Crescent Moon and Stars Relaunch
Buy me some flowers and take me to dinner, Crescent Moon and Stars is a month old! In celebration, there has been a major facelift and a relaunch!
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has supported me in my endeavors of getting Crescent Moon and Stars from an idea to launching May 10th (1 day after getting back from vacation… hindsight man… haha) and tweaking things. I would particular like to thank Raewyn at Be A Warrior Queen, Allie at Allie Williams Co., to everyone who participated in Alle’s The Daily Ten challenge (BIG shoutout to the_a_team), Emilie at Burke Does and Wendy at The Gratefulist. They have put up with my questions, mock ups, complete change arounds, venting, almost giving up, resparking the dream and keeping me motivated to keep going. I would like to see Crescent Moon and Stars going up and beyond and out of this world (no puns intended) to places I haven’t even truly imagined reaching yet. Thanks to them, they help me keep that dream alive.
So, in the month that I’ve been in the blogging world and community, just some tips, especially for those who have just started out like me:
Do thorough research — I thought I did, but I could have done more. You need domain AND hosting AND a blogging provider AND a theme/design – this costs more money then you think it might. Luckily I had good recommendations and support so I ended up going with A Small Orange for my host, so domain $15 + $10/mo hosting + $13 WordPress domain mapping JUST to start out with!
Take classes, join webinars and masterclasses, sign up for freebies, resource libraries, special stuff as much as you can. Sure all the information out there can get overwhelming, but you never know what’s going to spark your interest or what could be helpful to you now (or even later). Sometimes it’s a checklist or infographic that becomes extremely helpful. If you find that the content is no longer relevant to you, you can always unsubscribe. I’ve had some bloggers that I started to follow and realize that it wasn’t just for me after awhile. Most bloggers (and I can tell you I’ll be the same way) will be sad to see you go, but if the content isn’t relevant for you anymore, they don’t want you to feel like you’re “forced” to see it. People change. Life situations change. It’s ok to grow and go forward, looking upwards.
On a side note, try not to always just sign up for a freebie and then unsubscribe there after. Read the content, read some of the other stuff. It kinda hurts when you offer something, someone takes it and then it leaves you right after. Kinda like being stood up at dinner… Nobody likes that feeling.
Start off with the free accounts until you get going – if money is tight and it will be at first, start of easy and upgrade to the next tier or plan when you get there. Currently, I don’t have any subscribers (I’m only a month into this, so not upset about this), so why would I pay $39.99 for email subscription plan when I get up to 2,000 subscribers for free right now?
Remember… Things. Will. Change. Alot.
If I was to have logged how many revisions I’ve made, themes downloaded and uninstalled, colors… it would drive someone crazy. My biggest issue was when I went from wordpress.com to wordpress.org (BIG difference), my inital theme DID NOT LOOK THE SAME AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!! **enter panic mode**
So here are some of the pics from my 1st blog design while under wordpress.com :
For some reason, I can’t find the 2nd set of design when I went over to wordpress.org but it was pretty much the same color scheme.
So, what I thought was cool funky memorable serene inducing blue (see here), apparently to about 80% of my readers were turned off by it one way or another. NOT A SINGLE PERSON AGREED WITH THE VISION I WAS LOOKING FOR (aka cool funky memorable serene inducing. I had a few close family members like it, but that was it. So out of 200 view, only 3 were like I’m down with this!) I’m on a few different blogging Facebook groups and since I saw my stats sucking (I was barely getting 2-5 visits a day), I figured I’d ask for feedback. Politely of course, feedback I got. I was hearing “hard to read” “colors turned me off” “looks unprofessional” “the blue gold and aqua is not working” “clicked on and clicked back off” “If I wasn’t here to view to give you feedback you asked for, I would have gone somewhere else.”
Ouch.
I’m not gonna lie, I might have shed a tear or two and moped around the apartment for most of the rest of the day. While not a single person was mean or hateful or wishing me failure, it still hurt to hear. I thought the design was good. Got compliments on my content, so there’s the saving grace and probably the only reason that I didn’t just scratch it all and cancel all the subscriptions that I could and just chalked it up.
BUT
I wasn’t expecting immediate success, everyone had been nice about their criticism, I’ve already put in enough time and effort and have all these ideas and getting the idea notebook filled up, but honestly above all, it was because I loved the community that had welcomed me in and supported me. Also, this blog is for me as much as it is for my readers. We all need positivity in our lives and its always easier to give the advice than to hear and take it right? I need to be positive and positive forward thinking, so my goal is to help myself as well as help others. Let’s all take the positive train together. Trains aren’t Ferrari’s, they don’t go 0 to 80 in 3 seconds.
Let's all take the positive train together. Trains aren't Ferrari's, they don't go 0 to 80 in 3 seconds. Share on X
So, reached out again to my blogging communities for feedback and support and digital hugs.
One particular person reached back to me in a big way and with emails, Slack messages, Tweets and more, Allie over at Allie Williams Co. patiently guided me through want I really wanted for Crescent Moon and Stars and created the design that you see now on Crescent Moon and Stars. After the initial preview Allie showed me:
Oh.
My.
God!!!!!!!
I was squealing, I was happy dancing (think Snoopy dance), I was ecstatic! It is beautiful, it is fun and funky while still maintaining the darker, serene, relaxed feel. I have a true logo now and it comes with a fun script with colors and stars! YEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!!! This design embodies what I’ve been looking for with Crescent Moon and Stars. I didn’t want all this white space (EVERYBODY has a white blog) and while marketing and blogging studies show that white blogs do better (than compared to my blue colored one), Allie did a fantastic job balancing my need for a not-so white blog (like I was cringing before about having to convert to a white space blog when I got all the feedback) and making it readable and more presentable.
So without further ado, I would like to re-welcome you to Crescent Moon and Stars. I hope for those who saw the initial blog and were like “NO” that you’ll give it a 2nd chance. If you haven’t been here before, then welcome!
As always, I am reachable any time. I’d love to hear from you about your life journey.
http://www.tumblr.com/blog/cresmoonstars
Let’s shine bright together
<3 Jenn
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