotion and to encourage more growth for his website and his brand overall. Melvin does have his YouTube channel and videos links throughout his page, which I really think is a key asset for his content! However, having social media accounts created specifically for his brand to promote his videos on platforms like Instagram and TikTok would definitely allow him to further grow his brand and treat it more like a business. Overall, I’m really loving Melvin’s style and the direction he’s heading with his page!
For this week’s assignment, I had the opportunity to review one of my peers’ blogs for PUB 201. I was paired up with Lita Lising where her blog is about her exercising journey. The content Read More
Today I’ll be reviewing Nicole’s website, https://tmylife.ca/! It’s a personal blog about exploring and trying new things. Her tagline is “Shake up your routine and explore, ” which sums up her website well. She wishes to break a monotonous routine and share new ideas with her readers. I love how she tells her story before approaching the blog’s purpose because it provides context and a personable tone to her writing.
She uses a content marketing strategy to appeal to viewers, through personal storytelling. It’s written from the perspective of someone who wants to change something about her life, and the journey of her doing such.
She has different categories for her blog, using a submenu to highlight different topics such as ‘My Explore’, ‘A Day in a Life’, and ‘T Time’. This is a strategic way to organize her website content and allow viewers to read different topics based on what they are drawn to. This is also an excellent way to keep users on the site for longer, improving her Google Analytics.
Looking deeper into her blogs, her branding is fairly consistent across the board, naming her blogs ‘Plogs’. This is a unique way to draw viewers in, though I’d love to know what inspired ‘Plogs’. She is authentic and honest about her life, even in her most recent post, detailing how busy she was and how she was unable to go to different places.
In addition, I think it would be beneficial to only include a few recent blog posts on her home page, rather than all of them, as the homepage looks a bit busy, and users may feel overwhelmed.
In terms of business strategy, she utilizes her social media as a strategy to get viewers to read her site. Her social media is consistent and engaging, which I love. I would recommend she add links to the images on her website, to link to her Instagram posts. I notice she has a Pinterest as well, which contributes to the aesthetics of her website. I would recommend she consider other social media channels such as TikTok or Twitter. She could also make Day in the Life vlogs to include in her blog posts. To invite leads or more viewers, I would include a contact page of some sort, and use that as a call-to-action in her posts. She has a subscribe box at the bottom of her page, but it is hard to see, so I would try to make that more visible somehow, by including it earlier on the home page.
All in all, the consistency of her branding is compelling, and I would personally read her blog posts and view her website. I can tell she pays attention to the design and content and ensures they are synonymous with each other. Check out her website!
For this third and final peer review of this class of PUB 101, I was assigned to review another blogger’s website. For this peer review, I am told to observe the website’s marketability to an intended audience group. I was paired up with a student named Kashish Shodwani, and her website is called “BRAINY BLOG” I think this was one interesting website to look into. For starters, some may notice that there is an eye-catching title to the website, there is this picture of a plastic brain and huge text stating “Unlocking the secrets of the brain.” As for her about page, she starts by greeting the viewers of her website by saying “Hello psychology geeks…” Which can give a big hint of what she had imagined her audience to be. As for the about page, she said that she is a major in Psychology. She said she hopes to grow by learning better about her life by understanding how she and others work; Hearing this reminded me of an article called “How To Talk to Stranger” which goes into how to be a more friendly persona and how to talk to strangers out in the world (Hamblin, 2016).
As for the design and aesthetic of the website, I noticed it has a very similar colour background and formatting to the POSIEL website which is our home site for this class. I feel that this design, intentional or not makes a sense of familiarity within the site since most of the returning audiences may be students in the same class of PUB 101. For the marketability of this website, I believe the top of the page is a great eye-catcher, it has a bright orange brain picture on the right, and Big bold text stating “A dive into how to use psychological concepts in everyday life: Tips, Tricks and Insights.” Which may make the reader interested to read more about psychology. The big bold text can make an easy marketing strategy for her viewers, which can make the difference for people stay on her site or not. The typing style used in blogs on this website is very formal with proper punctuation and grammar. This typing style can give the feeling that the author makes blogs for people who are more sophisticated in reading longer blogs and readings.
One of her blogs called “Fight the Stress” this blog goes on about how stress is very draining to almost everyone and how we should control it. I feel that Shodwani’s public audience in mind was other people who are interested in Psychology. For example, Shodwani stated in her introduction sentence saying “Hello psychology geeks…” which is a massive giveaway to Shodwani’s idea of what her public was going to be on. According to an article called “Publics and Counterpublics” by Michael Warner, Warner stated that “A public is a space of discourse organized by nothing other than discourse itself.” (Warner, 2002).
