I took out nearly every advertisement from the site. The exception are links to books on Amazon, and a couple of Text Link Ads. Why? They’re simply not making money and they cause screen clutter. So away they go.
I additionally got rid of the SnapPreview display that had been popping up every time a user hovered the mouse over an external link. It’s extra CPU time and can be annoying quickly. It’s great to know how to do that kind of stuff, but brilliance is shown by knowing how to do something and choosing to not do it! Blogging guru Lorelle also left me a comment advising me against it and I trust she knows a little bit about blog usability. Any tips she offers are definitely taken to heart!
I’m not the most popular blog out there, or even one of the most popular education blogs, but I have noticed that So You Want To Teach? has maintained about 35 readers over the last two weeks and has been increasing its Technorati authority to a whopping 13 now. With my submission of 15 Tips To Stay Positive to the latest blog carnival hosted by Dr. Homeslice, I am hoping both of those numbers will continue to increase.
The most exciting thing that has begun to happen much more frequently over the last few weeks has been an increase in comment traffic. The comments make me feel like my time has been well spent. I have even had comments and links to the site from a few of the more popular bloggers as well, including Lorelle, Bloggrrl, Chris Garrett, Mister Teacher, CaliforniaTeacherGuy, and Bowrag. Your blogs are all more popular than mine, some even hundreds or thousands of times over! I am so humbled to know that there are smart people out there reading even some of the junk that I write! :)
As the school year looms closer, I hope more teacher types will come out of the woodwork looking for help. This is where Super Joel comes in to save the day. Or not. But I like to think that there are some really good articles on classroom management on this site that will be helpful for younger teachers.
As return visitors browse the right sidebar, you may also notice that I have greatly reduced the amount of information over there. Got rid of some categories, trimmed the number of items displayed, and cleared up the Subscribe section at the top. If this is your first time here, or even if you’re a regular, I would love to hear your comments (especially the negative ones) about the design and layout of the site.
