Blogger Recognition Award Revisited

Not long after my first Blogger Recognition Award post, I found myself nominated again by the lovely Ashley. I’m so thankful for the nomination, as it’s always nice to be recognised as a blogger. But I did find it funny seeing her Tweet so shortly after my first post, lol. Make sure you pop along to her blog and read her answers. 🙂

I didn’t want an exact copy of my last post so have answered the questions a little differently this time.

Blogger recognition award revisited

Here are the rules:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you.
• Write a post to show your award.
• Give a brief history of how your blog came to be.
• Give two pieces of advice for new bloggers.
• Select 15 of your fellow. bloggers to give this award to
• Comment on their blog and let them know that you nominated them and provide a link to your post.

How my blog came to be:

Chimmyville started life as a place to store my pixel creations and creative writing. It was inspired by popular ‘doll sites’ at the time which were very popular in the early 00s. If you’re not familiar with the term ‘doll site’, they were designed as places you could store or create pixelated images of characters, known as Dollz (yep, with a Z).

The Dollz were often created from the Palace Dolls website or by using ‘Doll Makers’. Which were essentially drag and drop games used to create your character. The Palace Dolls website no longer exists, but I did manage to find a ‘doll maker’ on the Thuggndivaz Dollz website, if you’d like to have a go yourself.

I had 100s of Dollz that I created on my ‘doll site’ and my first theme (which was called a ‘layout’ back then) showcased some of them in the header image. Along with a falling snowflake effect, repeated background patterns (in this case blue stars) and plenty of JavaScript games (see the top right side bar)

My interest in web design grew further when I started my ICT classes in college and I created a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fansite on Geocities, as part of my web design module. I also began to post more technical help on my website Chimmyville as my knowledge grew.

Eventually, my interests shifted and Chimmyville became more of a personal website and blog where I talk about my life, share recipes and talk about my travels. Which is the blog you see today. 🙂

Advice for new bloggers:

In my last post, I covered engagement and scheduling which are two very important aspects of blogging you’ll need to consider. But with this post, I’d like to cover, SEO and proofreading.

SEO

SEO stands for ‘search engine optimisation’ and helps websites rank better in search engines (such as Google). But writing with SEO in mind can be very difficult and also time-consuming.

Some items that can help SEO include, making your blog mobile-friendly, how long your blog takes to load and keywords in the post itself. There are also various WordPress plugins available to help with SEO while your writing, such as Yoast SEO. Which is the plugin I use personally, both for my blog and our company website at work.

Readability is also important for SEO which leads me to my next point, proofreading.

Proof Reading

There have been times in the past where I’ve forgotten or neglected to proofread my posts before hitting ‘publish’. Only to discover it full of typing errors or spelling mistakes! It can make a well-written post look very sloppy to your readers.

Getting a second opinion on the post your’re writing can also be very useful. Ask a friend to look for mistakes you haven’t spotted, or, if you know spelling and grammar is not one of your strong points. There are free browser add-ons (such as Grammarly for Chrome, Firefox and Safari) that are there to help you. I swear by it and have it installed for both Firefox and Chrome.

My nominations…

I mentioned 15 bloggers in my last post but this time I’d like to offer my nomination to all my readers. You all deserve recognition for the time and effort you put into your bloggers and for being so supportive of me. – Was that too soppy?

What advice would you give to new bloggers?