Illumination Spotlight
Filter for Max Efficiency
Filters free me to work on more projects
Information overload can swamp our efforts by making decision-making difficult — Chris Hedges
Information overload is overwhelming data. Such data can be verbal, auditory, or in writing. It can be physical or digital. Are you dealing with the separate concerns of employees, colleagues, and bosses who are all knocking on your door? That’s information overload. Six hundred emails, with 20 flagged urgent? Information overload. You get the point. — Dionne Mahaffey, “How To Improve Productivity By Managing Information Overload,” Forbes.
Filtering information is the key to success
I retired, but I spent many years in a high-volume industry. When I was fresh out of school and first starting my job in the debt collection world — a place where I would have never set out to be, but ended up making a career — the first thing my boss and mentor taught me was to filter information so that the most necessary and important information was available and the items that took up time and brain power were filtered for review later (or by someone else, if possible).
Filtering on Illumination Spotlight allows for growth
When I set up Illumination Spotlight, I built it using WPMUDEV’s Forminator Pro (which I have as part of a subscription to their services). The WordPress plug-in allows for data collection. It works perfectly for it’s intended purpose.
SEO is the goal
My purpose is to have form that collects story information and a link to amplify the message outside of this platform and into the greater world. While it might not bring financial success in the short term — the people who look without subscriptions aren’t resulting in partner payments — it does bring results in the long term by increasing your story and name visibility online in Google searches.
It is another tool in the arsenal that consists of using the platform SEO tools available in the edit section of your stories under more settings. Select the three dots <…> near the notification indicator in the top menu, and then select
It is worthwhile to read up on search engine optimization to learn what search engines are looking for when they index content. The key nutshell point is to create quality content that is useful for human readers. If you do that, you’ve accomplished most of the work. The rest just helps to signal the importance of your story to Google, Bing and Duck Duck Go (and the many other smaller search engines out there).
The simplicity of the Illumination Spotlight filter system
The filter system is simple and beautiful.
The original plug-in as written didn’t have the ability to “whitelist domains.” Or, in other words, block out everything, except for the approved domain.
I don’t code, but know enough to plug code in where it is needed. The service I use for my WordPress hosting has talented customer service folks that I and other users pay a nice monthly subscription to create plug-ins and help us with technical issues.
Request and you will receive, if you’ve paid for the service
I put in a request to see if the tech people could put in a request to the coders to update the next version of Forminator Pro.
The customer service people did me one better. They responded to me quickly and verified what I was wanting to do. In this case, it was limit submissions on the Illumination Spotlight form to just the platform domain name.
Before that, I was letting the system automatically publish submissions on a 30 minute delay (so I don’t overwork the system — it can be set to check constantly, if needed).
Then, I would review the submissions to make sure nothing spammy made it through.
I did put a CAPTCHA verification system run by Google so they can check people using the system against their information about robots and known spammers. But, that wouldn’t block someone human for doing intermittent spamming or something else unwanted.
The domain white listing takes care of that problem by making sure nothing will be accepted unless it is from this platform. (I don’t mention the name because this isn’t a story about them and don’t want them to list this with all of the “how to do” articles written about doing things here).
The customer service folks wrote custom code for me
About a day later, I received a message letting me know that the customer service professional working on my ticket had drafted code for me to upload onto my server.
They had instructions on who to change the field and the white-listed domain.
All I had to do was download the zip file, use the handy dandy notepad, edit the proper places in the code, and upload it onto my server in a specified location.
If I wasn’t able to do that, they could have done that for me as part of the service, but I like looking under the hood to see what’s to be seen. Since I had the line numbers on the code and a manual on how to upload to upload to their system (it’s just like accessing files on your laptop or cell phone, for the most part).
I like know that I can play around and tinker, but also let the tech people handle things if I didn’t have time or the inclination.
Now, Illumination Spotlight is automated
The beautiful thing is Illumination Spotlight is now fully automated. I still check the entries and click through to read what you’ve written when I have time.
If you see someone has looked at your story via an email link, it is probably me. My server sends me an email with the form information. I also check the messages to see if there are any special instructions that might have been left as well. I thank everyone who has sent messages. They are all appreciated.
I also like seeing people using the system.
I hope that Illumination Spotlight contributes to your publishing visibility when people look for your stories by giving an additional incoming link and helps the overall growth of ILLUMINATION.
Thanks to Dr Mehmet Yildiz for his leadership of ILLUMINATION and setting up a publication that is promising to become a heavy hitter in the near future!
Statistics Show Continued Growth
- 176 users, up 19%
- 633 page views, up 1%
Illumination Spotlight continues to grow!
Thanks for your support of this project.
🦄 Chris Hedges, BA, JD, is an editor at ILLUMINATION, The Bad Influence and Red Curtain Erotica. I am also the owner and creator of Illumination Spotlight a/k/a an informal and unofficial division of the “marketing department.”
