Blog Update: A Pilgrim’s Progress

As the reader may know, I have moved my 15-year-old blog from the Nucleus platform (no longer supported) to the WordPress platform which, I am told hosts 40% of the world’s blogs.

My progress has been akin to traversing a squelching bog at midnight. . It’s been trial and error (or sink or swim) as I try to post my thoughts with vague hopes that a few readers will find the blog and be interested enough to read it.

To get out of this “slough of despond” – which characterizes much of the blogosphere – I have turned to an unlikely ally: AI robots.

While WP professes it is easy to use, for me it’s been a struggle. After 15 years of a very basic posting process I find myself now trying to make sense of plug ins, SEOs and themes.

What are plugins? There are hundreds of them, all purporting to help you reach an audience, to help you create a “sizzling”  presence, to advance you in search results for your topic and so on. All have a free and a premium (paid) version. So far, I have stayed with the freebies, but they are limited. Whenever I hit what appears to be a wall, up pops a link to the premium paid plug-in!

I am learning.

Or rather, I am learning how to ask an AI robot for help. I limit my question to one task. For example, “How can I resize the postage stamp images in my WP blog?” I asked DeepSeek. While giving me a lengthy list of steps to take, I discovered in the first two or three recommendations the “secret”.

How can I make the blog’s font larger for easier reading? DeepSeek rolled out several options; the first or second got me to a larger font. It is now at 20 and the blog’s readability is greatly improved.

A major challenge remains.

How, in this blogosphere blizzard – where “never have so many written so much to be read by so few, for free” – does one snowflake get noticed?

SEO is the way. That’s Search Engine Optimization and I have yet to break the code on making this work to my benefit. A few days ago, Google sent me an upbeat note: “Congratulations on reaching 5 clicks in 28 days!”

My Nucleus blog clicks numbered well over a half-million in its 15-year run, so I have a ways to go.

Keep on truckin’, they used to say and that’s pretty much what I am doing.

I have scheduled an appointment with a blog designer in August, so after that visit I may get closer to where I want to be.

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And for my book of fables (cover above) tied to leadership and the workplace, a 25% discount to celebrate the blog’s move to a new platform: Link HERE to BUY

And, my book (cover above) on democratic workplaces and what leaders can do with limited resources and unlimited imagination, Leading from the Middle, is available at Amazon.</a>

N.B. For other essays on numerous other topics go to my Nucleus archive from 2010-early 2025.

© Copyright John Lubans 2025