Before starting a new week, be sure to check out the features that made a splash on Hot Off the Press last week:
- We took a closeup of three thriving writing communities on WordPress.com, and chatted with author and blogger Jerry Mahoney (aka Mommy Man) about his new book.
- If you’d like to use your site stats to better engage with your audience, you’ll want to try out these tips.
- Easy navigation is crucial — so exploring different custom menus is always a good idea.
- We showcased sites using minimalist beauty Tonal, and welcomed two new themes to our collection, Sidespied and Chronicle.
Pro tip of the week: Do you enjoy linking to posts, videos, and other content from around the web, but worry your readers will never return to your site? When you create a new link in one of your posts, don’t forget to check the “Open link in a new window/tab” box.
Coming up this week:
- Stay tuned for our announcement of a new Blogging U. Writing challenge,
- A collection of blogs you’ll want to follow this summer,
- A look at sites using this year’s default theme, Twenty Fourteen, to great effect,
- And more…
WordPress.com News 
I’ve got to ask. You tell people to open links in a new tab. Which I also recommend.
So why didn’t you?
The point of the tip is to let people know they can have links open in new tabs — they certainly don’t have to! Different blogs and sites have different needs and goals, after all.
Can we please see an article on people using the Origin theme one day? It’s such a great theme and I would love to see it showcased, to see the things that different types (or fields) of bloggers are doing with it! Love your work WordPress. 🙂
Thanks for the suggestion! We’ll definitely add Origin to our list of future features candidates.
Where and when can we sign up for the Blogging U writing course?
Right on The Daily Post! Here you go: https://wordpress.com/dailypost/2014/05/16/writing-101-registration/
Thanks, and hello again. Wow what a terrific response!
Great tips for this Memorial Day!
Looking forward to summer blog rec’s next week.
Worth the price of reading–open in new box! Why I didn’t I think of that years ago? Any other good tips like that I should be paying attention to? Thanks. 🙂
As a committed and passionate member of Friday Fictioneers, and regular participant in Tipsy Lit’s Prompted, thank you again for featuring these two dynamic sites. I have not missed a FF since September (this week mine is in honor of Maya Angelou, a woman who inspired me for most of my life) and it was so wonderful to see Rochelle Wisoff-Fields and our group, get some recognition for all the wonderful writing that’s done there!
I’ll be looking forward to more recommendations next week! Thanks, Ben.
All the posts are wonderful Thank you