Bibliography:
Hamblin, J. (2016, August 25). How to talk to Strangers Irl. The Atlantic. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/08/civil-inattention/497183/
Warner, M. (2002). Frontpage. Public. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from http://knowledgepublic.pbworks.com/
Whenever members of the royal family have any sort of outing, for better or for worse, fashion decisions are always at the forefront. Their styles are emulated by millions around the world who aim to look as prim and proper as true royalty. But ladies of the royal family take the cake for having the most iconic fashion senses. Today, Spilling the Royaltea is awarding rankings to the top three most stylish members of the royal family.
Bronze Medal: Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth, despite not being the most daring in her fashion choices, was known for her bright-coloured ensembles and signature handbags. As told by her daughter-in-law, Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh, the late Queen wore these neon outfits, from bright red to green, to everything in between so that her admirers could always spot her in a crowd. Being easily spottable meant that everyone who wanted to had the chance to easily say “I saw the Queen!” Aww… she did it for us!
Queen Elizabeth II’s rainbow of outfits
Silver Medal: Kate Middleton
Kate Middleton’s elegant style has her looking royal every time the camera is graced with the opportunity to catch a photo. Her fashion sense, although not always the boldest, is palatable to all, making her a global fashion icon. Her ability to pull off both designer brands and more affordable pieces from places like Zara caters to women all over the world.
Kate Middleton wearing a dress from Zara during a visit to the University of London for its Children of the 2020s project on October 5, 2021
She often wears coat dresses and pantsuits with simple prints, paired with classic jewelry pieces, creating timeless, impeccable ensembles. Just look at her!
Kate Middleton wearing a pink pastel suit at a meeting for The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood in June 2022
Gold Medal: Princess Diana
Despite her tragic passing over twenty years ago, Princess Diana’s iconic, daring outfits have left their mark on us all. From her casual outfits of the 70s and 80s fashion to her beautiful, HUGE wedding dress, Princess Diana always had us guessing what she would choose next.
Princess Diana’s 1981 wedding dress
But what makes her take the cake as the most fashionable member of the royal family is her ICONIC revenge dress she wore after her husband, King Charles confessed on TV to committing adultery with the now Queen Consort, Camilla. The beautiful black off-the-shoulder gown screams “I don’t care about my husband and I don’t need him” and we’re here for it.
Princess Diana’s iconic revenge dress in June 1994
Okay, maybe it’s cliche, but I feel like it’s just something I need to experience at least once. “The city of love” has always intrigued me for its stunning scenery and just the city life in general. I would love to see all the famous landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower, of course!
There’s something about the beaches here and the turquoise waters that really intrigue me. It just seems like the ultimate destination for a tropical vacation.
I would love to visit Tokyo to appreciate all the art and culture that the city has to offer! The cherry blossoms in the spring is something I have always wanted to see.
“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag Hi, welcome back, another week another plog! Can’t believe there are only two to three more weeks of classes till this term ends. Almost there and then break!! Read More
One adventure that always gets me out of the house is a good ole giveaway, what can I say… I’m a sucker for free things!
So when a new neighborhood grocery store has a grand opening event and mails you an invite for a chance to win a $500 gift card, you better wake your butt up at 5:30 am to be one of the first 500 in line!
Save on Foods grand opening on March 23, 2023, and Gift Card Giveaway
For the first 500 people, they were giving away 2 chances at a $500 gift card and another 498 opportunities at a $10 gift card. So, I had pretty good odds at $500. Why not try, at the least, I could get some free milk and butter while I was up.
After waiting in line for an hour and 20 mins, we all filed into the store at 7 am and were greeted by friendly, smiling staff that were handing out the gift cards one by one. The store was pristine, I had never seen a store untouched and displayed so beautifully. They also had a pianist playing music for us.
To find out what you won you had to bring your gift card to the cashier. They also had another coupon if you bought $50 worth of groceries, you get a $10 gift certificate for next time. With all those people coming in all at the same time, the store got pretty crowded quickly. So I got $50 worth of grub and headed to cash.
Here’s my card! Guess how much I won!
Drum rollllllllll…
Ahhh, I won $10. Plus, I also got another $10 gift card for next time! It wasn’t $500, but it was exciting to try. Plus it was great to support a local business on its grand opening.
Go check out Save on Foods in Richmond, B.C. at 9100 Blundell Road at the Garden City Shopping Center. Open every day from 7 am – 10 pm
They are having a door crasher for the first 500 customers on Saturday, March 25th. They’ll be giving away a 3 lbs bag of navel oranges (worth $8.49)! Happy adventuring!
