Tag Archives: Process Posts

Week 12 – Diving into the Deep End of Comments

The comments section can be a nasty place.

We learned early on about the online disinhibition effect, which implies that anonymity may allow one to shed their usual restraints or integrity. This means that you may say something you wouldn’t normally or engage in a conversation you would usually avoid because no one actually knows who you are.

This is easily facilitated throughout comment sections that allow people to post anonymously. An article from the New Yorker discusses how comments are often uncivil because there are no consequences for your words. Posting anonymously allows you to say whatever you want and then hide away and pretend it never happened.

“Without the traditional trappings of personal communication, like non-verbal cues, context, and tone, comments can become overly impersonal and cold.”

Maria Konnikova

This article also notes that anonymity is not always bad, but it can promote engagement, risk taking and creativity. Konnikova discusses how people may be more likely to participate in a conversation.

Another article posted by the Guardian talked about who faces the most abuse online. This article showed data revealing that women, people of faith, or members of the LGBTQ+ community received the most abusive comments.

I have often left comments on friend’s posts, or community events, but I often leave this section alone because of all the hate and abuse that can occur. It hurts my heart to see the words people post when they are protected by the anonymity of their computer screen.

But can these interactions be turned into something good?

We watched a Ted Talk in class from Dylan Marron that showed how negative comments could be turned into positive interactions. He has received tons of internet hate from the videos he has created, and he decided that he would call them to try and regain the humanity behind their comment.

A lot of these phone calls went really well, and Marron was able to prompt commentors to think before they post. The most impactful thing he said was that empathy is not endorsement. We can disagree with someone but still try and understand their viewpoint.

“Empathy is not endorsement.”

Dylan Marron

This is so needed today. There is so much hate and division between people with different political or cultural views.

Empathy allows us to extend understanding to the people around us.

Empathy allows us to realize that we all have different upbringings, relationships with our parents, and histories of abuse.

Empathy allows us to see the human in the person before us and take a moment to understand before jumping into hate.

There are people behind every post. Extend empathy before posting cruel messages or a critical comments.

Enjoy the sunshine today friends 😊

Queer Counterpublics

The internet has afforded me access to spaces that center queer experiences. These spaces allow me to fully embody and indulge in my queerness. I am a part of a multitude of trans, non-binary, lesbian and generally queer groups on Facebook; my Instagram and Twitter followings are largely queer and I follow many queer folx and pages; likewise, my feed on Tumblr includes queer content too. When I was given the opportunity to create this blog, there was no question in my mind that it would act as a queer counterpublic as well. Centering queer voices on the topic of queer experiences is crucial to the well-being of queer individuals and is vital to the community. Creating spaces for queer experience to be shared is something I value greatly and I wanted this blog to act as that sort of space.

Pondering the pandemic

Process Post #13

Last week, we were treated to a guest lecture from Andrew McLuhan, the grandson of Canadian communications icon Marshall McLuhan, and the creator of The McLuhan Institute. Towards the end of his lecture, he challenged us to write a blog post about how messed up the world is right now. Challenge accepted.

As crazy as the world we’re living in right now is, however, I think what’s even more bizarre is just how quickly we’ve adjusted to this new reality and accepted it for what it is. Of course, we haven’t really had much choice. And I’m not one of those people that thinks we’ve had our freedom taken away or anything like that. I’m all for masks, social distancing, vaccines, and whatever restrictions keep us safe and healthy.

That being said, nine months ago, we were living completely different lives. I’d wake up in the morning and take three packed buses up to SFU Burnaby, and then take three more back home. I’d go for walks outside and speed right past people with no thought of their breathing and mine. I’d go to grocery stores without putting on hand sanitizer or wiping my cart and carry basket first. I even worked at Rogers Arena during Canucks games with 18,000 people in one building where I’d handle cash and pay terminals.

