Today I was getting frustrated with the lack of accessibility that I had with customizing my website’s appearance. There was no way I could edit the colours of some parts of my website, so I decided to use ChatGBT to help with the CSS code to edit the appearance.
It took some playing around with but eventually, this made it possible for me to edit the colour and the opacity of my menu colour:
This was so useful and helpful, and I will definitely use it more to play around with the appearance of my blog so that I can have exactly what I want even with the limitations that the themes place.
For this peer review, I was delighted to find out I would be looking at Antalya’s blog, cleverly called Jellylift, for a couple reasons: 1) I’ve worked with Antalya in previous courses– she’s lovely!, and 2) I am also a hardcore Jellycat fanatic. I mean, what better way to spend (way too much of) your adult money on stuffed animals? (See my prized possession on the Indigo website.) So, when prompted about how Jellylift markets to their intended audience, I immediately think “well… that’s me!” Before getting into the marketability portion of this peer review, I’m first going to dig further into Antalya’s intended audience.
Who (else) Is the Intended Audience?
From the name “Jellylift” and also the About page, it is very clear that this blog is dedicated to two things and two things only: weightlifting and Jellycats. Side note: I have to add to the pre-existing compliment pile for this super awesome juxtaposition– it’s super awesome. Individually, both weightlifting and Jellycats have their own passionate counterpublics, a term discussed by Michael Warner. So, it seems that these groups make up Antalya’s intended audience.
I know that the gym community, both online and in real life spheres, is quite a tight-knit and supportive counterpublic, usually circulating discourse around tips on form, advice on the best pre-workouts, flexing their personal bests, etc. (Is it painfully obvious that I’m absolutely NOT a member of this counterpublic?) On the other hand, the Jellycat counterpublic is bonded through obsessing over and collecting the cutest, softest plushes on the planet. Check out the Jellycat website to see for yourself.
So, Jellylift is clearly a hub for members of both of these counterpublics to enjoy. However, by combining the two comically different interests, Antalya may be single-handedly creating a whole third counterpublic through Jellylift– a counterpublic consisting of those who love to sweat and pump major iron AND embrace their inner child with cuddly toys.
I’ve talked a lot about these people who surely would love Jellylift, but how exactly does Jellylift market to them to solidify this love?
Marketability Through Content and Design
I have determined that both the weightlifting and Jellycat counterpublics are part of Antalya’s intended audience, but this is not to say that you have to be a part of both / Antalya’s up-and-coming third counterpublic to be a Jellylift enjoyer. Take me, for example, who a) would rather die than step into a public gym, but b) has no problem dropping $40 on a hand-sized stuffed cauliflower with legs, and c) loves Jellylift. Antalya does a great job of balancing content about both interests– check out her content categories for Lifting and Jellycats– while keeping them separate enough for pure lifters and Jellycat lovers to enjoy one and not the other. This is important as it opens the door for more (regular) site visitors– I’m not sure the same effect would be achieved if Antalya’s content posts each featured an integration of both interests.
Additionally, the overall ironic and casual tone used across Jellylift makes the content clearly suitable for Antalya’s audience, or at least a subsection of them. She talks about how Jellycat lovers and weightlifters could be generalized into a “youth” demographic in her process post Knock Knock… Who’s There? Antalya’s style of writing definitely sells to this demographic perfectly, as the language she uses is very Gen-Z-friendly, with dry humour, lowercase titles, and expletives used (tastefully and quirkily) in every post.
Jellylift’s blog design also contributes to supporting its marketability to these intended audiences. At first glance, the pastel text against the rich chocolate brown background is definitely not a conventional website colour palette, but it is undeniably aesthetically pleasing to the youthful eye. Jellylift is also very easy to navigate with the clearly-labelled menu, systematically organized and categorized posts, and use of tags. Although Antalya loves to use a fun title for her posts– such as “What the F**k is Content?”– all her posts can easily be located, and are additionally very readable and scannable due to her use of headers and links. All of these elements, according to our PUB 101 Week 10 lecture material, are ingredients for good SEO. And, according to Sam Hollingsworth, having a good SEO is extremely beneficial for marketability. He further explains how site performance suffers if these elements are missing, but Antalya’s got it covered.
