I am losing followers because they don't want to create a wordpress account
-
Why do people have to set up a wordpress account to follow my blog? It’s annoying because my blog is new and I have had people tell me they don’t want to set up an account so they don’t follow me and tell me that they rarely have to do that when they click on other sites. Doesn’t the widget allow people to just put in their email and follow? Or is there another widget? Please help. My blog is http://www.royalicingdiaries.wordpress.com
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
-
Why do people have to set up a wordpress account to follow my blog?
They don’t. You can put a follow by email widget on your blog and/or an RSS links widget so they can subscribe to your blog in an RSS reader.
-
Why do people have to set up a wordpress account to follow my blog?
Because you have not put the RSS widget and the Subscribe by Email widget in the sidebar, allowing them to subscribe OTHER than through the WordPress.com reader.
The FOLLOW button is what wants people to sign in. If you provide the other two options, they can choose whatever works for them.
-
I would never visit your site a second time – it loads like a pig and burns band width – 500k for a picture of a mixer – takes way too long to load – you need to speed up the load time or people won’t come back – – fix pictures for the web & use the More Tag
-
FWIW-I visited the OP’s site when I was logged out and the Follow button was evident in the bottom right corner of the browser window, so people are able to enter their email address to sign up for the site. They don’t have to be logged into WordPress.com http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/reading-settings/#follower-settings
@colmcb – Is the problem that they are not able to sign up for email notifications of new posts or that they are not able to leave comments?
-
Hi –
raincoaster: Thank you so much for letting me know that. I am new to this. I have the “follow blog” widget but didn’t realize that I needed the RSS widget. Now I understand.
justjennifer: From what I understand, when they enter their email address in the “follow blog” box it brings them to a box where they have to sign up for a WordPress account to follow the blog. I didn’t realize that.
auxclass: I am new to this whole blogging world and assume you aren’t from the very nice answer you gave. I was just asking a question on a forum. I thought that’s what the forum was for. There is a huge difference between constructive feedback and simply rude answers. Rather than your answer you could have chosen to just let me know what you found wrong, in a decent human way, decent being the key word. Not all of us are blogging scholars as you must be. I admit to being a newbie and am looking to get better. If you would have just told me what I could do, and how to do it, in a way that will help me perhaps learn and make my site easier to load, etc. I would definitely have taken that to heart. I have no place in my life for meanness. Sorry. -
Couldn’t agree more, colmcb. Auxclass’ comment is the first time I’ve seen such a rude comment on this forum and I really hope it’s the last. As a still-learning newbie myself, welcome to the world of WordPress – I’ve found most people to be really friendly and helpful. :)
-
@colmcb
This is the result of the test of page loading time for your site:Your website is slower than 77% of all tested websites. From http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/ea3q1N/http://royalicingdiaries.wordpress.com/
1. Use front page excerpts and/or limit the number of posts on front page
Your blog’s load time will increase in accord with the number of posts you display on your main page. To reduce blog loading time insert the “the more tag” tag in your posts and display only excerpts there, and/or reduce the number of posts on your front page here > Settings > Reading2. Reduce the size of images, the number of images, the number of media embeds and the number of widgets running script
Your blog’s load time will increase in accord with the number of images, videos, other media embeds and the number of widgets running script you have on your blog. Images, flash and sometimes even sound files can draw visitors but do you really need all that you have now? Do you really need to post all those images of common cooking ingredients and implements? Decrease the number and the size of your images or use thumbnails that link to the full-size image. -
justjennifer: From what I understand, when they enter their email address in the “follow blog” box it brings them to a box where they have to sign up for a WordPress account to follow the blog. I didn’t realize that.
@colmcb-Here’s the message I received after I signed up to Follow your site while being logged out of WordPress.com:
Hi there
You recently signed up to follow Royal Icing Diaries’ posts. This means once you confirm below, you will receive each new post by email.
To activate, click Confirm Follow. If you believe this is an error, ignore this message and nothing more will happen.
After clicking the link, I was taken to a page that confirmed my subscription and also allowed me to set the frequency of mail delivery.
So, apparently no need to sign up for a WordPress.com account at all. Perhaps you should ask those that said they had to sign up what notification they exactly received.
As far as auxclass, his answer may have been gruff (!), but as timethief’s explanation showed it was spot on.
-
Thank you so much for all of the information timethief. There are so many things I am trying to learn that it gets overwhelming. I had no idea that you could even check how fast your site loads. And about changing the front page to excerpts, I am so glad you let me know that. I will do that now.