Now, if I’m somewhere in public and I see a person without a mask or ignoring social distancing protocol, I’ll automatically distance myself as far as I can from them. Even the other day, I was riding the elevator in my building with my mask on when two other people with masks decided to come on, and I swear I didn’t inhale or exhale for 30 seconds.

I’m supposed to fly to Edmonton in ten days to visit my dad for Christmas, and for the first time ever, I paid for my seat ahead of time. I made sure to get a ‘preferred’ aisle seat right at the front of the plane to give myself a little more room and make sure I wouldn’t be squeezed in between two strangers. Better yet, I’ll be able to bolt right off the plane as soon as we land. If you know me personally, you know I don’t like spending money on something I don’t have to. But when it came to buying my seat in advance, it was a no brainer. I’m still a little anxious about the whole process, but I’m willing to do whatever I have to in order to stay safe.

I could go on and on but isn’t it crazy to just sit back and think about how much our lives have changed? There are regulations and restrictions in place, but when it comes down to it, it’s up to us to actually follow them. And by and large, it seems that we are. Obviously, it would be great if more people were, but it is what it is.

Another thing I’ve noticed is when I’m watching TV or a movie that predates COVID and see a bunch of people in close proximity, I can’t help but think about how they’re not being safe. But like I said, nine months ago, I would never have had those thoughts.

I don’t know if I’m putting this into words very well, but my point is as crazy as 2020 has been, what’s most remarkable to me is how quickly we’ve adapted and altered our lives completely around this virus.

Week 11 – Time for a COVID style rant.

It’s time for a COVID style rant.

I have been trying to maintain positivity throughout the semester and see the benefits that have only happened because of this pandemic, but really, everything has sucked just a little bit more than usual.

Last week I was starting to feel particularly drained from school, life, and being stuck at home. On Wednesday I was called into work in person, which was surprisingly so wonderful! I had not realized how much I was missing casual interaction with people until I saw my coworkers and was instantly in a better mood.

I am extraverted, which means I replenish my energy by being around people, but I did not realize how true this was until we had our second lockdown and I noticed myself getting more and more tired and sad. I couldn’t identify what was going on until I had some work interactions and I felt energy again!

How strange is it that now talking to strangers is almost frowned upon, and having people over is banned. This is such a contrast to the start of our semester where we discussed the mental health benefits of talking to strangers and filling your day with small positive moments.

I have really appreciated this class, but I miss classmates.

I have loved the creative outlet of blogging, but I miss personal feedback.

I have learned through zoom calls, but I miss the easy interactions of being in a classroom.

Needless to say it’s been a challenging semester, but a growing one nonetheless. I am so looking forward to the time when we can talk about having to stay six feet apart from each other as just a distant memory.

Process Post 11; Transmedia

Although this blog focuses mainly on food and restaurant business, I think there can still be a lot of opportunities for transmedia to be incorporated!

When going through this week’s lecture and readings, I realized how much more content I could create with this blog. This blog post talks about how Pokemon has grew from simple trading cards and a TV show to much more, such as stuffed animals and even a whole store dedicated to Pokemon in Tokyo! Pokemon is still very much alive and now more than ever, individuals of all ages are taking interest in it!

With that, some other media that I thought I could include on this blog could be videos of food reviews done by food bloggers (of course I would get their permission before incorporating their content)! Another idea I had was to find a way to incorporate surveys and such on the food. That way, customers can come directly to the website to fill our a questionnaire based on their experience instead of going on Google, Yelp, etc.

