Survey Results and the Future of Sparkle and Glitter!

Image by **Mary**

First of all, I’d like to give a huge thank-you to everyone who responded to my survey, the results have been exceedingly useful. Some of the results were along the lines I thought they would be, others came as a bit of a surprise, so it’s been an excellent learning experience and hopefully will go a long way into allowing Sparkle and Glitter to really reach it’s potential as a blog.

I was pleased that people have commented, both in the survey and by other means, that they appreciate the “transparency” of my blogging. Since a large proportion of the satisfaction I gain from blogging comes from engaging with like-minded people from all over the world, I like to share as much as I can about my blogging process and site maintenance, if only so that others can learn from any mistakes I make and so we can share ideas. With that in mind, here is the promised analysis of the survey results, along with my ideas for the future of this blog!

The Theme

A couple of you had some very valid comments about the general theme and design of Sparkle and Glitter which I’m really pleased you made. I am acutely aware that as far as the design of the blog goes, I found a theme I liked, applied it, tweaked it a bit then focused almost entirely on content.  As the blog evolved and I added advertising, used more and more tags, etc. the theme didn’t evolve with it and has become a little cluttered.

Over the next couple of weeks you will probably see things disappear, re-appear and generally get shifted around until I’m happy with the way things look. I can’t apply every suggestion I’ve been given, but here’s a quick run-down of things I definitely intend to implement:

• I’m going to move the tag cloud so it’s further down the page, probably below the threshold of most posts.
• I will move the blogroll to it’s own page and try to organise it into categories (though many of the blogs fit into several distinct categories, so this may be very feasible, I’ll know when I try!)
• I’m going to re-organise all my post categories and implement a drop-down menu or something of that nature to enable readers to quickly find different types of post. I’m not sure how I’m going to do that yet, it depends on what plugins are available.
• Just for fun, I may also add some new header images!

Visual Sparkle

I thought the Visual Sparkle posts would be an interesting one, and I was right – they’re the marmite of my blog, people either seem to love them or hate them and there doesn’t appear to be much of a majority either way. To remedy this, I have decided to continue posting them, however I will make a few improvements to the idea:

• I will put the images themselves after a cut, so that all you see on an RSS reader or when scrolling through the blog is the short introductory text, to make the posts easy to skip if you’re not interested.
• They will be less frequent, even I agree that once a week for several weeks running was a little too often for that type of post!
• I’m thinking of doing away with the themes, as picking a word makes it harder to find a really good selection of images. By simply posting inspiring images I find around the Internet and compiling the posts over time as I find each item, hopefully the posts will be of higher quality.

Writing Inspiration

As I said when I originally posted the survey, I intend to improve the “Writing Inspiration” posts too, and this was also reflected in the comments of a few readers who answered the survey. Again, by posting them less frequently and getting information from other sources rather than just relying on quotations, I hope to make these posts more in-depth and interesting.

Me

Many of you said you wanted to see more of me in the posts, i.e. insights into my life etc. I can’t promise to be a prolific photo-poster, at least, not photos with me in them, since I’m pretty much the least photogenic person who ever lived! Also I don’t know any bloggers in “real life” yet and the majority of the people I spend time with are a little more reluctant to share their lives online (my housemate prides himself on his non-existent Google footprint) so photos of nights out etc. probably can’t happen either.

I will however, endeavour to write more posts drawn directly from and containing personal experience, and also to do the “show your blogging space / room / wardrobe” style posts on occasion! Also, if there’s anything about me you’d specifically like to know more about (aside from those you mentioned in the survey – I intend to try and cover as many of those as possible asap) please don’t hesitate to ask. If I can’t make a post out of it I’ll at least try and respond personally!

Other Points to Note

• A couple of you noted that some elements of the site are a little too Gala-inspired, which is definitely something I am trying to get away from.
• Backlinking posts – I will make an effort to start linking posts to previous relevant articles.
• Things I Love Thursday however, is something I really enjoy participating in – it forces me to think positively about my week, even if it hasn’t been that great. A few people have suggested that I perhaps rename it or do something similar on a different day however for the moment, I’m going to keep it as it is. I love the sense of community that comes from so many bloggers making the same kind of post on the same day, and the great comment exchanges that can come from it.
• Travel posts – I haven’t had nearly as many adventures as a lot of bloggers I read, and I won’t be able to afford to have any more for quite a long time. I will however, try to formulate my own take on travel articles and see if some good posts come of it!

If you have any further comments to add or you haven’t yet filled in the questionnaire and intend to, please do so! All feedback is good feedback, and it will all contribute to making Sparkle and Glitter a better blog. I already have some exciting ideas that I hope will make wonderful features, so watch this space! xx