Ten Steps on a Blogger's Journey - Thankful Thursday

I have recently dispatched  my 200th post, so thought I would look back on the last 15 months since I started blogging and review my journey.

I am no more than average in IT matters, and admit that much of the information on the  blogger.com  helpline is too technical for me, so the help of fellow bloggers has been invaluable in giving  advice in terms I could understand and follow.   I have learnt so much from it, and here is what I have done as a result of all this help over the course of the past year.  

1. Spring Cleaned i.e. freshened up the look of my site e.g. by adopting a seasonal colours theme, plus  moved around "the furniture" so to speak, and decluttered, notably putting  the Blog awards I was proud to get on a "Page";  editing the About Me section in the sidebar and creating a fuller single Page;  and moving the sidebar from the left to the right - to put the screen emphasis on the individual  posting, rather than the list of categories.
2. Set up Pages - I liked the labelled tabs  at the top of the screen on other blogs, but did not realise that these related to "Pages".  Now I have them and they are being read - apart from my latest title "Places" but I am trying to think of an alternative title for this.  I also plan to add "Looks Ups Offered".
3. Renamed the Labels listing in the sidebar - "Labels" did not seem a right description to me.  I toyed with "Topics" and "Subjects" but settled on "Categories" - not over convinced by this, so may still change it again.
4. Showed links to other postings. I must admit publicly here - I had never investigated what that "Link" icon meant.   I had referred to previous postings, but just typed in the title and date.  So I spent one long afternoon, setting up links (or so I thought), only to get messages they were not working.  Eventually light dawned - I was giving the link to my editing draft on blogger.com and not to my actual posted blog page.  Another mammoth session to revise all previous links, and add many more - this is a lengthy process and  still very  much work in progress, with priority going to my more popular posts.
5. Created more effective titles and opening  paragraphs  for search engine optimization - and this has worked!  
6. Revised the way I write titles for http://www.geneabloggers.com/ to maximise impact and readership.
7. Varied postings between heavy text ones and ones with a strong visual interest;  also between lengthy and short contributions to encourage readers and stave off boredom with the site.  
8. Made effective use of formatting - as here (hopefully) with numbered lists and bold sub-headings.
9. Set up a series of posts  linking to previous posts,  as in my recent "Lest We Forget - War Memorials"  series for November.
10. Listened to the specific advice and sharing of ideas from fellow bloggers,  listed  below -with apologies for anyone I might have overlooked. Amy at http://wetree.blogspot.com/
    Greta at http://gretabog.blogspot.com/
    Joan at http://www.luxegen.ca/
    Judy at http://www.judywebster.com.au/index.html.
    Nancy at http://nancysfamilyhistoryblog.blogspot.com/T
11. Shelley at http://www.asenseoffamily.com/
    Susan at http://longlostrelatives-smp.blogspot.com/
    Tonia at http://www.toniasroots.net/
    
    Plus being motivated by the comments I have received from so many fellow bloggers - too numerous to mention individually here.
    
    A BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE FOR HELPING ME ON MY BLOGGING JOURNEY