Reading Online vs Physical Copies

Many people read online, these days, whether this includes ebooks, blogs, company websites, or news. Due to the difficulty and effect of screens on our eyes, we often read at a slightly slower pace on screens. Reading online can have many benefits. Some of these benefits include: being easier to read, with photos being featured on the internet, being more accessible, and being easy to carry around. When we scroll through a story or website, it is not necessary to look at every detail on the website, but instead we are able to quickly scan the page for anything we may find interesting or stop at certain information that catches our attention. Many people are able to scroll quickly through a website, and stop suddenly to read a section because they saw a phrase or image that interests them. I used to do this all the time when I was looking through the TV guides. I would flip through the pages very fast, and stop when I saw the title of a show I liked. This is one of the key benefits of reading on the internet. Another way people are able to do this is by searching for specific words on a page. For example, if someone is on the page of a long news story, and they are looking for a certain section, with the knowledge of one word or phrase in that section, they can search for it by clicking *command F. The page would quickly show them everywhere that word or phrase is used in that news article.

While there are so many benefits to reading online, there are also many benefits to reading a physical copy of things. These benefits include: it puts less strain on your eyes, it allows you to physically write on the document, newspaper, or book, and you can also organize your papers easily in a folder. Reading formats always depend on the type of person you are, and your preferences, but there are always pros and cons to consider for each format. Personally, I love to read physical copies, but if a book or document is not available to me in a physical copy it is very helpful to have it on a tablet instead. When we read physical copies, we also most often read everything on a page, so that we don’t miss anything important, while people who scan through online pages may miss key information that they did not see.

Overall, I think it is helpful to have both options, but I prefer physical copies of papers and books. While scrolling through online information, it is very helpful to have fun colours, links, and photos in a website because they catch viewers’ attention very quickly. These are most often the things that cause people to stop scrolling to check what it says.

Process Post #10- Reviewing My Final Peer Review

As things are slowly ending for this class, I received my final peer review from Marylou Villegas. Marylou wrote me a really awesome peer review here and I can’t thank her enough for the kind words.

Her peer review revolved around the topic of audience and monetization for the Power of Painting and she had some very interesting insights and thoughts about our future.

To begin, her first paragraph made me so happy to read! She completely understood the vibe I was trying to go for in terms of theme and colours. She also really nailed my intended demographic and I appreciate her taking the time to analyze my site.

First paragraph of Marylou’s Peer Review

In terms of monetization, she touched on some points on monetization that I found really interesting. She mentioned that I have an opportunity to monetize through my paintings and gain revenue. While I love this idea and hope that there is people out there who would buy my art, I don’t think that this is something that I would like to pursue.

As mentioned previously, this website is just a personal gallery and blog for my friends, family and I. Personally, I like to share my experiences and post about the paintings that I have and hope that other people get inspired by my work.

Overall, I am glad that Marylou loved my site! She noticed the progress that I have made since the beginning of quarantine and that makes me so happy! I loved her site as well and I wrote her a peer review here, check it out!

Until next time 🙂

<3 Carissa

The post Process Post #10- Reviewing My Final Peer Review appeared first on the Power of Painting.

PUB101 — Process Post (Week 11)

Process Post Prompt: Make a plan for incorporating more transmedia integration into your online publication. What channels will you focus on? Why?

When it comes to transmedia, I would say that my website integrates quite a bit of that through the incorporation of my youtube videos. In some ways, I like to think of my website serves as the main space for people to discover other aspects of my music on platforms such as iTunes or Spotify. On my website, I have included various links prompting those to visit other platforms.

Ultimately, transmedia can be defined as “a narrative that extends beyond multiple media forms that also plays to the strength of those forms” (Heick, 2019). I hope to continue focusing on channels like youtube and instagram but would like to find more ways to integrate these platforms seamlessly into my website. In the future, I plan to keep this blog as a place to create extra content. Whether it be through sharing stories or advice, the narrative continues.

The post PUB101 — Process Post (Week 11) appeared first on Marylou Villegas.

Behind the Scenes with Google Analytics

Given that this site is still new, I came into this guessing that there wouldn’t be that many people reading by blog, and that most of the views would be from people in my class. So, I was pleasantly surprised with what I found with Google Analytics.