Summing Up
Overall, Antalya’s content and design of Jellylift is all noticeably intentional and carefully executed, which evidently pays off in its marketability as well as user-satisfaction (cite: me). I can’t wait to keep up with Jellylift and see what Antalya has up her sleeve for the rest of the semester!
Bonus Content: A Short Response to Antalya’s Peer Review
If you aren’t Antalya, this peer review post ends here. Thanks for reading! If you ARE Antalya, keep scrolling.
Hi Antalya! I enjoyed your peer review for my blog so much I just had to respond to it here. Thank you for the kind words, I truly am so flattered that someone I admire so much academically and personally likes melatonin gone missing! I am obsessed with the justgirlythings posts you pulled for me, truly thank you so much. melatonin gone missing feels so seen. Keep your eyes peeled for when those make their appearance on the blog.
Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 9). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs seo. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved March 29, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close
Norman, S. (2023). Data and SEO [PowerPoint Slides]. Department of Publishing, Simon Fraser University.
Warner, M. (2002). Publics and Counterpublics (abbreviated version). Quarterly Journal of Speech, 88(4), 413-425.
This week in PUB 101, we got to revisit Google Analytics. I installed this plugin for my blog in the first or second week of this course, but had yet to look at the data, so I was intrigued to see what kind of activity had been tracked on melatonin gone missing so I know what’s working and what could be improved in regards to my site’s SEO.
Google Analytics
The first thing I looked at, purely out of my own curiosity, is my audience overview. I wanted to see exactly how many people have checked out my blog.
From this graphic, I can see that melatonin gone missing has been visited by 151 new users and accumulated 640 total page views. Seeing this data and knowing that my blog has only existed for a few months is honestly quite amazing… I feel like a real website owner! The number of users on my site regularly fluctuate, and I could guess this is because I usually only post once a week, attracting the most traffic which then decreases until my next posts are up the following week.
I also was curious about user acquisition, because after all, this is only a blog for an SFU course… who’s finding it besides my TA, professor, and classmates? And how are they finding it?
It’s interesting to see how users have come from social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, considering I have personally not linked my blog to either of those sites. The direct and google channels are probably mostly me, and the Posiel channel appears because my posts are connected to the Posiel feed, so these are unsurprising. Users have come from Jellylift as well, thanks to Antalya’s links in her peer review of melatonin gone missing (go check it out!).
Seeing that visitors really do come from social media and external links demonstrates how important a good and continuously improving SEO is for site traffic. Sam Hollingsworth explains this further, saying how having a good SEO is “the most viable and cost-effective way to both understand and reach customers in key moments that matter”. For melatonin gone missing, this means being accessible and easily usable for my target audiences, which I identify in my Imaginary Audiences post. I want my audience to find my blog in a pinch!
Growing my SEO
To improve my site’s SEO, as it is evidently quite important, I will aim to do things that Dr. Norman calls “ingredients for a good SEO”. Some of these things include effective use of keywords, including strong headers in your posts, and having outbound links to reliable sources. Although I strive to include all of these elements in my weekly posts, there are always ways to aim higher and ensure my SEO is being considered in every aspect of my blog design/content.
Stay tuned to see melatonin gone missing skyrocket in SEO success!
References:
Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 9). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs seo. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close
Norman, N. (2023). Data and SEO [PowerPoint Slides]. Department of Publishing, Simon Fraser University.
Photo:
Joyce, J. (2021, February 20). 10 great google analytics alternatives. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-analytics-alternatives/347638/
Angie in Canadais a lifestyle and travel blog created by Angie, an exchange student from Hong Kong. Her journey in Canada began two years ago. Ever since touching down, she has had the opportunity to visit some great places, eat delicious foods, and try new seasonal activities in Vancouver, BC—all of which you can read more about on her blog.
All in all, Angie hopes to share her experiences in Canada—particularly in Vancouver and at SFU—with her audience, taking them along on her personal journey.
Just from reading Angie’s introductory post titled, ‘Hello everyone!’, I’m immediately drawn into who Angie is and who her audience is: university and other exchange students alike who are exploring Canada one day at a time. Though I will say, seeing that this is a lifestyle and travel blog, I wouldn’t limit her audience to that specific demographic just yet. Rather, this blog would be great for lifestyle and travel enthusiasts like Angie. But anyway, let’s take a closer look at Angie in Canada.
