I have a website! And a new feature! Seeking questions!

Gemini888

Well-known member
Re: I have a website!

Congrats! As someone who is also trying to make a blog, I may have to get some experience from you as well :lol:
 

Osamenor

Staff member
Re: I have a website!

Best wishes! :joyful:

Congrats! As someone who is also trying to make a blog, I may have to get some experience from you as well :lol:

Thanks to both of you!

@Gemini888, what kind of difficulty are you running into with making a blog? Or is it just a matter of finding the time to sit down and do it?

This one took me a long time. I decided to find a collaborator for my main illustration, because I had a great logo idea but no drawing skills. That ran into some other delays, with different people's schedules and both of us needing some help with the tech side of it. And then, I drove myself crazy trying to figure out Squarespace. It's actually the best do-it-yourself website builder out there, and probably the easiest to use, but it's still a stiff--and, I found, frustrating--learning curve if you aren't a tech person.

The writing part is easy for me, it's just finding the time and space to do it.
 

Gemini888

Well-known member
Re: I have a website!

I have difficulty in gaining traction. I don't how how to get people to come read my blog. I also have this... insecurity that what I write ***** and I deserve to be hidden :crying: Idk how long you have ventured into this, so do you have any idea?


Your site is grogerous and well-organized btw. I plan to divide my blog into several categories in the future (astrology included too). But I need to make sure it's still worth keeping up to begin with.



FYI my blog is in my signature.
 

Osamenor

Staff member
Re: I have a website!

I have difficulty in gaining traction. I don't how how to get people to come read my blog. I also have this... insecurity that what I write ***** and I deserve to be hidden :crying: Idk how long you have ventured into this, so do you have any idea?
I've been planning this for a year or so, and finally got it off the ground. I've never had a regular blog before, though. I haven't decided yet how often I'll write. I think it has to depend on how busy I am otherwise and how much time and energy I have to put into it.

There are a couple of blogs I sort-of follow that get daily posts, and I like seeing those daily posts. They also have commenting. I just lurk, but I think what keeps people coming back is the chance to comment. Right now, I don't have commenting turned on, because I don't want to give myself a whole other moderation job. One is enough. ;)

I haven't really done anything to promote my site, either, aside from sharing it here and sharing it with some irl friends who I know would be interested. I mainly want it as a professional contact point. My next step is to make business cards. I wanted a website to put on them before I did that.

If you really want to promote your website, they say you should promote it on social media, and use SEO keywording in your articles to help it turn up in searches. I haven't done any of that. I did some content writing a while back and found that I HATE doing it if I have to think about SEO every step of the way (use these words 3-5 times, these words at least twice, etc.). Writing only works for me if I'm just writing what I want to say and not worrying about how many times I'm using a word.

But, you have a very niche blog. Your friends and family might be willing to look at it just because it's yours, but the only people who would really want to follow it are people who share your interest in the details of obscure movies. Do you belong to any movie discussion sites? If so, that would be the place to promote your blog, as long as the site's rules allow it.

If you want to add other subjects, such as astrology, then you could get followers who are interested in those subjects. But, as someone who's interested in astrology but only so-so about most movies, if astrology is tucked into a movie blog, I'm less likely to find it in the first place, barring someone I know (you) directing me to it.

If you are willing to allow comments and moderate them, then you might be able to build a fan club over time. But starting anything takes time to build momentum. I haven't even tried to drum up a fan club for my blog, but I recently started a Meetup group irl, and it's still very small. Any group, online or off, takes time to grow.
 

Teacake

Active member
Re: I have a website!

Wow, this looks so good!

I really love the name and herbalism is always something I have wanted to know more on. Best of Luck with it. I will be keen to keep updated with it. :smile:
 

Gemini888

Well-known member
Re: I have a website!

I'm a member of a FB movie group that allows members to post link at the first day of each month. I post my link on there sometimes and I can see people liking my FB post. I think at least someone reading. Also, I currently allow comments on my blog. And no one comes to comment, so far :sideways:


My plan is a bit more like your website, one side for herbalism and the other for astrology. I can provide in-depth astrology analysis of directors or actors, or even movie (thanks AstroSeek for charts :innocent:)


And yeah, I have this Aries Moon disease of instant gratification. I can get very impatient at things, and I need to be reminded that everything takes time. Oh well, I hope we can exchange tips. We are both starting somewhere :love:
 

Osamenor

Staff member
Re: I have a website!

I'm a member of a FB movie group that allows members to post link at the first day of each month. I post my link on there sometimes and I can see people liking my FB post. I think at least someone reading. Also, I currently allow comments on my blog. And no one comes to comment, so far :sideways:

What could anyone really say about a detailed movie summary/review?