In the last week, I have had 6 users visit my blog over 9 sessions, which is less than previous weeks. While at first that looks discouraging, I am also keeping in mind that there was no peer review in the last week, so my numbers would have gone down from the week when more people would have had to visit my site. In addition, I assume that fewer of my classmates have time to browse sites as the semester gets really busy. However, I am super happy with my bounce rate! When I checked this last week, my bounce rate was 52.7% and I wanted to lower that. I can’t believe that my bounce rate went down to 11.11%! This shows that the people who are seeing my site are viewing many parts of it, so I will call this a definite win!

I am not surprised by the ages of the people visiting; I expected most of my audience to be young (especially since may are my classmates), though I am happy to see that I’ve managed to attract people from all age categories!

I was surprised to see that I’ve had viewers from outside Canada. I’m guessing that it is mostly bots (it seems unrealistic that 9 people in China care about my blog), but I am hopeful that some of the viewers from the United States are legitimate people!

Finally, I am happy to see that I am attracting more new visitors while also having some people who keep coming back for more!

There is so much more that I could get into, but those are some of the important things that I noticed!

(Featured Image by Ricardo Resende on Unsplash)

PROCESS POST: Zoom Manners 101

So, Andrew McLuhan was our guest lecturer today. You know, McLuhan. As in Marshall McLuhan.

Did I geek out? You could say that.

But besides my being a comms student and finding all of that to be inherently very cool, he was also just a really neat guy to listen to and have in our call!

Also, expect a lot more posts this next week and a bit. He said there’s a raffle of sort, and I can enter by making posts about how, in his words, “fucked” things are.

Great news. I’m really good at that.

The prize, for the record, is a copy of McLuhan’s Distant Early Warning playing card deck.

Do I know any card games beyond Go Fish? Absolutely not. But oh, who wouldn’t want a copy of the DEW cards?

dew line 4
Speak it, Marshall.

So, as the title here implies, this first entry is about Zoom ettiquette. Really, it’s about the acknowledgement of it. Humans are social creatures, so we’re quick to create social norms, but isn’t it strange how many new norms a new form of media gives us?

Because really, Zoom is a new medium. Sure, we’ve had Skype and the like, but Zoom holds a whole other connotation. It’s for academics, work, and casual calls alike. It’s not something you do after hours; it’s where you SPEND those hours.

And that comes with a whole bunch of new social rules and norms.

For example: camera on or off? I have some friends whose profs make cameras compulsory. Most of my classes, meanwhile, are our prof speaking to the void, save for maybe one or two brave souls. My prof for this class compared us having our cameras off to “closing a shutter” on her. Which is fair. But also, doesn’t it feel oddly intimate to show everybody the innards of your personal space?

Like, for one example: I’m an out lesbian, but there’re some occasions where I’ll keep that to myself. You know, because homophobia still exists. While in class today, I at one point moved my laptop to the floor to capture footage of my cat (I’ll do a whole article about Cat Cameras later). As I moved, you could very clearly see the pride flag I have on my wall.

I don’t know why, but that kind of struck me. That’s what made me realize, “Oh hey, these people are totally in my space. That’s weird.”

There’re definitely worse things to have accidentally appear on camera, but still.

Anyways, I actually already wrote a whole article about students and cameras, so these are just some of my thoughts. I wonder what we’re going to do when we can meet in real life again. Will it feel strange, total strangers having an unrestricted view of us? I think so.

But hey, c’est la vie. I’m already hyping myself up to be perceived by others again.

Umtil next time.

Process Post #11- The Truth About How It Is All Going

Hi everyone! Today on this process post, I am going to be super honest about everything going on, how I am feeling and just the struggle life has been through these hard times.

Our guest lecture Andrew touched on this topic and really sparked something in me. Everyone in the lecture was also sharing their stories of how this semester was going for them and it was nice to hear that we were all in the same boat.

