Sorting through my broken links

At the end of last year, Amazon Associates announced that it had decided to stop using the SiteStripe image feature which allowed Amazon Associates to link to products on Amazon using an image link. Although Amazon Associates isn't a huge source of income for me, I do get a small voucher from time to time which is always appreciated. I often include lists of craft supplies, as well as linking to books that I've enjoyed or products that I recommend.

Text links to Amazon still work, but I always used an image link because I think readers find it easier and more appealing to see a picture. So I had hundreds of image links on my blog. I'm afraid I rather buried my head in the sand and pretended it wasn't happening.

This week I realised that I'd not done a broken link check on my blog for a long time so I gave it a run and I was dismayed to see the number of broken links to Amazon. I use Broken Link Checker which is a great free tool, and I've spent hours finding the links and removing or replacing them. Sometimes I've changed the image links for text links, otherwise I just deleted them. I think I've got rid of most of them, but I'm sure that there are some that have slipped through the cracks.

I also discovered many other broken links. Links that have changed, attractions that have closed, products that are no longer available.

Among them I was sad to find many broken links to bloggers who no longer blog. I used to love the blogging community back when I started, I took part in lots of blog hops and link ups. Many of my early craft posts were inspired by groups of bloggers getting together to work on a craft together, like my Sky Blanket, or sharing crafts like Needlework Days. There was also the linky which I co-hosted - Crafting is my Therapy.

Re-visiting my old posts also made me feel really nostalgic. I used to love doing all the little themed crafts with the children and sharing them on the blog! It reminded me of lots of fun things that we've done. Now I feel a bit silly doing children's crafts on my own, although I think I'll still be playing with the Hama beads for a while yet!

Photo credit Mel Poole via Unsplash

It has made me think about how my blog has changed direction as the children have got older, and I'm not sure that I've really found a new focus for it. I really enjoy being a content creator and I definitely want to continue, but I need to have a think about my new direction!

Using ChatGPT as a blogger

I'm really interested in the development of AI and I've done lots of reading around the topic. I'm not really interested in how it works, I want to learn about the ethical considerations, and the ways that it might influence our lives both now and in the future.

I can see AI having a massive impact on the media landscape, especially when it comes to social media and online magazines and blogs. I was fascinated by a recent story about how fans of the computer game World of Warcraft laid a trap for an AI bot that was generating news stories based on their Reddit posts - Warcraft fans trick AI article bot with Glorbo hoax - and it did make me wonder how much online content has been created by Artificial Intelligence. It's going to have a huge impact on both online and print publishing. 

I think that we are entering a time when a huge amount of online content will be computer generated (if it's not already!), and because the software is then learning from that generated online content I do wonder about what that means for traditional writers, and for the people that are reading it. I just can't see it being the same in terms of quality and accuracy.

Image generated by Stable Diffusion AI

However I must confess that I have been using ChatGPT when it comes to brainstorming and writing blog posts. I'll say first that I've never used ChatGPT to write an entire blog post and I don't intend to!

 But here are some of the ways that I've used it for blogging:

- Asking for a list of ideas for blog posts around a particular theme. Often none of the titles are exactly what I'm looking for, but they've sparked an idea for something else.

- Asking for blog post outlines around a particular subject. It's a good way of coming up with new ideas even if I don't want to follow the suggested format.

- I needed to write a sponsored post about the benefits of installing a GPS tracker in your car and I could only think of a couple! But ChatGPT provided me with several that I hadn't considered, and I was able to expand on those to fill the article. 

- I used a different AI tool to generate some potential blog post images. You can read about how I got on here - Using AI to generate images for blog posts. There's still lots of work to be done in this area, but I can see it being very useful if you are looking for a very specific image to illustrate something.

- Coming up with craft ideas. I asked it to give me some ideas for crafts involving particular materials for certain occasions. The results weren't ground breaking and I could have just used Google, but again it did help to give me some inspiration.

I've found that for the best results you need to be very specific when it comes to writing your prompt. You can go into a lot of detail and write a whole paragraph about what you are after, and then you can use further prompts or ask it to rewrite for you in a different way. ChatGPT also saves all your queries so you can go back to them and follow up. 

ChatGPT will even come up with text that you can use to share your posts on social media. I had a lot of fun with this, especially if you ask it to make them click bait! I would never use them! But here are some tweets that it suggested for promoting this blog post, complete with emojis and hashtags:

Prompt: 

Please generate me some tweets for sharing my blog post titled "Using ChatGPT as a Blogger". Make them click bait!