To get comments, you have to not only have them enabled, you also have to be writing something people will want to put in their 2 cents on. If you wrote about a movie that lots of people have seen and have opinions on, and if your reviews provided your own opinion (i.e. "Hermione clearly likes Ron"), you would be more likely to spark some discussion.

Most blog comments are just something like, "Nice post." Or else spam. Not getting them may be a blessing.

I have some ideas that might drive more traffic to my site down the road. I've invited some people I know who have similar things to write about to guest post on my blog. If they guest post with me, and if I guest post with them, then we get each other's followers, because they all want to see what their person wrote elsewhere. I'm also considering an "ask the astrologer" feature, where people could submit questions to me and I would answer them, in a similar style to AW posting.

But initially, the idea is just to have a site.
 

Gemini888

Well-known member
Re: I have a website!

What could anyone really say about a detailed movie summary/review?

To get comments, you have to not only have them enabled, you also have to be writing something people will want to put in their 2 cents on. If you wrote about a movie that lots of people have seen and have opinions on, and if your reviews provided your own opinion (i.e. "Hermione clearly likes Ron"), you would be more likely to spark some discussion.
Oh... could that be where I'm going wrong? It could be that I become too passionate I crank up so many ideas in one single space. Now that I think about it, did I unintentionally hinder discussions?



I have some ideas that might drive more traffic to my site down the road. I've invited some people I know who have similar things to write about to guest post on my blog. If they guest post with me, and if I guest post with them, then we get each other's followers, because they all want to see what their person wrote elsewhere. I'm also considering an "ask the astrologer" feature, where people could submit questions to me and I would answer them, in a similar style to AW posting.

But initially, the idea is just to have a site.
I've been thinking of guest post too, but I don't know where to begin :sick: But yeah, I understand that you want to start small at this point.
 

Osamenor

Staff member
Re: I have a website!

Oh... could that be where I'm going wrong? It could be that I become too passionate I crank up so many ideas in one single space. Now that I think about it, did I unintentionally hinder discussions?
What's your reason for having this blog?

If it's mainly to get your ideas out, then that's what you need to do, and not be concerned with whether anyone wants to discuss them.

If it's mainly to build a movie discussion community, then you would need to look at what kind of posting is going to spark discussion.

Those things are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but the focus is different. Kind of like chard and beets: they're the same plant, but chart was bred for the leaves and beets were bred for the root.

I've been thinking of guest post too, but I don't know where to begin :sick: But yeah, I understand that you want to start small at this point.
Do you know anyone--either online or irl--who also blogs about movies? Who would be interested in the kinds of movies you review, and might have some different takes on them? That's who to cross post with. Or, if you know a blogger who could write something complementary to what you write--maybe they're a script writer, or used to work in movie production, or know about the technological side of it--then it could be them.

If you don't know anyone who fits that bill, then cross posting may not be feasible for now. If you do know someone who does, invite them to guest post on your blog. They might return the invitation, but even if they don't, a guest post from them will send their followers to you.

So far, no one's taken me up on my guest post offer. But, it's still very early in the game. I think some of my herbalism friends probably will be interested at some point. There's also someone I know who's in a complementary field and once, before I had a blog, raised the idea of cross posting with me--so that's someone I can now revisit it with.
 

Osamenor

Staff member
Re: I have a website!

Everyone, I'm adding a new feature to my blog: Ask the Astrologer.

I hope to run it at least monthly, maybe weekly. If I get enough submissions, who knows, maybe even more often.

I will answer a natal astrology question in a similar style to AW posts. It will not be a full reading. My answer will probably run 600-ish words, kind of like a very long post here.

I need someone to send me a question so I can start the feature. Maybe a few someones. My aim is to have the first post ready to go by the end of July, so as to catch the energy of Mercury turning direct.

If you would like to have your question answered on my blog, please contact me through my website or pm me here. If you pm me here, I'll send you my direct email so we can communicate that way.

Please note that you and your chart will be anonymized, although I will publish your chart with name and birth info cropped out, and, like posts in this forum, posts on my website are public and permanent.
 
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Osamenor

Staff member
Re: I have a website!

And here are my ground rules for Ask the Astrologer questions. I'll also post them on my website when I start running the feature.

  • Only ask on your own behalf, and only a question that could be answered with your birth chart. I will not answer questions that require another person’s birth information.