School on its own is exhausting and every semester we all go through the same thing. The cycle of papers, assignments, tests over and over again for 3 months straight is tiring and mentally straining. But there are some pros. Going to campus to see your friends, going to school events, talking with your classmates and much much more.

But with the times we are in, this isn’t possible. Instead of your commute from the bus stop to your classroom, it’s from your bed to your desk. Your classmates are your roommates, your parents or no one. Your friends are through a screen and spontaneous meetups are no longer a thing. All of this on top of regular school life is mentally challenging me and as far as I know, all of my classmates.

Zoom Fatigue is real. My eyes are sore from staring at a screen all day during my classes and all night when I am doing my homework. My back is sore from sitting down all day, with short walks between my kitchen and my room every now and then. This is tough both mentally and physically and a lot of people are going through it.

It’s nice that professors and TAs are very understanding of what is going on. I can tell everyone is trying their best and we are all working to the best of our ability. Students aren’t the only ones who are suffering so we shouldn’t forget the teachers.

To sum up this rant I will leave you with this: I am tired, I am unmotivated, and I really want this pandemic to be over with. I miss my friends, I miss regular life but I know that won’t be back to normal unless we all do our part. SO PLEASE, do your part and stay safe 🙂 We will all get through this together.

Until next time!

<3 Carissa

The post Process Post #11- The Truth About How It Is All Going appeared first on the Power of Painting.

PRINTS 4 SALE

This week I worked on building my art Instagram. Over the course of 3 days, I posted 3 photos a day from my series GIRLS!. Once the entire series was online, I promoted the page on my main Instagram. My friends also promoted the account for me. Shortly after my friends and I promoted the account, I gained a following and received likes on my posts. At this time, my account still read ‘COMING SOON’; however, the next day I changed the bio to ‘PRINTS 4 SALE’ and posted a pricing list for my photos. To price the photos, I did some research on various platforms on which people sell prints, and contemplated the monetary value of the work I put into the series and cost required to produce the prints. The prices are Angel Numbers as to fit the aesthetic I have online.

Additionally, I added this pricing list with a link to @dimsumdyke to my GIRLS! post on this blog.

I decided to scrap my art Facebook as it was too hard to maintain two separate platforms for promotion.

This week, I will continue to promote my art account on my main Instagram, and will expand to other platforms for promotion. I’ve started on Instagram as that is where my largest queer following exists; however, I also belong to various queer Facebook groups in which I may be allowed to self-promote.

Process Post 11; $$$$

This week, we focused on the topic of advertising and revenue. I was always fascinated by how people made money off the internet. The first time I found was when one of my best friends signed up for Google Ads for her Tumblr account. over the summer, she made well over $1000 and I was shocked by how that was possible from sitting on your computer all day.

It is interesting how many connections are involved in one ad click and where the money is dispersed. Some people may not be in favour of this idea where as, some may love it and use it to their advantage. I guess it depends on what perspective you are looking at it from. From a seller’s point of view, it must feel nice to make money just by someone clicking on a link in where some clicks may even be accidental. However, from a consumers perspective, I understand some may be bitter or petty that someone gained money from their actions online.

Understanding (or trying to understand) Google Analytics

Process Post #12

If I’m being completely honest, I’m not much of a numbers guy. I got by pretty well in mathematics in high school, but the second I realized I no longer needed it I left it behind and never looked back. If I’m reading about goals, assists, greens in regulation, serving percentage, and so on, I’m good to go.

But even in sports, when it comes to all the advanced statistics that have become prevalent in today’s world (e.g. Corsi or Fenwick in hockey), I tend to get a little lost. It’s not that I don’t want to understand what they mean, but my brain just doesn’t work like that.

So, when it comes to Google Analytics I have to admit I’m pretty clueless. However, I’m able to understand the basics that appear as soon as you open Google Analytics. Below is a picture of my data that has been collected to date since I first installed Google Analytics on my site on September 21st.

