The State of Little Vintage Cottage - Current and Future

20 March
This post might be a little on the boring side but I want to share with you a little about the state of Little Vintage Cottage (LVC), what is happening now (you may have noticed some little changes here and there) and what I have in mind for the future of LVC. I hope you'll stick with me!

Update on Little Vintage Cottage blog

My goal for this blog is to be able to do it full-time and I'm trying really hard to get there! Everyone should have the opportunity to have a job they love.

Last month I asked if you would take a few minutes of your time and help me out by taking a reader survey. Many of you did and I thank you so much for that, it has helped me out tremendously to know what you think of Little Vintage Cottage... why you read, what are your favorite and least favorite posts, etc. You were so sweet with your answers too! I had braced myself for some bad news... not because I think you are mean but because I had asked you to share your honest opinion and sometimes honest feedback stings a little! But it was pretty painless!

If you haven't yet taken the survey, it is still open and the more feedback I can get, the more helpful it will be. You can take it here: LVC Reader Survey. It is anonymous, and more helpful for me if you share your honest opinion 😊

Now, let's get to "The state of LVC", I know you're waiting!

What I'm Working on Now

I need help learning how to take LVC to full-time status so last year I enrolled in Elite Blog Academy. EBA is an online course designed to help you refine, grow, monetize, and build your blog. I had made it about halfway through the class when they updated much of the content and EBA 3.0 was released so I decided to start fresh at the beginning.

I spent a considerable amount of time and went back through EVERY.SINGLE.POST on LVC... (over 500 of them!) and updated with better graphics, rewrote and edited, and just plain got rid of some that couldn't (or shouldn't) be saved!

Most recently I have been working on new branding. I designed my new logo, the little heart shaped house with the crooked picket fence, myself and it is now on header of this blog and the banners for both my Etsy shops, Little Vintage Cottage, and Little Boho Cottage (I added a little something extra on the boho Etsy shop banner, pop over to see what it is)! I also ordered some new business cards (aren't they cute?!)


Reader Survey Results

I'd like to share the results of the reader survey next and explain what I took away from that.

1. It seems most of you found me from another blog. That's great, that's how I've found some of my favorite blogs too!


2. A whopping 82.5% read every post! 😁😁😁
3. Most of you get my posts delivered directly to your email. Now I know that email inboxes are sacred ground so I am honored that you like me enough to invite me into that sacred space!

I am working on some new ideas related to the newsletter that I think you'll like too. I'm not exactly sure when all of my ideas will come to fruition but look for at least one to start soon!

When I asked if you wanted to be subscribed if you weren't already, there were a couple of declines saying you already have too much coming to your inboxes so I wanted to offer up another solution because I definitely understand!

I use it myself, It's called Bloglovin'. You can create an account and follow all your favorite blogs there. Then you will get only ONE email per day with ALL of your favorite blogs' latest posts in it! It's awesome, I look forward to my email from Bloglovin' each day so I can see what everyone is up to in one email! You can follow me there if that would suit you better: Little Vintage Cottage on Bloglovin'.

4. When I asked what posts you enjoyed the most, trash-to-treasure makeovers was the most popular with furniture makeovers in second place followed by home decor in third place.
And the posts you enjoy the least are the guides which include things like vintage and antique collectibles guides, how to care for vintage items, etc. and I was kind of surprised to find that the weekend yard work (YWY) series wasn't one of your favorites since I always get a lot of comments on those posts.

Since many of the YWY posts include trash-to-treasure and thrift shop flip projects for the yard I am planning to continue those posts and I'll just limit the other kinds of YWY posts like landscaping and gardening.

5. When I asked if there was anything else you DIDN'T like most responded "nope"! A few people said they didn't care for the navigation and ads so I do want to address those briefly.

Navigation

Navigation should be much better and easier (especially since there wasn't any before I started EBA!) I added the menu bar at the top in pink last year and I have done some more rearranging with that since I started EBA 3.0.

If you hover over any of the menu items that have a little arrow next to them it will expand the menu so you can see all the categories under that item. The ones without arrows do not have subcategories so you can just click on them to see those posts.


