I’m a map-lover. I like to know where I am and where I am going. That’s why I’m conducting this little tour around my blog today. It’s all about navigation — what’s here and how to get to it. If you’re curious, come along!

(Earlier this year, my husband and I took a trip to Italy to mark 30 years of marriage. I decided to use some photos from that trip in today’s post. After all, we DID take a lot of tours!)

All right. Is everybody here? First stop: the header menu.

 The Header Menu

Across the top of the page is a green bar that has links with lots of useful information. I’ll describe each one:

HOME will always take you back to the most recent post, which will be followed by the next most recent post, etc., in one long scroll. HOME is the place you can return to if you get lost.

ABOUT provides background about me and my business, The Green Sheep. That’s self-explanatory, right? But check it out — you may learn something new!

CUSTOM ORDER lets you know what to do to order a special blanket of your own or for a gift. A custom-made keepsake blanket makes a great one-of-a-kind gift for a special occasion…or for no occasion at all!

PRICES tells how to find the price of an item that’s available for sale. (As I build my current inventory of blankets available to buy, I also plan to open a shop on etsy.com to make sales transactions simpler.)

LEGACY BLANKETS — This new grouping showcases custom-ordered blankets that specially remember a loved one. This button in the menu bar takes you to a page describing what these blankets are. (For a list of these blankets, see “Legacy Blanket Collection” under “Blankets” via THE GOODS button.)

CONTACT — This page has a new form for contacting me directly. Yea! It’s easier than ever before.

TESTIMONIALS — I appreciate feedback on my business, and customers like to comment. I thought you might be interested too. In fact, if you are an owner or buyer of anything from The Green Sheep and have a testimonial sort of comment of your own, please contact me (see “Contact” section immediately above).

THE GOODS is an index to all Green Sheep items that have ever been posted on this blog. Categories will drop down as you hover over them with your cursor. For instance, you can find children’s blankets I’ve made by going under “Blankets” and then “Blankets for Children.”

We’re halfway there! I know for a fact some of you don’t spend a lot of time online. So: is this making sense of things?

 

Next up: The Sidebar

Over in the right sidebar are a few more helpful tools I’d like to show you…

SEARCH MY BLOG: Type in anything you want to look for on the blog. You know, like the birthday coat I wore everywhere last winter :).

FIND THINGS HERE: Just like “The Goods” above, this index contains lists of categories on the blog. This one, however, lists every single post while “The Goods” lists only the items I’ve designed, blankets and all. They overlap some and are both helpful indexes. You would, for example, find this current post listed in the sidebar under “Miscellaneous.”

FOLLOW BLOG VIA EMAIL: Sign up here to receive an email notification from WordPress every time I post something new. This is in case you don’t want to miss out on anything.

GALLERY: Photos of Green Sheep art! If you click on an image, it will expand to a larger size against a beautiful black background. You can scroll through all the images from there. It’s pretty fun; I hope you give it a whirl.

ARCHIVES: This gives you access to the blog’s posts by date — all the way back to its inception in 2010.

Almost finished! Now on to the conclusion of our tour:

Comments (and other bottom-of-the-page things)

O.K. This is going to get “techy” for a moment. I’d like to point out something about how most blogs work. When a viewer clicks on the title of the blog (like “The Green Sheep” in black type at the very top of this page), the programming behind the blog brings up a l-o-n-g scroll of consecutive posts, one right after the other, in reverse chronological order.

But! When a viewer clicks on the title of a post (like “Keeping up appearances, Part 2” at the top of this page in red), the programming instead brings up that one single post. That’s it. No scroll directly onto other posts. With this option, the comments and the so-called sharing buttons appear for use at the end of the post.

All this to say: Let loose and join in! Leave a comment! Share the post with other people who might enjoy it! Click a button or add your two cents. The fun is in being together.

Well, that’s it. That’s the little tour. I hope you’ve done some exploring and have found it helpful. I’ve enjoyed introducing you to new features I’ve been working on. Also — I truly do appreciate feedback. Let me know if there’s something else that would make navigation more convenient. I’ll do my best to figure out how to get there!

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Interested in Part 1? Check it out here: “Keeping up appearances, Part 1.”