I will be thinking of concrete ideas for expansion, but until then…I just have to tell you that every time I read your new (and old) posts, you put a huge smile on my face. You exude positivity and light, and I want you to know how great that makes me feel, and how it inspires me to do the same.

Well, for one small thing, I’m already always pimping you out on my LJ, haha, but what would be really neat would be like some official Bonzai profile badges. I’d love to have a Bonzai button that links back to the site on all my blogs and sites and stuff. I’m a huge huge fan of word-of-mouth advertising and I think it’d be great to encourage more people to get the word out about Bonzai. Really, you’ve inspired myself and many other people in so many ways, thank you so much for offering your time to reach out to people from all over the place online and share your tips, ideas, and optimism. I’ve been reading since almost the beginning of the site and I’m more than amazed with how things have been going here, I’ve learned so much.

What all have you personally had in mind for expansion, though? Maybe a monthly newsletter or something?

I concur with Katie. I truly aspire to be as committed and successful at living the healthy, sustainable, “green” lifestyle you live. I am in awe of your energy and dedication and…you really should have an entire litter of kids to populate this world with good and compassionate Stewards of the Earth and fellow creatures. :o)

Online co-op would be super fun! But other than that, I have no idea. Really, everything is fantastic. :) :) :)

I thought of this after I left my comment. I hope you take this as constructive criticism, it’s just my thoughts on an area to improve! :)

I’ve been a bonzai reader for at least a year now, but even so I still have a hard time finding posts I’m looking for. I think there’s a lot of value in your ‘cleaning’ posts, but I don’t always feel like they’re the easiest to find. For example, it took me a bit to find the laundry detergent post yesterday, and I look up the recipe at least once every few months. Perhaps a way to make your ‘cleaning’ posts more obvious, a way to make ‘baby/munchkin/parenting’ posts more obvious, a way to make ‘recipe’ posts more obvious, etc. Sometimes, when I click on your tag cloud, I don’t get the posts I’m looking for. I think for new folks joining your community it’s a little difficult to find the good ‘old’ stuff.

Just my $.02. I will love Bonzai still if you keep it the same!! :)

I’ve been racking my brain all weekend to try to find ways to help BA expand, but I’m not sure what you have in mind.

~ I do think that merchandise made from organic etc. like t-shirts, shopping bags, mugs, etc wold be nice. You could add a page of links to sites/companies that you and reeader’s have discovered that sell items printed on recycled paper, use organic cloth, etc. etc.
~ Also the idea of a forum on the MMM’s is a great idea, so that as people decide to take them up they ca ask questions & get current feedback.
~ I agree about the organization of the posts could be a bit better.
~ Profiles on the site would be a great way to put a face with a name.
~ Maybe setting up regional sections would be good. We could find out if there were BA readers in our area, we could share business in our area that produce green products, warn of environmentally unfriendly practices in our area. Maybe schedule potlucks or other social networking activities.

Valerie and Sandra’s comments gave me a few more ideas…

Regional would REALLY help. In AZ….you just can’t grow like you can in Portland! I’m sure Portland is different than New York, which is different than Atlanta, which is different than Texas. Not sure how you could incorporate, but it would be very cool!

I LOVE the idea of a seed swap though. LOVE LOVE LOVE! Keep the diversity in our food!!

Also…depending on how ‘into’ you want to get into ‘Baby Bonzai’ – an online, second hand, ‘swaptree.com’ for baby clothes would probably be really cool. That’s another idea I just had.

I just wanted to add a little side note and say, “Don’t change Bonzai TOO much. I love the simple, clean look it has.” :D

There’s just so many blogs I read regularly that have sooo much stuff on their site. Sometimes I don’t even know where the blog is on some sites it’s so cluttered, ya know?

Just sayin’…..*shrug.

I’d love to elaborate! Here was my quest to find the ‘dry’ laundry detergent:

Yes, clicking on the ‘cleaning’ tag does show me the cleaning posts, but I have to scroll down the whole page, see if my recipe is there or not, and then back track with the ‘previous posts’ link. I didn’t know how long I’d have to go, so I looked to the top nav. I was debating between ‘the farm’ and ‘furthermore’ and decided to go for ‘futhermore’ because ‘the farm’ sounded like family, food, gardening, chickens, TP seed starters, etc. When ‘furthermore’ did not yield cleaning, I was like, well, maybe ‘farm’ also means *cleaning* ‘the home’. Once I got there, I saw under ‘home’ the cleaning posts. But also under ‘home’ is ‘homemade tea bags’ and ‘homemade holidays’ – which, to be honest, I do feel falls into a different category than cleaning/buying a townhome. I’m unsure where I feel ‘family cloth’ falls into intuitively :)

I also looked through the other links – didn’t realize that under ‘the food’ there was a giant recipe list! D’oh! But, I see ‘how to grow a mother’ and ‘how to brew kombucha’ under ‘Food and Health’ and I feel those posts should fall under ‘recipes’. I see ‘food and health’ as opinion pieces, Veg*n overviews, Organic food discussions, biodiversity posts, etc.

As for suggestions to improve…I agree with what others have said, I love it that Bonzai is so CLEAN, and not cluttered with junk. However, I personally never use the ‘archive’ links on the page (perhaps move those to ‘furthmore?’) and I would maybe suggest a ‘most popular posts’.

Oh! Isn’t there a feature where you can choose how ‘much’ of a post displays? If I could click ‘cleaning’ and not have to see ALL of one post whenever I’m scrolling through tagged posts, that would help.

I hope that others have equally good or hopefully much better ideas than I do. I really love the site, and my favorite parts are the ways you share to live greener. I love the ‘how-to’s', recipes, cleaning info, monthly missions, your experiences living green (childbirth, raw, cleanse, etc) and your gung-ho attitude. Your blog makes me feel like ‘Well, she did it and lived, I can do it too!’ I hope posts like that keep coming :)

I have been out of the country and internet poor! I’ve missed you!

Like Kate, I tend to have trouble finding things… I really should just bookmark the recipes I use often (deodorant, laundry soap, dish soap, etc) so I don’t have to look each time. I like Kate’s suggestion of having less of each post displaying under the tags so it is quicker to look through a list of them? It can take a while to scroll/click through previous posts to get one of the earlier tagged things. Also, for some reason I can never seem to find things when I use the search function? It could be that I just don’t use useful search terms, and I also don’t know if it is possible to improve the search function. But, for example, I search for “deodorant,” the post actually about deodorant is the LAST result on the first page, because you mention (usefully!) deodorant in subsequent posts. But I don’t know enough to know if that is fixable. :-)

But your blog is awesome, so I wouldn’t complain normally, but since you were asking for suggestions… :-) I’m glad that everyone else has great ideas, because I sure can’t think of anything else! Thanks for being awesome!