**If you read on your cell phone, the menu looks like three little lines with the word Menu next to them, click on the three little lines and the menu will open.

There is also a little arrow in the bottom right of the LVC that will pop you back up to the top at any time (no scrolling!) and there is a search bar in the top right sidebar that you can use to search for something specific.

Ads and Popups

As far as ads go, I know... they are annoying. But if I am going to try to take this full time they are kind of a necessary evil. Think of them like the ads in your favorite magazine. Those ads help pay for the magazine printing and all that right? The ads on LVC help pay for the time and effort I put into it. You wouldn't expect someone in any other profession to work for free, would you? 😊

Even though I LOVE blogging it is still a lot of work so the ads just help pay for my time. The ads you see function differently, some of them are "pay per click" meaning I get paid when you click on them and others are "pay per view" meaning I get paid for just having them on my blog and visible to you. Neither one pays much mind you... just pennies and the most important thing is they do not cost YOU anything!

I feel your pain with them though and I try not to have the big annoying ads that cover up an entire picture or pop up all over the place when you are trying to read a post.

Miss Mustard Seed has a great series called The Business of Blogging that really breaks down and explains the different ways a blogger can get paid. It covers ads and some other ways that I will be using in the future as well. 

I would encourage you to read it if you aren't familiar with the ways a blogger earns money. The posts aren't long and they will give you a new perspective I think. She explains it much better than I can.

Popups

There was also a comment about my email subscription popup. I have it set so it shouldn't pop up every time you visit, about every 3 days is all (in case you change your mind and want to get in on the special things I'm working on especially for subscribers 😉 ) and it won't show at all if you are already subscribed. Again, this is a necessary evil, I want it to be as easy as possible for new people to sign up, I hope you understand 😊

Other Suggestions and Things I'm Considering

There was a suggestion to put the actual post title in the newsletter subscription email so you know if you want to read it without having to open it first. I thought that was a great idea so I've incorporated that.

Several of you don't care for the Craft Frenzy Friday posts. This is a link party where other bloggers can link up their latest projects and you can visit by clicking on the linked up pictures. Do you think you'd be interested if it was a monthly link party instead of a weekly party?

Final Thoughts

I want to thank you again for taking the survey (and thank you in advance for those who are planning to take it now). I enjoyed reading all of your comments and I appreciate all the sweet things that were written. 

There was one comment though that I really loved and that means a lot to me:
Your posts are engaging, tutorials very informative, and you seem to genuinely care about your readers. You always answer my comments. It makes me feel like you truly care.
I do try really hard to respond to all comments and interact with you. I know how it feels to be so supportive of a blogger, you read every post, try their projects, etc. but when you leave comments, you are ignored. I don't think they do it on purpose, they probably don't have notifications set to tell them when they have a new comment or they feel like they are too busy. 

But I feel like LVC wouldn't exist without you and I will always find a way to continue to interact no matter how big LVC may become or how busy it makes me. One way I've found to make the commenting process easier is switching to the disqus commenting system. It's much easier for me to respond and you should get an email when I reply so you won't miss it! (I understand that at least one person isn't able to comment and I'm truly sorry for that, I wish I could help and I would come over if we lived anywhere near each other! I hope you'll try to figure out what's wrong again).

If you cannot comment on the blog you can reply directly to the email if you are a subscriber!

Thanks so much for sticking with me with this lengthy and possibly somewhat boring post!


Posted by: at 20 March Tag:

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  1. handmade by amaliaMarch 21, 2017

    This was very interesting, Tania, and I was happy to learn a little about your plans and goals. The very best of success to you!!! And a hug.
    Amalia
    xo

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you so much Amalia, you're so sweet :o)

    Tania

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really enjoyed reading this post Tania because I'll be doing one of these surveys in the future. What better way to find our what our readers are enjoying? Looks to me like your survey was really helpful to you.Your site is looking really great! :) You're so far ahead of me, but I'm getting there bit by bit.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Only reason I'm ahead of you Tuula is because I started LAST YEAR!! lol! Take your time!

    Tania

    ReplyDelete

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