With 66 users total since then, I’ve only averaged just slightly more than one user per day, so obviously traffic is incredibly low which only makes me more confident in my decision to not want to monetize my site yet. Considering a good chunk of the visitors to my site are probably people in the class conducting peer reviews or Jaiden and Suzanne, the true number of ‘public’ visitors would only be more underwhelming.

In class this week, Suzanne mentioned that an ideal bounce rate is below 50% so it appears I have some work to do in that regard as well, but thankfully it’s not outrageously high and it is based on a relatively small sample size so far.

I hoped by creating a Twitter account and hashtagging my tweets with links to the posts I would draw some more visitors in and it seems to have helped a fair amount. Based on the screenshots below, 24 of my 66 visitors have come from Twitter, which accounts for 36.36% of all users so far. Part of that success is likely due to my retweeting those tweets from my personal account where I have over 1000 followers.

However, as you can see, the bounce rate from my Twitter referrals is very high at 88.0%, so it hasn’t exactly been a huge success story so far.

One thing that had bothered me up until lecture this past week was the fact that occasionally I would visit my website without being logged in to WordPress and would therefore register as a visitor to my site. Thanks to Suzanne showing us how to add filters, however, I was able to filter out my IP address so now I can visit my site without worrying about skewing the numbers.

I’ll continue to play around with Google Analytics in the coming weeks to familiarize myself with it in hopes that it will actually be useful for me as my website grows.

PROCESS POST: Analytics… 2! Looking at this site!

So, last week, I kinda went off about comparing and contrasting different analytics tools in different social media forms and stuff.

Today, we looked at Google Analytics in particular. Y’know, the analytics tool attached to this very blog.

I learned a lot of things: just how many visitors I get, how long they stay, that I have a middle-of-the-road bounce rate, what a bounce rate is, and so on.

What I enjoyed the most was probably the audience behaviour tab, which showed exactly which paths site visitors took. It’s weirdly satisfying, following users on their little adventures. Like watching someone tour around a gallery show you’ve put together!

One of these paths belonged to a Ukranian bot! Fun, right?

It’s wild being able to access some of the other things, too. Like the exact type of smartphone someone is using.

We also talked about Google, because that’s inevitable in any talk about analytics and SEO. Google, as my prof said, is the “queen bee” of the latter.

And, to be fair, SEO is a big deal. It’s worth talking about. It gets you where you need to be. You can learn what keywords are being used in your kind of content a whole number of ways, too: comparing to other sites in your niche, using specialized cites, and probably more.

Now, my blog is a hot mess (I’ll get into why in either an upcoming process post or my next essay. Get excited, I talk about vulnerability and mental illness), but I imagine I’d use phrases like “art tips”, “writing tips,” “emerging artist,” or “art advice”… things along those lines. Heck, I might try adding them to my home page.

And of course, another nifty trick with SEO is getting a lot of link activity with reliable sources. Get that network flowing. I link sources here pretty liberally to whatever I’m talking about, so I’ve got that down. As for other places linking me? Well, maybe someday. A gal can dream.

But let’s look back at Google. Again, it’s SEO royalty. There’re other search engines, but really, do you want to pick getting into Bing’s good graces over Google’s?

Also, there’re lots of ways to get INTO Google’s good graces. If you used Google Plus (haha, remember that?), or using the link shortener, it’d help you out in the long run.

Another direct quote from my prof: “You want to make Google happy. You want it to reward you.”

Do you ever think about how wacky Google is? Like, really, it’s THE monopoly. And it’s always expanding what it does. It’s a search engine, a social media, a phone, it has apps… it’s insane.

I guess we allow it because it does its job just that well.

(Save for Google Plus.)

One day, maybe, it won’t have all the power it does.

If that happens, maybe using Ecosia will be a bit more commonplace.

I guess we won’t know unless it happens, huh?

Until next time.

Process Post #9- Finding Out Who You Guys Are!