Content—a casual and colloquial conversation
Something I noticed in each and every blog post on Angie in Canada is the casual and colloquial writing style used by Angie. I appreciate that as a reader because not only did the topics in each post intrigue me, but I felt like part of the author’s thoughts and conversations.
This writing technique reminds me of Suler’s ‘online disinhibition effect’—that feeling we have in cyberspace where we say, act, and do as if nobody is watching—in that what Angie has written thus far is a reflection of her personal values.
The UX (User Experience)
The UX—user experience—of a website covers functional aspects.
The theme and design of Angie in Canada tie everything together. Right when you land on Angie’s website, you’re greeted with a personalized heading and clean design.
Angie in Canada website header and navigation bar
The navigation bar is tidy and categorized by topic. However, I think the link to Angie’s ‘About’ page could be moved from the top-right corner of the screen to the navigation bar so that all her pages are all in one place.
Other than that, I appreciate the addition of photos in each post to compliment the text content. For instance, in Angie’s ‘VanDusen Botanical Garden’ travel post, the text content is followed by a photo gallery that provides us a visualizer of her experiences.
One more little detail that caught my attention and gives Angie’s website more personality is the integration of a Spotify badge in the right-hand-side menu. The badge features Spotify’s ‘Chill Hits’ playlist and updates regularly with tunes that you can listen to while reading Angie in Canada. It not only encourages interactions on her site, but it makes for a great reading experience.
Angie in Canada Spotify playlist integration
If Angie hasn’t had a chance already, I’d recommend looking into how else she can boost her SEO. Having a good SEO is great for builds user engagement, site credibility and trust, and user experience. Hollingsworth covers this in more detail in his 2021 article, ’15 Reasons Why Your Business Absolutely Needs SEO.’
The UI (User Interface)
On the other hand, the UI—user interface—of a website highlights visual aspects.
Something that stood out to me was the use of negative, or white, space. While sometimes white space can be too overwhelming and other times nonexistent on websites, Angie in Canada gives us an easy-to-read and easy-to-navigate design with an even balance between text and image content and negative space.
Even more so, the font colour contrast against the white space plus the sans-serif typography used across Angie in Canada allows for an easy reading experience on the eyes.
When you take all these different elements into account, you get a good sense of the image and brand that Angie is promoting—her brand. As Gertz (2015) notes, the pattern that these elements forms becomes its own “trademark.”
My final thoughts on Angie in Canada
In terms of overall marketability, I feel that Angie definitely knows her audience and has done an exceptional job at catering her content to them. Like a performer has a crowd of fans at their show, Angie has her own public made up of individuals who share similar interests as her and as each other.
Each post is consistent with the theme of her blog—travel and lifestyle—and doesn’t fail to engage her readers with curated photo galleries for each of her experiences shared. I think Angie has done an amazing job building her personal cyberinfrastructure, and she has lots of room to continue developing it through her blog.
So excited to continue reading Angie’s content, and I encourage you to check out Angie in Canadaas well!
For my peer review, I was paired with Ainah. As I followed her link and landed on her website, I was pleased by all the work she has put into her website. It is well laid out, she has put a lot of effort into her website, and it is paying off because it looks impressive. I love that you have created a space to post as you please and share your love for skin-care products, makeup, and places you have explored. The content you have already created is top-notch, and I hope you follow your dreams and become one of the best content creators/content managers.
In the article “Searching for a public of their own.” Written by Danah Boyd mentions that people go out and capture what they are doing and share it online, and others can view the content they have created through the comfort of their own space. I believe you are making public where people can put their trust in you and try out skincare products you have reviewed, coffee shops you have enjoyed, and restaurants you have been to, all while trusting what you have. Even for myself, I want to purchase some of the things you have reviewed, especially the skin care products you enjoy. I am currently into skincare products and have been using “The Ordinary” and the blush you recommend by Rare Beauty #teamselena, lol!
Overall, the content you create is very pleasing, and the marketing you do for skin care is. Makeup, cafe shops, and how to care for yourself while at University are well advertised. So much so that I will take in what you are saying and try out some of the brands you like, and I also enjoyed the tips you shared because sometimes people need a reminder to care for themself. Students often focus on their classes and forget to put themselves first. This is your very own “Digital Garden” where you can let others know how you feel about products, and they can reach out and connect with you about things you have reviewed and reach out about places they have found interesting as well. Keep up the excellent work; one day, you will have everything you hope and pray for.
