Improvements to Retro Roadmap – Light at The End of the Tunnel!

Huzzah huzzah! Nothing like a cold rainy Sunday to get back to making some much needed improvements behind the scene here at Retro Roadmap, and I thought I’d clue everyone in on what has been going on when I’m not out doing the fun stuff on the road, and how I hope it makes Retro Roadmap better for you all!

The Retro Road Maps!

As I’ve mentioned before I’m a map-o-phile and love being able to see where places are in relation to one another. When I migrated the site over to self-paid hosting last year none of the links to the Retro Roadmap Google maps I created carried over, so I’ve had to go in and manually update each one. With the current count of 733 posts (in 3 years!) that is a lot of updating. Today’s huzzah is because I just finished all the maps from Massachusetts, now I just have the huge state of Pennsylvania to tackle, then every post should have an interactive map at the bottom of it!

Did you know that you can access the Retro Road Maps on your smart phone?

You couldn’t do this when I first started the site, but recently I found out that I can see the maps of all the posts on my phone! Just click the link at the bottom of a post map to bring you to the State Map, and you can look at that URL in your phone when you’re on the road to see what’s around you! I know this isn’t nearly as slick as some apps and other sites, but with the shoelace budget and time and technical expertise all coming from me, I’m pretty pleased with this.

Speaking of shoestring (fries?!) budget…

Advertising

You may have noticed that some advertising has been added to the sidebar of the site, and I’m hoping to add some more Retro Roadmap worthy advertisers in the next coming weeks and months. I’m not making much at all, but so far it’s been enough to offset some of my money that I use for the site, for hosting for example. I dream of the day when I can spend all my time sharing cool old vintage places with you all, so if I can make some money with advertising or tee shirts or whatnot in order to do that, that isn’t such a bad dream, is it?!

Menus

This may be a “no duh” mention for everyone, but I have gone back and created a “taxonomy” (ooh, faintcy!) so you can more easily look up categories on the site, and they’re in handy dropdowns under the primary navigation bar. I’m also working on making sure that the “Search by Keyword” and Search by State” areas in the side column are working right, and adding a Featured Photo to all 733 posts, so they look nice when the search results come up.

Get Social!

Mod Betty is all about being social about the Retro Roadmap Hostess with the mostess so you’ll see me sharing the Retro Roadmap love on all sorts of sites- if you’re there too, why not say hello?

• You can follow the RRMP RSS feed or subscribe via email (so you get an email alert every time a new post goes up)
• See Retro Roadmap worthy photos that aren’t featured on the site, in the RetroRoadmap Flickr group
• Join up with fellow Retro Roadmap readers at the Retro Roadmap Facebook page
• Tweet with Retro Roadmap on Twitter
• Watch Retro Roadmappy videos on our lil ol Retro Roadmap Youtube station
• See what cool retro vintage items I’ve pinned on The Retro Roadmap Pinterest page
• And check out some more photos on Tumblr and Instagram

I’m planning on making sure all of those pages look nice and pretty like the site here, and have plans for loads of other neat stuff too, not enough hours in the days, or weekends, for sure, but every chance I get I’m working on it!

Do you have any suggestions on how you think Retro Roadmap could improve?
Have you come across a post where a link is broken or something is all wacky?

Please let me know so I can make this a great resource for all of us!

OK, now time to conquer the spreadsheet of Pennsylvania maps!