Hello! Today on this process post, I will be finally looking at the analytics for the Power of Painting!

Currently, I am using Google Analytics and Monster Insights, a plugin on WordPress. Google Analytics is a very in-depth look at my audience while the Monster Insights that I am using is only a free version, therefore limiting me from all of its features. But ultimately, both of these tools are super helpful and interesting to use because now I get to see what you guys are like!

After a quick glance at both tools, Monster Insights shows me the same thing as Google Analytics, just with less detail. Therefore, I will just be focusing on Google Analytics, more specifically the general overview, the city and the browser of my audience.

General Overview

This area was the most fascinating to me. I got a chance to see how many users come to my site over this semester and see how many sessions I have had in total. While to most these numbers seem very small, I am actually quite excited to see this amount of people! I did’t even think more than 10 people have seen my site but 56! Wow thats really a huge accomplishment to me.

City

This is kind of creepy but I know what cit you guys are in! That’s a pretty cool insight to have and interesting to see people from all over the province. A little weird to see a few people out of the country, and I know that these are most likely bots, but hey, maybe I have some fans in Russia, the US and Finland. It makes sense the Burnaby is the highest as that’s where I live and where all of my friends do as well.

Browser

This insight gives information on what sort of browser my audience uses. I personally use Safari to create my website but it was cool to see what others are using. Between my friends, it’s a pretty even split of what they use but I have never heard of Android Runtime or Samsung internet (maybe these are the people from Russia or Finland).

I hope these were as interesting for you guys as it was for me. I think it’s really good for me to be transparent with you guys so I am glad you got to see more of an insight into the backend of the Power of Painting.

Thats all for today, see you guys soon!

<3 Carissa

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Monster Insights Reflection

Week 10 Process Post

This week, I am looking at the data collected through monster insights. I was surprised to the the number of page views that my website had and was expecting a lot less as the only people that I am aware of who have seen my site are my parents, a few friends that I have sent it to for a “second set of eyes”, and the classmates that have had to peer review my page. In addition to this, I was also surprised by the avgerage session duration on my website. I fully expected it to be quite low but an average session time of 4 minutes (3.58 min) is more than I expected from my small community of viewers. Ideally, I would like this number to increase as it would mean that people are wanting to “stay a while” and engage with my content. From this data, I feel more inspired to make some more eye catching graphics that pull users in, as well as more blog posts such as my “forest foraging ” post and my “magic: sometimes lost but always found” as they are my most popular/ best received posts. In addition to this, the 40.83% bounce rate on my blog was a tough metric. Meaning that 40.83% of people viewing my website arrive at my landing page, and then “bounce” without looking any further, totalling in almost 50% of my engagement being through single paged visits. Ouch. However, I do wonder if I have contributed to this metric through all of the times that I look up my own website to “check it out” and then quickly exit off it. In all, I found the metrics from monster insights very helpful and am taking away the motivation to create more using engaging content now that I can see what makes the people stay.

Week 10 – Analytics & Friendship with Google

Holy, I cannot believe how fast the semester is going!

I was reflecting on my first process posts this week, and all the fumbling I did initially with Word Press. I started to feel oddly nostalgic about the beginning of this website and how far it has come. It has been so fun to grow in writing, aesthetic, and overall vision.

This week we talked about Google Analytics and SEO. Woah.

Google Analytics has been a really fun tool to experiment and learn with. It was great to have the demonstration in class walk us through some of the more complicated information that is collected through Analytics.

One important thing I noticed is that my bounce rate is quite high at 70%. This means that users are not usually staying on my blog long enough to view content or enjoy the media. I clicked on my homepage to investigate, and I noticed that while my home page is colourful and well organized, it may not be leading viewers into the right area of content. After reading through the welcome message, there is no clear direction for the user to go.

This was confirmed when I looked at the flow of behaviour of users. Most users started on the home page, and then about 50% dropped off after their first interaction. I could decrease my bounce rate by increasing engagement at my home page and directing user flow.