Was it a good one? Eh, it was decent. But what do you expect from someone thinking out loud at 1 AM in the morning? If I’m being honest, not much.
My point is, it doesn’t take as much effort as one thinks to write, and by write, I mean write.
Write down whatever comes to mind. Whatever you think in a moment, note it down on your phone, on a sticky-note, on the back of your hand, or whatever you like to take notes on.
I’m not necessarily talking about writing a Master’s thesis, a dissertation, or a essay on how your positionality has influenced your epistemology (do not ask me what that last one means because even after writing a paper on it, I still don’t fully understand what this is trying to say). I just mean writing words down.
Writing words down is how I start anything. Need to write an essay on how a theory can be found in today’s world? Need to remember what to pick up over the weekend? Just start writing.
I’ve heard some people call this a ‘word vomit’ moment, where you just ‘vomit’ out any words that come to mind. Think of it nicely as a brainstorm session, and don’t take it too seriously—unless you’re working against a very tight deadline; in that case, please take things seriously.
Now, please understand and keep in mind that I am no expert when it comes to writing. Yes, I am a Communication student, but that doesn’t mean anything much (trust me).
Yes, I write lots of papers for my classes and I’ve lived much of my university life between Microsoft Word, Citefast, and Google Scholar, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I am a good communicator or writer.
This takes me back to my thoughts on what the term ‘Communication’ means and what it means to study it. Though, even without critical thinking and analyses of historical theories, one can still put words on a page.
Not sure where I was going with all of this in the first place, but let me just remind you that writing is not as difficult as it seems.
As cliché as this is going to sound, ideas don’t come together over night, and so won’t your writing too. It takes time, review, and revision, but we all have to start somewhere.
So, get moving and write down whatever comes to mind. Something is bound to stick.
I think I’m burnt out. Burned out? Burned… Burnt. You get what I mean (I hope). I don’t know which of the two it is but I think I’m that.
I don’t have the motivation to do anything right now. I’d rather be sitting around or staring at a wall. If anything, I could be using this time to sleep, but that would just be a big waste of such good time.
You know what though? Writing about this gives me a reason to get all those bleh feelings out. Trust me, I’ll be over it before you know it.
It’s just insane though to think about what the human body puts up with. If you’re like me, you stay up much later than you should only to wake up noon the next day (okay, well not always noon, but it feels that late a lot of the time). And then you may spend an hour or so getting ready for the half-a-day you have left to make use of. Then a couple hours go by, you do some work, it’s time for dinner, and all of a sudden the day is over.
Rinse and repeat.
Even though I spend my days working away at homework and work, it still feels like I never get anything done. Well, okay I guess it doesn’t help when I spend more time on my laptop online shopping or clearing storage up on my phone than I should. It’s just a matter of me using my time wisely… productively… usefully? Please, could this sound any less cliché??
I should be sleeping right now, but instead I’m forcing my eyes awake so I can get stuff done and feel accomplished.
I’m sitting here at my laptop like something amazing is going to happen. Maybe in the literal blink of my eye, I’ll watch my list of things to do completely disappear. I’ll be done with this semester, and I’ll finally be able to enjoy some much needed sleep and leisure time.
That, however, is for another day. Something to look forward to for sure. In the meantime, let’s just get through this month. This is just another one of those moments that I’ll get over soon with enough time spent scrolling through Pinterest or Instagram.
I just need to romanticize life for a sec and everything will be fine.
I got this. You got this too. We’ll be fine! Just trust the process.
SEO is one of those fancy-sounding acronyms I keep hearing about, but I don’t know much about what it is. Yes, I know it stans for search engine optimization… but what does that mean? Well, I’m going to find out.
What is search engine optimization?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a means of understanding and reaching your audience. Not only is it a practical tool that can improve a website’s searchability and visibility, but it’s a cost-effective one too (Hollingsworth, 2021).
Hollingsworth (2021) goes on to outline 15 different reasons we need SEO, including that organic searches are the main source of website traffic and that SEO builds trust and credibility.
While this is all great and insightful information, what does it mean for me and Two A.M. Thoughts? How can I boost my website’s SEO?