  • Ask a reasonably specific question. Just, “What do you see in my birth chart?” isn’t specific enough. If you know anything about your own birth chart, you can ask for clarification. For example, “I have a t-square, what does it mean?” Or, “I’m a Taurus, but I’m not really stubborn, why?” You can also ask for clarification on a life issue.

  • But don’t get too specific! I can’t tell you when you will get married (if you’re not already), what your future spouse will look like, who stole your wallet, where you will move next year, or anything like that. Birth charts, and predictive techniques working off them, show a very general sense of what’s happening. Kind of like meteorology. The weather report can tell you with reasonable accuracy if this weekend’s weather will be good for a picnic, but it can’t tell you if you’ll go on a picnic, let alone who will go with you or what kind of sandwich you’ll bring.

  • Understand that this is a public and permanent post. Don’t say anything so personal that you won’t want it up forever. If in doubt, leave it out, or ask me to leave it out before I actually publish it. If you fail to do this, I am not responsible for the outcome, whether the outcome is you feeling embarrassed or anything worse.

  • No medical astrology questions. No horary questions. I am not qualified to handle those at this time.

  • Understand that this will be a reading lite. Quite possibly, it will leave you with more questions. If you would like to schedule a full session to follow up, contact me, or if you work with another astrologer, go to them.
 

Osamenor

Staff member
Re: I have a website! And a new feature!

Ask the Astrologer has debuted! You can read the first post here: https://www.thebearsnose.com/astrol...the-astrologer/career-for-soon-to-be-graduate

Shout out to our own moonkat235, who made this feature possible by submitting the first question! :biggrin:

And thanks to the two others who have submitted questions, which will be the next two installments!

Right now, I only have enough questions to justify running the feature once a month. If I receive at least one more by the end of the first week in August, I'll feel confident enough to plan on twice a month, and publish the next one around August 15th (my birthday!). If the questions start coming in greater numbers, I'll consider making it a weekly feature.

The feature now has its own submission page on my website. And a more comprehensive list of ground rules, although the spirit of them is the same as what I posted in this thread.

Letter writers get to read my answer to their question as soon as I've finished the draft of it, which is currently running well in advance of publication. Everyone else has to wait until it's posted. So, if you want to see more and see it sooner, please submit a question!
 

Opal

Premium Member
Re: I have a website! And a new feature!

Hi Osamenor,

I was just on your site. https://www.thebearsnose.com/herbalism I was quite taken with your explanation of poison oak. As a life long allergy /asthma victim, MCVirgo, Mars Cancer, I really enjoyed thinking of the "said" toxins that the poison oak emits as a curing agent for the earth. Having lived in farming communities, and realizing that changing the crops out are advantageous to the fields, to move the crops to a different field so that the waste can be turned under putting back into the earth precious nutrients that it used to grow the crop of choice. You have to feed the soil.

Also of interest, is your Ask an Astrologer section. You are very compassionate in your readings.

Thank you, Opal
 

Osamenor

Staff member
Re: I have a website! And a new feature!

Also of interest, is your Ask an Astrologer section. You are very compassionate in your readings.

Thank you, Opal

And the Ask the Astrologer section needs more submissions! I have one that I'm working on for December 1st, and then nothing.

Please send me your astrological questions through the site. Questions must be on your own behalf, not requiring anyone else's birth information, and answerable through your birth chart (I do not do horary). You can see examples of my previous answers here.
 

Osamenor

Staff member
Questions, please!

Folks, the Ask the Astrologer feature needs more questions! If you have something you're not getting answers to here, or just want my take on your post, please consider submitting it to Ask the Astrologer!

But first, please read my ground rules for the feature. Not everything that's suitable to post here is suitable for my site. I only address natal chart based questions, and they have to be answerable based on your chart alone. Relationship questions involving the other person's birth information have their place, but I don't accept them for my blog because of privacy issues. I also stay away from hard and fast predictions, although often when people start by asking a predictive question (i.e. "Will I ever get married?") there is a question behind the question that I can address. Finally, I don't do medical or relocation questions, and rectification is too complex for the blog.

Several of you AW folks have submitted questions already. Thanks so much! Only people who have not had a question answered within the past year are eligible (since this feature is less than a year old, no one is eligible for seconds yet), so if you have not submitted one, please do!

And if you have had a question answered there within the last year, please consider sending an update, if you have a meaningful one. It may take time before you do, so if you're not ready to update now, no pressure.

Questions I have already answered can be found here: https://www.thebearsnose.com/astrology-star-story-medicine

Subjects covered include career, finances, relationship patterns, purpose in life, debunking bad astrology, and more! Clarifying life issues and astrological misunderstandings are what I tend to focus on.
 
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