If I can help you, Marylou, I'm happy to do it. I didn't intend to be dismissive of your writing by calling it simple and straightforward. Many readers prefer that style, because it's similar to magazine articles. I couldn't guess if you intended it to be that way.
As far as the technical issues, I'm not the one to help you. I just read the tutorials, and when I got stuck I asked questions of the tech support experts in the Questions Forum. I know hardly anything about how to set things up for looks and navigation. I just picked a style I liked and clicked buttons until it came out the way I wanted.
What I am more qualified for is writing style critique. Now that you've explained your intent more clearly I can help. If what you want is a deep relationship with readers and subscribers, you have to give them what they can't get elsewhere. It's a rather tall order. By comparison, I only have the ambition to become a better writer by writing.
In order to move people emotionally, you have to bare your own emotions and show vulnerability. As Ernest Hemingway said, "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." The more you reveal of your own pain, the more people will see their own situations reflected in yours.
You might look over Tracy Todd's work as an example of someone with similar ambitions to yours as far as the relationship to readers. http://tracytodd.wordpress.com/
Tracy's one of those who mentored me in being able to write more intimately in a confessional style when I want to. I don't always want to. I often write humor pieces and arts reviews. I'm a generalist, like the newspaper columnists from the days before TV. But you seem to be wanting to write material that moves people. Therefore what your work will require is PASSION. You'll have to turn yourself inside out basically. However, women are generally better at that than men, so you may find it easier than I do. Some of the other writers on my Blogroll write in this style regularly, including Jennie Ketcham, the first person to inspire me to attempt blogging.
Much of learning to write well in a style of your choosing is studying the work of other professional writers who have done what you wish to do. Usually it isn't the work of bloggers. Bloggers write for free, almost by definition. If you want to get to where the pros are, that's how good your work has to be, consistently. The more you read, the more you will recognize the difference between diamonds and coal.
Best of luck to you!
marylou4
invisiblemikey
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