Lake Atitlan, Panajachel, Guatemala

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

After 4 Years, a Blogger Streamline was Past Due

I recently posted on how to change your email address on your Blogger blog. Here's an update in case anyone wonders whether or not to do it themselves. I couldn't be happier with the results. Why?

Convenience of having both blogs under one email. Even though I rarely use From the Shadows to the Page, it's still a live blog that I may utilize more in the future. This way I can administer both blogs without having to sign in and out of different gmail accounts.

Streamlined following list. I started Coming Down the Mountain four years ago, and in that time followed a LOT of blogs. Many of them are no longer active, with some even taken over by weirdness like how to choose auto insurance rates. Change of email addresses made that all go away. Yay!

Besties. I now only follow blogs I'm truly interested in and who are truly interested in me. If I still haven't followed you with my new address, please let me know in the comments. You can tell because it's a different photo :)
Nothing disappeared. My new posts still show up on peoples' sidebars and readers. Neither me nor my blog disappeared from view at all. It was a seamless transition. Win win win.

Blogs change so much in four years. Changing the email address was a super easy way for me to update my blog and my following history, without adversely affecting this blog I've grown quite fond of.  Cheers!

But everything has their pros and cons, and one element of this change is that I'm not getting the visibility I did before I changed emails.  That could be a pro if I'm wanting to lessen the power blogging has over me-- or it could be a con if I want to continue building the visibility of this blog.

Which is a very tough question. But right now I feel like keeping things a bit more toned-down blog-wise is what I'm after.

Where are you in your blogging-- building, maintaining and settling in, or wanting to cut back?

22 comments:

  1. My blogging is a bit up and down, but generally I'd say I'm maintaining it. However, I'm serious about writing a novel starting next month, and if that causes me to blog less, so be it. We all have to decide where our priorites lie. ~Miriam

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  2. Hi Miriam, Blogging has been such a big part of my writing life that cutting back has been extremely difficult. I'm thinking this change is forcing it to happen. The fewer people that talk to me the less I'll be tempted to get on here and engage, right?

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  3. I spend far too little time blogging and reading blogs. I'd love to have time every day to catch up! As it is, I get around to it about once every couple of weeks. Hadn't considered streamlining my blog - probably because it's so underused anyway! Good work, Karen!

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  4. I'll have to remember that!
    Blogging has its peaks and valleys although it seems a little quieter right now than say a year ago.

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  5. I've been blogging for 8 years. I'm sure I am way overdue.

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    1. Diane, That is funny! Still, I've followed you for about half that time and seen how you change things up on a regular basis, keeping your blog fresh and up to date.

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  6. So glad you are blogging, any which way you are doing it, Karen.

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  7. I'm settled in my blog but I'm about to jump into a group blog that's big time. I'm going to do some updates on my blog though to keep it lively.

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  8. Goodness - if I was clear about what I was trying to do in the blogosphere I might try to do it. Have a bit of fun - is that close enough?

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  9. Good Morning Karen - This was most interesting. I am happy that you have chosen to delight us even more in the coming year with your posts. I would truly miss you. For myself, it's kinda like keeping a Diary or Journal, as I print my posts and into my book they go, however; at the same time I get to share them with my readers or anybody that comes across my Blog. This to me can be quite exciting as I do get responses from many that do not live like we do here in Atlantic Canada. Life is different all over the world and for me its also all about reading about the way others live - and the scenery - well, what can I say - photos n words or stories are just a whole bunch of fun.....so, I guess for me it is still building, maintaining and never quite settled in. Have a wonderful day. Lilly

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    1. Saucy, I always enjoy your pictures and those of other bloggers who live in different areas of the world. It's refreshing to get a glimpse through another's camera. I always think I want to post more photos but then I'm not a very good photographer :)

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  10. Hi,Karen,

    I'm so happy to hear this worked out well for you. I have been blogging three years now, but I am happy where I'm at. I am down to three or four posts a week, from the SEVEN I posted when I first started. It amazes me that I had kept that up for almost a year.