Results:

"🚀 Unleash the POWER of ChatGPT! 🤖 Learn how I skyrocketed my blog with AI wizardry! 💥 Read it now: [Blog Post Link] #BloggerMagic #AIWriting"

"💡 Want to BOOST your blog game? Discover my SECRET weapon: ChatGPT! 📚🚀 Dive into the future of blogging here: [Blog Post Link] #ChatGPT #BloggingTips"

"📝 Bloggers, brace yourselves! ChatGPT is your new BEST friend! 😍 Unlock the potential of AI writing today: [Blog Post Link] #BloggersUnite #AIContent"

"🚀 REVOLUTIONIZE your blogging game with ChatGPT! 💥 Get the inside scoop on my blogging journey here: [Blog Post Link] #BloggerLife #AIWriting"

"🌟 BLOGGERS, this is a GAME-CHANGER! 💡 Explore how ChatGPT transformed my content creation! 🔥 Dive in now: [Blog Post Link] #ContentCreation #ChatGPT"

Of course there are drawbacks to using ChatGPT to write content. The biggest one is that it does just make things up. I asked for reading material around a particular subject and was given a list of plausible titles and authors. Some of the authors had written books on similar subjects and the titles sounded good. But the actual books didn't exist!

I also asked for links to blog posts and articles on the subject I was researching and again it listed fake articles. There was a disclaimer saying that the titles had been automatically generated, but a website that is automatically copying and pasting information won't take any notice of that.

Finally, after asking ChatGPT to generate a few blog post articles it's easy to see the format that is being used, and it becomes very repetitive. The articles are nicely written with a beginning, middle and an end and the style is correct but somehow it just sounds a bit off and formulaic. Maybe a blog could get away with the occasional AI generated article but I think readers would soon get bored, especially if reading several articles at once.

I don't intend to ever use ChatGPT to write my blog, it's something that I love doing too much! But I'm definitely going to be more wary of the content that I read online going forwards, and I really hope that we aren't starting to see the end of human generated content.

Journal prompts for bloggers

I love writing in my journal, and even though I don't write every day I find that it's a really good way of putting my thoughts in order. I like to write about what I've been doing, things that I've learned or researched, things that I want to do and just random thoughts about various aspects of my life.

I often find myself writing about things that have interested me or caught my attention that have later made it into a blog post. I thought I'd have a think about how keeping a journal has been helpful for me when it comes to writing my blog.

I've put together some journal prompts for bloggers, both for myself and to share. I think that they fall into two different categories - firstly journal prompts which are for your own private thoughts and secondly journal prompts that help you to explore ideas, spark creativity, and which may become useful when writing future posts.

Journal prompts for private reflection

Why did you start your blog? For me it was to share photographs and updates of the children with the wider family, but it quickly moved on from there.

Why did you continue blogging, what was your motivation? 

How has the look and feel of your blog changed over time?

What have you gained from blogging? Maybe online companionship or paid work.

What has blogging taught you? For example confidence in using social media, writing skills, how to edit HTML, photo taking and editing.

What challenges have you had while blogging?

What are your favourite topics to blog about and why do you enjoy writing about them?

What puts you into a blogging mood?

What gives you ideas for blog posts?

What are your blogging goals? Some ideas - to post more frequently, to update older posts, to improve photography, to improve sharing on social media.

Are you happy with your blog? What would you like to change?

Photo credit Jodie Cook via Unsplash

Journal prompts to inspire blogging

What have been your favourite blog posts to write and why? Are there any that could be updated or rewritten with a new perspective?

What subjects do you most enjoy writing about?

What have you never written about? What would you like to write about?

If you've been blogging for a long time, how has your life changed since you started? What new direction could you take the blog in based on new interests, surroundings or family situation?

What advice do you have for someone that is thinking of starting a blog? What blogging tips and tricks would you share?

What would you like to change about your blog?

How would you love your blog to look? Think about posting frequency, structure, images, design, colour scheme and so on.

If you are looking for inspiration when it comes to writing blog posts then you may find this post useful - an entire year of blog post ideas and inspiration.

Why I've mostly stopped using Instagram

I joined Instagram a long time ago, way back in 2012 and at that time it was very quiet. I followed other bloggers, they followed me back, and I posted pictures of things that reflected my blog. They weren't people that I knew personally so I didn't post many photographs of the family or identifiable locations, instead I shared craft projects, nice cakes, pretty views and so on. 

Now that more and more people have joined Instagram I have quite a few people that I know in real life following me, especially since it became more integrated with Facebook. This makes me feel a bit more self-conscious about what I'm posting, and although I follow back people that I know I don't actively seek them out. 

A few years ago I had a big cull and unfollowed a lot of accounts which worked really well and I had a beautifully curated feed. But lately I find the photographs less inspiring, it's more about the selfies and making life look perfect rather than the pretty little snippets of everyday life that I like to see. I also lament the loss of the original square photo format, and sometimes every other post seems to be an advert. 

