Remember when I went on and on about how weird it is that people ask me for website advice?

And then I shipped all those people off to Men With Pens to get their $30 professional review (aka Drive-By Shooting) that would knock their socks off?

Right.

And then I was all, oh, maybe I should do that too. Since it’s weird to recommend something you know is great and then not take advantage of it yourself.

So I did. And boy was it interesting and informative. And full of surprises.

The best part was just getting the perspective of someone who knows nothing about me. Well, almost nothing. Men With Pens know I’m cool because Naomi said so. But they don’t know anything about who I am or what I do or why I do it.

Which means they have way more in common with visitors to my website (friendly wave to said visitors, hi!) than anyone that I could ask.

Because obviously, if I’m asking you, it stands to reason that you probably already know me and know my thing.

But what I actually needed was the phenomenally useful perspective of a total stranger. Well, useful if the stranger in question knows what they’re talking about. And trust me, they do.

Because my learning is your learning, right?

So I’m going to share with you some of what I’ve learned. Because … well, there are three reasons. At least.

Reason #1

Good stuff! Maybe you can use some of their good advice too.

Reason #2

A lot of their advice is related to all sorts of conversations I have with myself and my clients. About what it means to put yourself out there and how the heck you’re supposed to do it.

Reason #3

Well, some of this stuff I’m still undecided on, and I would love to get your advice.

Right. Let’s go for a fourth reason while we’re at it

Maybe this will help convince you to finally take advantage of the highly awesome Men With Pens Drive-By Shoot-Up-Your-Website offer.

Trust me, I don’t even want to tell you what it would normally cost to hire someone who knows websites to tear through your site.

Throw $30 their way and prepare to be impressed.

I’m not getting kickbacks on this or anything, I just want you to stop asking me for website advice learn from the experts.

Moving on. Here’s what I’m going to do. These guys men (with pens!) gave me a TON of stuff to chew on.

And I’m going to address their feedback in a series of posts.

Not because they told me to write shorter posts — which they did, of course (that part wasn’t surprising) — because I really don’t care about that even if I should.

But because there is a lot of meat in this, and because I have a lot to say, and because it’s just going to work better that way.

So here we go …

The Men With Pens website review: Thing #1

For this first post, let’s start with something they noted which also happened to be super easy for me to implement: a suggestion about my blog comments set-up.

Here’s what Men With Pens wrote:

We noticed that on your home page of the blog, the “Comment” feature is extremely difficult to see. In fact, James couldn’t find it at all and had to specifically go looking for it.

Tucked in with the category tags, the “Comment Away” is nearly invisible. You may want to highlight the comment potential more to encourage readers to join in with their experiences.

Ohmygosh! Ohmygosh!

This is exactly the sort of “Yeah, I kinda noticed that but then completely forgot about it” thing that is so very important to fix.

Of course I know where you’re supposed to comment, because … well, because I live here.

It hadn’t occurred to me that maybe you don’t know, or that I was making you work to do it. Sorry about that … it was never my intention that talking to me would be such a pain.

Luckily, this one was a quick fix (I heart wordpress.org) and took me about two minutes to figure out.

What I did was break out the tiny “comment away” link tucked in to the categories list and gave it its very own line.

And changed it to the boringly obvious “leave a comment“. And put it in ALL CAPS, BABY.

Just to be on the safe side.

What I learned from this one

Well, maybe not so much “lesson learned” as “interesting side effect noticed”:

Making this change helped me realize that I am actually kind of shy about asking for comments. Not because of embarrassment. More because of the way I tend to dislike being on blogs that are always begging me for a response.

Of course I know that conventional blog wisdom holds that you should always ask for the comment. And I also get that it’s important to help people feel welcome to be part of the conversation (you are!).

Just don’t like the whole “what do YOU think?” thing that some people do.

It’s kind of like a microphone being shoved in your face. I always feel as though I’m being put on the spot, and then I go straight into contrarian mode and won’t comment on principle.

But never mind that, back to you!

If you’re also finding your way through this whole blogging thing, listen to Men With Pens: Make it really, really easy to comment, and make it obvious that this is welcome.

And if you’re someone who’s feeling a bit unsure about whether or not to chime in, know that your thoughts are always welcome. I don’t have expectations from anyone.

Just want you to feel comfortable saying stuff if you feel like it.

Oh! That reminds me of what my gentleman friend said when I got a bunch of email responses (not comments) to one of my first posts, which was “Take your hat off, people, you’re inside now!”

And if you’re anything like me and dislike being asked loudly for comments, please know that I will always love you just the same, whether you leave comments or not.

So there.