Spring Cleaning: Getting Rid of Excess Categories on the Blog

It’s spring break, and that means…. spring cleaning!

I’ve been meaning to do some housekeeping around here for a while now, and now that I’ve gotten around to starting I realize it was long overdue. I redesigned the theme, adjusted the ads, and fixed a few things earlier this year, but I’ve come to realize that I wrote a lot, and it’s kind of disorganized.

In particular, the category structure of this blog has grown increasingly unwieldy over the past year and a half. I started this blog in the summer of 2010 with a few categories in mind, and I think it had recently grown to as many as two dozen categories. Yikes!

Pruned Category Structure

I went through today and pruned most of the excess categories, moving posts into a more appropriate large category. I’m not entirely done, but I will be soon. The goal is to have ten categories. Most of these have been renamed, in keeping with the site’s theme, as some kind of “How To.”

Eight “How To” Categories:

• How to Choose a Good Camera. Advice on buying digital cameras and equipment, as well as straight up gear reviews.
• How to Learn About Your Camera. Other resources for learning about photography and related subjects.
• How to Light Your Photos. Guides to lighting photos, examples of lighting in photos, and general thoughts on lighting.
• How to Make an Awesome Yearbook. All things related to yearbook publishing.
• How to Process Your Images. Post processing tutorials, examples, and tips.
• How to Run a Photography Business. Thoughts on transitioning from photography-as-hobby to photography-as-business.
• How to Use Your Camera. Tips and tricks for how to use your camera, along with definitions of photography terms and explanations of key ideas.
• How to Use Your Photos. Suggestions for utilizing and sharing your photos, including examples of print products and designs.

Some of these categories are fairly well saturated, and may not see a whole lot of new additions. I’d expect the most growth in the next six months to be in “How to Make an Awesome Yearbook,” “How to Choose a Good Camera,” and “How to Use Your Photos.” I also wanted to add some content the “How to Learn About Your Camera,” including some write-ups on photography schools. But I’m not sure how likely that is.

In addition, there are two other categories that will remain: Examples of Photography and Random Thoughts. Examples of Photography is just what it sounds like – pictures from Flickr, gigs from my photography studio, or other pictures that I like and want to share. Random Thoughts is simply a catch-all category for anything else…

To Do List

For the rest of the week, I have a few goals that I’d like to pursue.

Make a few guest posts. I’ve always thought about doing this, but never got around to it. I think it’ll help balance out the site’s link profile for SEO purposes and bring in some new visitors.

Start an email list. RSS subscriptions are nice, but I’ve always intended to gather e-mails for a newsletter. I want to put that in place while I have time to work on the design of the lead generating form.

Revamp the “About” and “Contact.” I want to create some social properties (Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus) to connect to the site, add some more detailed information about me on the site, and fix up the contact section.

Offer guest post opportunities. Not only do I want to make a few guest posts, but I plan on writing up a page requesting guest posts. I’d be interested in getting a few extra posts per month from other authors, and I’d be more than happy to trade a few links for the privilege.

Get a head start writing. I want to add a lot of content to the Yearbook section, and I have a few posts in mind for the Choosing a Camera section. I want to get ahead start this week and write up a bunch of posts, so that the rest of April can be published kind of on autopilot. I’m about to get real busy at work making my own yearbook, so I won’t have a lot of free time until mid-May.

CommentLuv? Not really a to-do, but a decision to make. I’ve been reading about and commenting on CommentLuv enabled blogs this weekend, and I’m considering adding it to this blog. I’m not sure if I want the headache of moderating the extra comment volume, though. I might try it out for a week and see how it goes.