Photo credit Souvik Banerjee via Unsplash

When the reels came along that was the beginning of the end for me. 

I really hate reels, along with other short form video content like YouTube shorts and TikTok. I like to scroll in silence so sudden loud music alarms me, and they are also very addictive - once the algorithm has got your measure it doesn't let you go. It's not a posting format that comes naturally to me, and I just can't compete with the creativity on offer. I also discovered that mindlessly watching one video led to a whole feed of similar videos, in my case it was gender reveals which I just couldn't get rid of!

I still pop into Instagram from time to time but I'm not sure I'll ever be a regular user again, it has just changed too much from what I want it to be!

Why I'm still writing my blog

I started writing this blog nearly twelve years ago. Mia was a tiny baby, Harry was a toddler, and my original intention was to use my blog to share photos and updates with friends and family. It wasn't long before I discovered the world of parent blogging and I began to write for a wider audience. As well as blogging about my family I started to share my craft projects and to write about places that we had visited and products that we used.

Since those early days I've been writing the blog pretty consistently. I slowed down a bit during the pandemic, when like most people I was feeling so overwhelmed with daily life that I couldn't concentrate on the blog at all. But overall I've been a regular blogger, and I usually publish at least three or four posts every week. 

Photo credit Lauren Mancke via Unsplash

I'm pretty chuffed that I've managed to keep up the blogging habit for so long! There are a few reasons why I've kept it going:

My blog is a real creative outlet for me. I love to write and I love to share my thoughts and tips. It keeps my mind busy as I plan and write posts, and if I'm writing about a topic that I've been thinking about it helps my brain to get everything written down and ordered. I'm always planning new posts and I love sitting down for a writing session and getting a batch of posts written and scheduled.

It's a small source of income. I'm lucky enough to be able to earn a small amount from my blog, from both advertising and collaborative posts with brands. I try not to publish too many sponsored posts, and I'm picky about the ones that I do, but it's always nice to be able to contribute a small amount to the family finances. I've also received lots of useful products to review over the years, as well as tickets to attractions that we wouldn't otherwise have enjoyed. 

It has provided me with some online company. I've never been particularly good at promoting my blog on social media, but it did introduce me to Twitter and Instagram, and although I'm not very active I have found some lovely people to follow which can really brighten up my day. There are some bloggers that I've been following since the early days, and I enjoy reading their updates and seeing them and their families grow and change.

I don't worry too much about having a big audience. In the early days I wanted as many readers as possible, mainly to help me secure the best review opportunities. But these days I'm much more relaxed and I'm writing more for myself than an audience. I know that I have readers, and some of my posts do well with the Google search algorithm, so that's enough for me. I'm not getting myself stressed over constantly logging my stats and worrying about how I can improve them.

I'm glad that I've recorded so many of our family memories. I'm so glad that I have so many blog posts about our young family to look back on - even review posts have photographs and details which I want to remember. So I want to keep posting, even though recently I'm a bit more wary about the information I share about my growing children.

Writing a blog post every day in January

At the end of December, like most people, I made a list of a few habits that I wanted to work on for the New Year. You can read more about them in my book review of Atomic Habits. One of the things that I wanted to do in January was to write a blog post every day. Not to publish, just to write one and schedule it to publish at a later date.

I really did find it a challenge as some of my posts can take quite a bit of time to put together, but I managed it! And it was so successful that I'm planning on continuing for February. I love being able to plan my content properly rather than scrambling to post something, anything, at the last minute. It also gives me the flexibility to add in any collaborative or review posts when I have plenty of my own content ready to keep things balanced.

Photo credit Mel Poole

I did spend a bit of time in advance getting myself organised. Before Christmas I had already planned my editorial calendar for January, and although I hadn't yet written any posts I had a clear idea of what I wanted to write about. I went through my lists of blog post ideas and I was able to come up with a complete list of 31 posts to write. Then I planned roughly which ones I would be writing each week, sorting out which ones would be straightforward and which would need more work in terms of crafting and photographs. 

Because Christmas was still fresh in my mind I wrote a few Christmas themed posts which are now scheduled for this December. I also made a start on some Easter content and there are some general posts which aren't time specific. I now have a great deal of my February content written and some posts scheduled for March. 

Despite all the planning I kept it flexible, so I was able to move things around and add in any posts that I felt like writing on the day - for example writing about Mia's adopted gibbon and Harry's birthday. I also made a start on some longer posts in advance with photos, notes and any affiliate links ready in a draft post that just needed to be written up and checked over on the day. 

I'm really pleased with everything that I got done this month. I feel very organised and able to concentrate on some of my other projects, which in turn provides me with lots more things that I want to blog about!