Three ways to boost SEO
Natural links. One way to boost my SEO is to include natural links throughout my content. These aren’t links that are paid for, monetized, or tracked in anyway. Rather, they are links that are there to reference other content, websites, or sources. Links are something I include in my posts regularly, but a majority of them are external links that take readers to outside sources and websites. One thing I’d definitely like to work on is linking and referencing more of my own blog posts in my content—internal links.
Analytics data. Website analytics are another way to boost SEO. Particularly, they help us track users’ behaviours so that we can adapt our site and content to suit their needs. Analytics are something I have set up, but I could sure spend more time looking into them to help cater Two A.M. Thoughts a little more.
Positive user experience. A positive user experience can change everything for your site. Being able to offer users with the information they’re looking for in as few clicks as possible can make your site stand out from others alike, notes Hollingsworth (2021).
Takeaways of search engine optimization
SEO is an essential for all websites. There are so many more ways to boost it than the ones I’ve listed above, but those are just a start. Some things to keep in mind are that SEO is the key to long-term success. It’s a cost-effective and quantifiable gateway to new opportunities, so it doesn’t hurt to start adapting your SEO today.
First impression: At first glance, Bonnie’s website has beautiful artwork of a sunset over a nature scape that is used as her banner, it gives a feeling of warmth and calmness. The title of her website is called “MY LIFESTYLE”, it is in bold, large lettering that stands out and has contrast against the artwork she chose. This makes her main page appealing and accessible to readers. I like the pink tones throughout her page, it compliments the artwork well. I really love the palm tree in the left top corner, you can click on it on any page to get back to the main page. Her menu tabs pop out and are easy to navigate. You get a sense that it is a personal blog about what she finds interesting to write about. Her vibe isn’t to become viral but more of a personal blog to share amongst peers. As mentioned in John Suler’s (2004) article “The Online Disinhibition Effect” Bonnie uses the “We’re Equals (minimizing authority)” technique because her interaction with the reader feels like a peer relationship that is based on mutual experience and story-sharing. I would suggest adding an accessibility plug-in to her website to help those that have certain visual abilities and that could benefit from the variations of text and contrast. The plug-in called One-Click is an example that is easy to add to your website that comes with a variety of settings to help accommodate all readers.
Content: I love the content posts on travel and her ragdoll cat. I like that her contact info is in the contact section and that you can leave her a message in the provided fields. I would remove or change the generic contact info from the bottom of the pages. It would be nice to see more content within her posts along with adding enticing headlines.
Audience: Bonnie mentions in one of her Process Posts that her intended audience is her classmates and friends. I think if she wanted to, she could expand her public further if she used social media links on her website, but that is a personal choice.
It would also be helpful for Bonnie to incorporate SEOs in her posts such as adding keywords to her blog posts, adding videos from YouTube, and including related hyperlinks to her content posts to increase engagement and increase her google search credibility. As Sam Hollingsworth (2021) mentions in “15 Reasons Why Your Business Needs SEO,” using SEOs will ensure a good user experience and increase the chances that more people will read Bonnie’s content. Implementing these strategies could help Bonnie grow her public numbers.
Website’s Marketability: I think for marketability Bonnie could have an opportunity to try some monetization techniques. There is the option of adding ads to her site; Google Analytics has AdSense that you can add to your website. Also, using affiliates is another option, like for cat food or cat supplies or promoting hotels or travel, since she likes to write about her beautiful ragdoll cat and the trips she takes with friends, however, she would have to focus on creating a larger public first. Christina Newberry (2022) says “affiliate marketing is a way for content creators to earn commissions by referring customers to brands.” So you can use affiliate codes or links on your content website and every time someone clicks on that link and purchases that item you can make a commission.
Overall Bonnie’s website looks professional, is aesthetically appealing, and is well-designed. With some effort and planned direction, her website has the possibility to become more marketable.
As the final weeks of the course are coming to a close, I wanted to revisit accessibility to ensure that I covered as many bases that I could on my blog.
So far, I’ve installed the AccessibleWP plugin by codenroll on my blog, which covers the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) principles of “perceivable” and “operable” outlined by the Accessible Publishing Learning Network. It does this by ensuring that vision- and hearing-affected visitors to my website are able to interpret it using their assistive devices or by using keyboard navigation. In particular, there are functions in this plugin that makes links stand out by highlighting them on the page. I also made sure that my links were clear by having them underlined, so that links are perceivable by the user or that there is an interaction available where they are.