A question for you regarding the image size – how do I resize the image itself? Do I do that in the blog or delete the image, resize it and then put it back on? I am learning photography so that too is something I am open to any feedback on. I did just learn about changing the file format and resolution size on the camera itself so all of the photos I’ve been taking this week are much smaller. But the ones that I have already posted, can those be changed? Sorry for being so green on all of this.
Justjennifer – I’m really confused now with that. I will definitely ask exactly what comes up the next time someone tells me they are being asked to create a wordpress account. It’s so strange and I really appreciate you checking that out. Very nice of you.
Please understand, and this is for auxclass as well – I am not angry at the response to my question. As a matter of fact it was an eye opener for me as I know there is so much to learn as I get my blog started. I would just prefer some constructive criticism that will help me as opposed to someone telling me how bad my site is in, what I consider a not-so-friendly manner. Maybe it’s just me. I got my feelings hurt but I guess I need to be told. I’m over it now and moving on. I want to learn as much as I can.
-
@TT has the good links – I just look at the bandwidth into my PC – and your site ran my connection wide open for some time.
I am very vicious with my load times – only 8 Posts I think on the front page – one picture and some text and then the More Tag (the site linked to my name)
Your quickest fix is to use the More Tag I linked to above — very easy to add and that will give you the quickest and biggest bang for your time.
There are many programs that will edit and compress pictures – I use Gimp but it is not for everyone.
If you go to @timethiefs site she should have a Post on how to size your pictures better for faster loading
But – if your site were mine – I would put the More Tag in then take a few deep breaths and do some research on sizing pictures – your friends and visitors will love you – and you will get more subscribers probably – I don’t subscribe to sites that are slow to load – just one of my rules
-
auxclass – thank you for the information. I will put the more tags into each post. I had no idea that was even an option until timethief mentioned it so I will do it today.
As for the picture size, the only program I have used as I am just learning photography and editing, is Picassa. I’m not good at it but I’m learning it a little at a time. I will definitely look into resizing photos in there, and will look at timethief’s site.
Is there a “good” size that photos should be on a blog? When I insert the photo, maybe I should be doing so at “medium” size? I think I’ve been clicking “large”. Not sure now if I should be.
I want to make my site as good as I can and I know it’s a steep learning curve so any advice is more than welcome. I’m sorry we got off to a bad start.
-
Have a look at the menu options given when you look at your photos on your computer. I just use the resizer that is available on the top menu bar when I look at them through Windows.
Remember, the bigger the photo you use the faster you will use up your available blog space. -
Thanks metan1. I have been in Picasa playing around with it to try and figure it out. I definitely see now that my photos are big. I have learned so much in one day my head is spinning!
-
Specifiying an image size when you insert a picture into a post or page does not change how large the file size is (and how long it takes to load because it will still be a big big file in your image library).
Picasasa should be able to compress the file so it will load efficiently, quickly, and satisfactorily. You need to “optimize” those files.
-
I’m thinking that if someone’s email has been used to register a WP.com account at some time, they WILL be prompted to sign in when they click Follow. But not otherwise.
-
Interestingly enough, rain, while logged out I signed up with an email associated with a WordPress.com account (not this one) and got exactly the same procedure as I described above. So apparently, it doesn’t matter whether it’s an email associated with an account or not. Logged out you’ll see the Follow button in the footer (if the site owner enabled it); logged in you’ll see it in the Admin bar.
Just to go a bit further, I logged in after confirming my subscription and indeed the blog appears in “Blogs I Follow” in my Reader.
-
1tess – I did go into Picasa and found that, when exporting the photo to a folder I can indeed resize it. It only gives one scale on there so I assume that if I slide the scale down to resize it, the other dimensions automatically recalculate themselves.
Still not sure if there is an optimum size for a photo on a blog. I googled it last night but got so many varied opinions. I see that a few say “500” but I don’t know if that’s right. And with the Picasa resizing, I don’t even know if that scale is for the length or width, or if that even matters. I searched through everything I could find on Picasa help and don’t see anything more on it.
Any opinions on a good size for the photos?
-
I haven’t used Picasa, but it looks like it is doing what it’s supposed to do. Looking at the sugar cookies in your latest post the file is about 156KB so it will load much faster than some of your older images (one I looked at is 300KB).
The file size is not directly related to the dimensions of the picture, which for your theme looks like it’s 615 px wide maximum. Compressed files can be quite small and still display well online. I use Photoshop to compress the files to under 100KB, and more usually to under 50KB. Quick loading, and saves storage space in the media library.
-
- The topic ‘I am losing followers because they don't want to create a wordpress account’ is closed to new replies.
WordPress.com Forums 