I think my internal clock must be off by just about three whole months. That's the only explanation I can think of for this sudden overwhelming desire for Spring cleaning.
I've been clearing the clutter, fluffing cushions and rearranging the furniture on both my website and, to a lessor extent, my blog for over a week now.
The website is looking pretty spiffy, if I do say so myself. I would have loved to just leave it at that, but you know how one thing always leads to another...and pretty soon you're thinking, well, if I'm going to tweak this thingy over here, then I guess I better finally fix that thingy over there...etc., etc.
So here are some new thingies about the blog:
Before: Old name = "The Inspired Market-her's Blog"
New & improved!: New name = "Coaching Biz Tips"
Before: Two options for keeping up with the blog--RSS feed or a daily email update.
New & (soon to be) improved: Three options--RSS feed, daily email updates OR a weekly blogzine via email (still working on this, and will announce as soon as it's ready).
Before: Pretty standard blog site.
New & improved: PAGES, just like on a traditional Web site (see the links under "Learn More" in the sidebar).
I was delighted to find that the domain, www.coachingbiztips.com was available, too. I'm in the process of getting the domain mapping set up so that I'll be able to use that as the blog URL instead of the ungainly current URL (http://spiritspring.typepad.com/inspiredmarketherblog/).
A weekly blogzine is something I've been wanting to do for a loooong time. I finally figured out how to pull the RSS feed from my blog into a traditional e-newsletter HTML template so I don't have to re-type/cut and paste anything (thanks to FeedBurner's BuzzBoost option). I'm finishing up the HTML template for my new blogzine and then will be doing some final testing next week; once the bugs are fixed, I'll let you know.
And I feel like I want to rave on FeedBurner for a minute. They just keep getting better and better! I admit, I was a bit overwhelmed by all the gadgets and gizmos the first time I logged in, but the more I use them, the more impressed I am. They've got some really terrific tools for optimizing and publicizing a blog, and the stats section is great. In fact, I discovered quite by accident that the FeedBurner Stats Pro package is actually free for the time being--if you haven't already signed up for that, be sure to get it (after logging in, go to the Analyze tab to find out more info). And did I mention that FeedBurner is FREE?! How great is that?!?
Well, it's back to the Spring cleaning for this girl...
