traffic

BLOGANUARY 2025 DAY 6

I really noticed that normal service had resumed when I took Ned out for a walk this morning: the stream of cars and vans was constant, and the smell of exhaust fumes gracing my nostrils was an unpleasant reminder that everyone was back at work. It’s only a short distance to the old railway line though, and it quickly becomes pleasantly quiet and calm among the trees, allowing my thoughts to drift to another type of traffic, namely the traffic regarding my website.

I have always enjoyed blogging, and it’s a great way to facilitate some gentle SEO without the requirement to make every post sound like a promotional pamphlet. I’m really trying to focus on my ‘investment pieces’ this year, so basically anything I have paid for, which amounts to this website, the Adobe software, and my stock of birdwatching logbooks. I have toyed with Etsy shops and Patreon and other such things in the past, but there’s nothing like estimating the cost-per-use to incentivise me to utilise my resources effectively. I get a surprising number of enquiries through my website reassuring me that blogging really does work as I don’t pay for any advertising, and social media is such a lottery these days so can’t claim much response from that, for all its promises and predilections.

I have already had some requests for my little POS stand card promo thingies (I really need to think of a name for them) so I am looking forward to getting some feedback. Here they are:

I also want to come up with something for the Big Garden Birdwatch, the RSPB’s citizen science weekend (24-26 January) looking for the birds in our gardens, so I might try to create a poster for that. Perhaps a buy-one-get-one-free on the logbooks? I thought that might mean people could have a Town & Country Garden one and another which might relate more to where they live, like Pond or Urban. I was contacted by someone from an Eco-school in the Midlands who wanted some logbooks for their birdwatching group which I thought was a lovely idea so I might investigate that further too as there are a number of them across the UK, and they are council-backed so have funds available.

I’m also putting together an info sheet for some of my potential titles so I can show them to organisations – I am doing all of this on InDesign with a little help from Photoshop and Adobe Express, the graphic design web package. I’m still working on Birds of Central Park even though I don’t have any idea where or how to market them as yet…it’s still useful for my portfolio and you never know, I might have a lightbulb moment.

Apologies, this is a rather rambling post and I should probably get away from this screen before it fries my brain so much that I can’t sleep!

Thanks to everyone for your lovely comments, and I am so enjoying reading all the blogs that are coming up on my Reader. I keep reading that Bloganuary isn’t an official WP initiative this year which is ironic since I’ve not come across it on the site before now, but I’m very pleased to be part of it.

Phew, got this into Day 6 with 90 minutes to spare! Go me!!