    I adore blogging, but it does zap so much of my time. Now I only blog a couple of hours a day. Life just seems to get in the way.

    I thought of you the other day when I walked through the zoo(I live fifteen minutes walking away). A beautiful giraffe came into view eating his lunch. Such a majestic sight. Like you, I LOVE these amazing creatures. OF course I whipped out my iPhone at took several pics. Such an inspiring surprise.

    I walk through the zoo a few times a week. Since it has free admission and it's in the middle of Lincoln park, I enjoy passing through. A couple of days ago, the resident lion was out on his rock and AWAKE... So majestic and proud, I took several pics of him too.

    I hope to create a books some day with the images I have collected from the zoo over the nine years I've lived here.

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    1. Michael, I'd love to see the pictures of the zoo on your blog! Especially the beautiful giraffe :)

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  11. I love blogging--three days a week MWF. I check other blogs on T Th. So many bloggers have dropped out or taken a break. But my favorite bloggers are still going strong. I would really miss them.

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  12. Hi Karen .. I'm creeping towards year 5 at the beginning of year 14! After starting of blogging a great deal, once friends were made and my writing endorsed, now I blog when I'm ready - but try to blog once every 5 days or so .. the posts are quite long, but people enjoy their visits to my world or take on it ... so I'm content, as long as readers are ...

    I'd hate not to blog - so many wonderful people around .. and there's always more to learn about life, let alone the internet world.

    You're a wealth of information .. and help and advice .. so don't disappear please!! Cheers Hilary

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  13. I'm just coming off a five-week break. And this is the first week I'm blogging only once a week instead of two or three times. Of course I returned with Alex as a guest blogger - and participating in a blog fest at the same time LOL - but I really am cutting back, even though I won't actually feel it until next week or the next. Depends on how long it takes me to catch up. I've been blogging a little over four years, too.

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  14. Dear Karen, as a technologically challenged senior I don't understand some of what you've said here. But I'm happy with Blogger and so I don't really need to change anything. However, I am going to go to Celery Tree, per your suggestion in a comment you left on one of my two blogs, and see how to join. Peace.

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  15. Lovely KarenG! I hang on tooth and claw to all the blogs I came across when I first started blogging and feel really sad at how many have gone quiet! So I'm super duper happy yours and your gorgeous Shadows blogs are still up and running (also am super glad The Giraffe! made a fabulous return!!!). Yay! Take care
    x

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  16. I have cut way back from where I had been and I see the effect in less comments on my blog. But sometimes that's what needs to be done in order to accomplish other things that I need to do. I think about cutting back more but I don't want to lose all of my readers in doing so. The real key is better balance. I need to work on that more.

    I use different email addresses for different things. I still have too much in my email boxes. And when I do things like take vacations it really gets me behind. Balance that's the ticket for sure.

    Lee
    Tossing It Out

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  17. I too have been trying to do more art-less writing. (It isn't working out, so well)-it is hard to balance it all.
    Not to mention my ISP sucks. We recently were told our cable was bad in our neighborhood-so I am hopeful this will be a positive change!
    I have two emails and must be proactive about checking the one I do not use a lot. Great post-change is part of it!

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  18. Thanks Karen! Interesting and informative. My blog still doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up. Geez, it's only 4 years old.

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  19. I really like blogging. I just don't like how much time it takes to do it the way I really want to. I'm down to posting only once a week. During the first full of blogging I posted once a day on two blogs. You were one of the first to follow my my blog and you may remember that I had a blog devoted to photography and one to writing. It killed me! Something had to give because it left very little time to read and comment on the blogs I followed. I combined both blogs into one and somehow, that one morphed into a travel and photo blog. I don't remember making that decision, it just kind of happened. It may be time to consider another change. I have no idea....

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