I am going to improve this by updating my home page with a more active vibe, linking users to content and posts that they may be interested in. This way, users will have a clear direction of what they should look at after being introduced to my website.

I am looking forward to seeing how these small changes may affect the way users interact with my blog!

PUB101 – Process Post (Week 10)

Building My Website’s SEO

This week (Week 10) we looked at the importance of a SEO. Essentially a SEO can be defined as search engine optimization. Websites and pages with “good” SEO tend to rank higher in search engine and appear within the first page of one’s results. One of the goals for my website is for it to appear as one of the first things if someone were to search for “Marylou Villegas”.

To try to achieve this goal, I went ahead and installed the plugin “Yoast SEO” onto my site. Aside from the multitude of features to optimize one’s website, they highlight 4 essential elements located in a Yoast SEO sidebar. These include:

  • The focus keyphrase
  • The readability analysis
  • The SEO analysis
  • The Google preview

Hopefully, the inclusion of these 4 elements while creating blog posts will help my website’s SEO on search engines will improve!

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Peer Review #3

For this week I will reviewing Chii’s Sweet Home linked here: http://chiisweethome.com/

I was very excited to browse through this website after seeing that it was another food website and I do love food. I was intrigued when noticing that it would be Asian cuisine with a Western style added to it, this I think would entice their directed audience and create an eagerness to try something new. Food is something that anyone can relate to but as a college student and an international student, I think that this kind of site would target the college or high school students well. Especially since we are all pressed for time and could use some ideas for cooking!

According to Shelby Carpenter from the Forbes website, it can be hard to maintain and keep creating content for the site. Food I think is something that could really last a while if you really put your mind to it. There are so many recipes and different types of food that can be made and posted. And like Chii explained in her About section, she will include recipes that you can make when you don’t want to put a lot of effort into cooking or don’t have a lot of time, it is just a matter of getting creative.

I love the pink background with the white boxes and different shade of pink text. It pops, demands attention, and the different shades of pink work well together. Another thing that I liked, was the different pictures of foods at the top of the pages when clicking on different categories, this too goes well with the color scheme and layout of the website. It again would capture the audience’s attention and pique their interest to linger.

The categories on the side of the site allow for an easy way to navigate through the site instead of just scrolling up and down, if flows smoothly so the audience won’t get frustrated and give up.

One thing I might recommend is the About section. This picture is also lovely, different, and also matches the color theme. It did take me a little while to figure out that I actually had to click on the picture to take me to the About page so I would recommend putting a little description on the bottom saying “Click Here” or something like that! 🙂

Overall, I love the idea and uniqueness of this website! There is still work to be done and I can’t wait to see what other content they create.

Managing Marketability

After our lecture, in which our guest speaker, Trevor Battye, highlighted that I could monetize my website by selling prints of my photography, I decided that I would follow through with this idea. I had already contemplated selling my art, and getting the external unbiased validation from a stranger motivated me to take action. As such, I created a couple social pages to promote my art and linked them to my blog: http://instagram.com/dimsumdyke and https://www.facebook.com/dimsumdyke. While the pages have no content and only read ‘COMING SOON’, I will spend some time this upcoming week working on creating an audience on these platforms.

Additionally, I’ve added a Creative Commons license to my photos. I selected a license that allows my work to be shared and remixed, so long as I am credited for the original work and so long as the material is not used for commercial purposes. I selected this license as I don’t want others to profit off of the basis of my creativity; however, I do want my art to be distributed for non-capitalist intentions and to be used creatively. Here is the updated post with the license at the bottom: https://dimsumdyke.com/portfolio/girls/.

I’m contemplating setting up an Etsy or something similar to sell prints, tote bags and t-shirts. Otherwise I will sell them via the Instagram and Facebook pages I’ve set up. Stay tuned to find out what I decide and financially support my creative endeavors!