Additionally, while the font size on my site is set to size 16, 2 sizes larger than the recommendation of 14 by APLN, the theme I am using scales the text size when responding to different screen sizes, which I haven’t figured out how to control. Thankfully, AccessibleWP covers this with their “Increase Text” function, which allows me to set a scale to increase the text size to for ease of reading.
There was a great point made in APLN’s Introduction to Website Accessibility article, which mentioned that those who use screen readers can opt to hear a list of all the links on my website. I realized that on my homepage, there are two major navigational links that actually don’t describe very much when taken out of context: one that says “More” which leads to my about page, and one that says “More adventures” which leads to my main blog posts in a category I call “Adventure Log”. I’ve now renamed those links to “How it all began” and “Full adventure log” in order to make it more perceivable what kind of content will be found when entering those links.
Currently, I’m a bit behind on adding alt-text to all of my images, but revisiting this article reminded me of an article I read at some point that mentioned that even decorative images, like my site logo, could benefit from a brief description—but that they must be brief, so that those who use alt-text can understand quickly what content is useful to them.
This week, I wanted to once again, focus on my website from a user’s perspective. I mentioned in my 4th process post that I haven’t really been imagining an audience thus far, as I assumed no one else would be reading my content. I still think this way, however I have recently thought a little bit more about how I could gain an audience. Whether I decide to monetize my website in the future or not, I think it is very important to consider user experience when putting out content. Sam Hollingsworth states that “user experience has become every marketer’s number one priority” (Hollingsworth, 2021), and although I may not be marketing anything at the moment, I think it would be a good idea to start looking into increasing my website’s visibility.
One way of doing this is implementing social media withing my website. This is also something I recommended to my assigned peer in this weeks peer review, so I figured there’s no better way to work on my own website than taking my own advice. To do so, I added a link to follow my Instagram account at the end of my “about” page. I chose to link Instagram not only because it is one of the few social media apps that I have, but also because according to the State of Mobile 2022, Instagram is the top app likely used by Gen Z. If there is any audience I hope to increase engagement from, it would likely be Gen Z as my content aligns more with their preferences (as I, the writer of said content, am in fact also a part of Gen Z).
While Jagged Little Pill (2019) strived to do much in terms of packing representation into the production, it ultimately fumbled the bag when it came to LGBT+ representation, particularly that of trans and bisexual people. Resultantly, my article this week highlighted this misstep with a specific interest in the transphobia of the show’s trans erasure. This is a topic that is especially important to me, as an active and avid advocate for LGBT+ justice and as a member of the community myself. As such, this article is probably one of my most passive writings in a long time, but informed, I think, by a real justification for this impatience.
Additionally, this week I have decided to make a plan to integrate more multimedia posts in my blog posts. My blog posts, for the most part, are pretty formulaic: a text post with a header image. While there is the occasional post that differs from this pattern, like the audio files of songs I’ve recorded, these are few and far between. Moving forward, I’m going to try to at least integrate more images into my posts, laying them between paragraphs of text so as not to lose the reader’s interest. I also think I want to start introducing more audio posts, since this blog is about performing arts. As well, if I have the time, and, let’s face it, the confidence, I might post a video of me dancing, but it has been a long minute since I last put on pointe shoes, so we’ll see if I stick to that plan.
However, ultimately transmedia posts aren’t really something that aligns with the content of my blog. As this week’s process post prompt implores me to think about transmedia, I think its appropriate to say that transmedia storytelling is actually something I am a big fan of experimenting with, and a topic I explored in one of my media literacy classes many semesters ago, but truly not something that is foreseeable in the future of The Stars, Too. I don’t actually have any transmedia platforms to post my content to and thus grow my readership. My dabble with social media ended when I was semi-Tumblr-famous as a teen, and I have not created a social media account since. Thus, while multi-media is definitely something I can lean into, transmedia poses more of a road bump.
This week we discussed the concept of transmedia. It is a way to describe a story which can be told across different platforms like writing, films, toys, games, etc. For example, in the reading written by Blogroll, they used pokemon as an example. It is seen across many mediums of platforms like card games, on-screen, on consoles, and books, and it contributes to the growth of the fanbase (blogroll, 2013). It explains the goal of transmedia storytelling to keep the experience and community alive and to continually grow an audience. This keeps the community interested and engaged in the whole platform experience.
