The Evolution of Red!'s Name

In life, things change over time.  They grow, they mature, and they evolve.  This blog has been no different.  Over the years since I first began writing here, the tone and nature of my posts have changed.  The site has grown to accommodate more and newer features.  The site "grew up" and adopted a domain name of its very own.  The site has grown and changed in conjunction with the growth and changes that have taken place in my own life.

Something I have learned while developing this blog has been how to use my blog's statistics to help direct posts and features toward my audience, to help raise my visibility in search engines, and to help attract new visitors to my site.  While looking over the search terms which have brought people to my site within the past 30 days, I noticed that some people are still searching for my blog using various incarnations of past names from this site.

I've decided to use this post to share a brief history of the evolution of Red!'s name and page banner, like a quick stroll down memory lane.

The first post was published here in November of 2008.  At the time, I hadn't done anything to personalize or customize the look and feel of the blog's pages.  Back then, the title would have been whatever Blogger's software had used as a default.  My first attempt at a custom title/header came along with the May 2009 post:

Sure, it wasn't anything spectacular, but it was a good first start—something other than the bland blue & white default settings.  I had a silly notion that this font was "edgy."  What was I thinking?

In March of 2010, I began blogging a bit more seriously and on a more regular basis.  This meant that I was getting a tiny bit of regular blog traffic as well, and with that traffic came criticisms from visitors.  Some were not so nice, and others were filled with valuable feedback.  Among that feedback was that I needed to work on the visual appeal of my blog, so I set about personalizing and customizing things to better reflect the image I wanted to portray to the world.  That brought about a new title header:

PcolaRedHead is a screen name / user name I have used on pretty much every website I have joined or registered for since my senior year in high school.  On most any site where you find a "PcolaRedHead," you have found me—except for a few dating sites, I'm told, where a woman now in her 50s has begun using the name.

In October of 2010, I began to notice that many of the other blogs I enjoyed reading had more descriptive titles than mine....titles like "Outta My Way: Stories of the Road Through the Eyes of a Trucker" or "Passing Time: The Everyday Life of a Suburban Housewife" (these are just examples).  I liked the way those titles sounded, and was inspired to change my own blog title.  With the title change, my blog became "Red! The Life & Times of Pensacola's Premier Redhead."

"Pensacola's Premier Redhead" was a nickname that had been bestowed upon me by several of the FABULOUS guy-friends in my life at the time.

In January of 2011, I purchased my own domain name to use for the site.  I went from being http://pcolaredhead.blogspot.com to a much more simple www.PcolaRedHead.com.  The older address, though, would automatically forward to the new one to ensure that links previously posted anywhere on the internet would still work properly.

By March of 2011, I was starting to warm up to the idea of having friends or others write Guest Posts on my blog.  I also realized that my life as a single mom had finally changed my life to the point that I was probably no longer Pensacola's "Premier" anything, so the title and header evolved again, this time becoming "Red! The Life & Times of a Southern Woman."

This name,  "Red! The Life & Times of a Southern Woman," would last through the next header update as well, which took place on August 11, 2011 to update to a slightly more contemporary-looking font and to shorten the vertical space occupied by the header and allow more of the blog to show upon initially loading the pages.

Around the time of this change, my blog finally reached a volume sufficient to be bringing in more and more new site visitors.  I was so excited to see my blog becoming more popular among my fiends via the Fan Page I had established as well as among complete strangers from around the world who were finding my site through a number of search engines and blog registry sites.

At this point, however, the very long name was starting to become a problem.  I was posting links to my posts on Facebook and other places with some frequency, and my posts were also being shared by others.  However, the name was often too long for link-posting systems that limit the number of characters displayed on the link.  I've learned that, when posting links, less is often more.  Shortly after reaching 10,000 lifetime page views, I decided it was time to change for the sake of simplicity.

As of Valentine's Day 2012, the blog is now simply "Red!"

In place of the old descriptor, there is now the phrase "It's not just a hair color; it's a state of mind....a way if life."  This is a phrase I have come to love, as it reflects how much I feel that my red hair is an integral part of my identity.  This little saying, however, does not accompany the title.  It simply stands alone in the header, adding my happiness with the banner.

Well, there you have it: the entire history of Red!'s names and headers.  Through all the changes and updates, though, this blog is still me, through and through.  Thanks to everyone who stops by here, whether you are a regular reader or have just stumbled through this one time.