It’s spring, time for change. I have recently changed my wordpress theme and changed my blog background (and I changed my sidebars) to be a little less busy. I wanted my posts to be easier to read for people. I hope that’s the case. A small part of me wants it to be busier. You don’t know how much. We’ll see how long I can stand holding myself back.
Some readers may have also noticed yesterday that I’ve mapped my domain name to specficromantic.com. This is a domain I have owned for a while now, but I was on the fence on using. I finally decided to use it because if you saw the website link, you’d have an idea what the link was taking you to versus “janicu.com” 🙂 (I really hemmed and hawed over that one. I also own janicu, that’s how much I debated. It’s set to forward here).
No need to update your RSS feed if you were pointed at janicu.wordpress.com/feed, but I have also FINALLY set up a feedburner feed too. Reason for that one is that I think it gives more choices for people to subscribe.
Also I’ve signed up for Bloggiesta in March:
“Bloggiesta is a three day event where participants will spend as much time as they can working on fixing all those pesky blog related tasks…. all those things that you think “some day I’m going to clean that up, or change that around, or add that thing!” Everyone will post a “to do” list, or goals they want to accomplish and then all of us will work together to get our lists done.”
On my list:
- putting my reviews up on Goodreads
- updating my review index
- Perhaps catch up with my reviews and other posts I wanted to post
- Also hoping to host a challenge this time.
I hope it happens. Time management is tough for me because work is Craaaazy again.
specficromantic 
Love the Howl image that you used! I was surprised to see that you had a new domain. So is your blog now self-hosted or you’re still using WordPress and just the domain? LOL I’m clueless when it comes to things like these, which is why I’ve stuck to my free WordPress blog.
Yay, glad you’re joining Bloggiesta too. 😀
It’s still hosted by wordpress.com, it’s just mapped to specficromantic now.
Ah so no need to pay for hosting, just the domain right? I’ll think about doing that. chachicsbooknook.com? chachic.com? chachicisawesome.com? LOL
If you want chachic.com then wordpress makes that super easy because your wordpress is already named chachic.wordpress.com. I swear everytime I went to my dashboard wordpress had that little tip on the top left asking me if I wanted to make my blog janicu.com for $17!
But if you want another domain, I think you can do that too.. try dashboard->shop->domains. I’m not 100% sure though.
I bought mine elsewhere, so if you buy elsewhere (buy the domain, not a hosting provider. I used godaddy), then when you go to your dashboard there’s a domains option under settings and it tells you what to do to map. I needed to go to my godaddy account and set the namespace mappings to wordpress (n1.wordpress.com, n2.wordpress.com, n3.wordpress.com), wait for goddaddy to say it was done (about 12 hours), and then tell wordpress I wanted to map to my domain. Does it sound complicated? Because it’s really not that bad!
Now don’t ask me to help you choose a domain name because that was the MOST difficult decision!!
I’ve heard of godaddy because it seems like most book bloggers get their domain there. I know, I keep seeing that WordPress tip to make my blog “chachic.me” but I wasn’t interested in that. Thanks for the tip! I’ll think about it since it would be nice to have my own domain for the blog.
I checked and chachic.com is already taken. 😦 chachicsbooknook.com is still free though.
I did a quick look at different places to buy domains and I thought godaddy was the cheapest and it helped that my husband owns a domain through them. I recommend them. They even called me after I registered to make sure I didn’t have questions. Really, they didn’t need to call, but I was impressed they had people doing that.
Oh boo that someone has chachic.com! That’s sucky, when I try going to the address no one has a page up. So they’re just sitting on the domain? I like chachicsbooknook.com .. or how about chachics.com? With an s? Maybe that’s less ‘booky’ sounding though.
I just saw this, Janicu! I think it looks great. I was wondering if I’d just never noticed you had your own domain before when I just came here.
Chachic – Having a domain name like chachicsbooknook.com would actually be better for SEO than chachic.com. Or something like chachicsbookreviews.com would be good. When people search for things like “book” or “review” on Google having those words in your domain name can help it get ranked higher!
Kristen, thanks for the feedback! I did hear from another blogger that having your own domain is better for SEO. I like chachicsbooknook.com because it’s the same as my blog’s name. I haven’t had time to take care of it recently. Maybe I can included it in my Bloggiesta to-do list.
Love that it’s responsive! I’ve been looking at responsive themes the last couple of weeks myself. They’re all SO clean. Not sure I can give up some of my busier elements. 😦 But this is nice!
I am thinking maybe a striped background. Husband has vetoed the stripes though. I’m still contemplating if he just has bad taste. 😛
I think stripes would be cool 😉
I’m tempted by Bloggiesta, but not sure I’ll have the time – I may do it unofficially! I like your domain name btw!
Li
One day you may suddenly see stripes here. Hmm. Bloggiesta to do: work on stripes..
I don’t think you have to do it the whole 3 days. Maybe sign up and just do a bit of sprucing or visit blogs taking part to get some ideas?
Thank you, it relieves me to get some positive response – I really wrestled over it!
So glad you’ll be joining us for Bloggiesta! It’s going to be such fun!
I am really looking forward to it! 😀
Late to the party, as always, but…Like Chachic, I love that image of Sophie at the top of your post. Sophie in cleaning mode is…terrifying, actually. 🙂
I hear you about the busy thing. I tried for that clean look, but determined that it wasn’t for me. It felt a little like my personality was being stripped away. After a while of going the minimalist route, stuff and nonsense started creeping back into my sidebar. I like it. It makes me happy. So, after all that, all I really meant to say was that if you want to bring on the busy, go for it. It won’t distract this blog visitor at all.
I am getting lots of good feedback about the stuff and nonsense. 🙂 There may be stripes here in the near future! Hee.
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I updated my reviews and scheduled some posts as well! I hope you’re doing great!
Thank you! I’m doing some small things here and there. The thing I most need to do is work on a review!
Good luck! Im updating goodreads reviews too