With that said, knowing that I can use transmedia as an advantage to my site to engage my audience, to take a small step I can expand my branding of KeptCollexion onto other media platforms. I plan to take action by creating an Instagram page to start, then maybe a YoutTube channel to expand my creativity. With new platforms in mind, the content shared would be in the forms of Instagram posts and stories, and short edited video montages on Youtube. I’ll still be putting more emphasis on social media platform channels as it is the easiest and quickest medium to attract users since it is what most of us use. It is also the platform I am most comfortable using, and it can contribute to sharing a glimpse of what KeptCollexion has to offer.
– Eliza (aka Peanut)
Reference:
Whippersnappers, B. is for. (2013, November 21). Pokemon as transmedia storytelling. kevinbrittenylauren.wordpress.com. Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://kevinbrittenylauren.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/pokemon-as-transmedia-storytelling/
For this peer review, I explored Riella’s webpage “Perfect Hurricane” (PERFECT HURRICANE – a personal blog about stuff and things). From a user’s perspective, I see how she organized the site’s categories from the top menu bar, and how I’m introduced to loud bright colours. This factor helps users easily navigate their way around the page. I also like the animation effects incorporated into the page as they caught my attention instantly and gives the impression of an interactive site. I find sites with visual effects entertaining and make me want to explore more and play around with them. In terms of a reader’s perspective, visually the text is legible and the website contains visual graphics and pictures to help communicate an idea of what “Perfect Hurricane” is all about.
Scrolling further, I found the carousel concept of gallery photos fitting to her site. It shows a quick intro glimpse of events and a story. After viewing the gallery, I wanted to know more in-depth about the site. So the next page I visited was the “Bio” section. It displayed an easy quick read about the author, although I do recommend maybe giving a small background behind the website name “Perfect Hurricane.” On this page, I like how she kept a consistent theme with bright colours and animations. I also found it helpful that a contact domain was added to encourage involvement and community with social media.
In terms of social media, this week’s readings focused on AI and marketing tools. For a successful site, it depends on how the author decides to display their platform and reach their target audience. In this week’s readings, we learned that Data.ai. Is a useful marketing tool that helps analyze and report the marketing performances of various apps like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc. It also discussed how this generation is known as Gen Z, and it is heavily influenced by technology and social networks (Data.ai., 2022). It is a factor to learn and apply to our sites to move towards success in marketability. As mentioned in Data.ai, topics and trends relevant to Gen Z drive engagement through connections and social platforms (Data.ai., 2022). Taking this into account, I see how “Perfect Hurricane” is more of a personal brand, and to engage both personal life and engagement to gain an audience, adding factors of trending memes or songs can add to viewer activity. For example, at the bottom of the home page, I see how there’s a song displayed. I suggest adding a small description or hashtags to reach other users who listen to the same song or artist. This is a way to grow the community through the author’s interests. Also using these social media tactics like hashtags, links, and trending titles will easily capture Gen Z’s attention but also make use of marketing tools and strategies.
This week we also touched on SEO. According to Hollingsworth, SEO is the most viable and cost-effective to understand and reach an audience. It also introduces the main search engine competitors like Google, Yahoo, and Bing (Hollingsworth, S. 2021). Keeping this in mind, adding relevant features to the site like trends, topics, and facts can increase the audience by keeping these search suggestions in mind. Usually, search suggestions are common topics or prompts that users look up, therefore incorporating topics to reach an audience based on the themes/topics of your site would be a useful tip to consider to grow engagement and further reach an audience to grow a solid community.
Lastly, visually I see that there isn’t much content going on. I suggest uploading more content relevant to your theme that can also be relatable to an audience you’re trying to reach. This will grow activity onto the page, and leave the impression of being “incomplete.”
Earlier like I said, the way how this site is well laid out with colours and grid components. It looks fun and interesting and the animation makes users feel engaged. These are good site attributes to continue and improve on.
– Eliza (aka Peanut)
References:
Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 9). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs SEO. Search
Engine Journal. Retrieved March 21, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close
Panipekeesick, R. (n.d.). Perfect hurricane. PERFECT HURRICANE. Retrieved March 27,
2023, from http://perfecthurricane.com/
Posiel.com. Data.ai. (2022). Retrieved March 27, 2023, from
https://posiel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/dataai__state_of_mobile_2022__en.pdf
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.
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
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.
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!
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/
