Creating An Impressive Writing Website

Of course all web design topics are worthy of discussion and you're welcome to ask anything at my message board on this topic: WriteWebNow. I will do my best to answer all your web design questions.

You want to present yourself as a competent professional writer on the web. The best way is to write. What else shows off your writing ability so clearly?

Before you write your website content you need to have an organized plan for what you intend to put on your site. And to do that, you need to know who your site is for.

Who are you trying to impress?

Write descriptions of your ideal website visitors. You might write a description of a reader of your work looking for more information about you. Then write a description of an editor or agent looking for more information about you. Next try writing a description of a writer who is looking for information about how you write, and how you made it big as a writer. Use your imagination and get to know these people well. You might even want to interview them.

Once you know who your website visitors are, you can plan your content. You'll know what these people are looking for and how to give it to them.

Next it is time to write. Until you get some content ready for the web, there's not much sense in having a site.

Always remember the most important thing you can put on your website is text. Photos are marvelous, but they don't count for anything when a search engine scans your site. The more text, the better, so don't be afraid to write voluminously. At the same time remember you're going to have web visitors who want just the facts in a concise format, so plan some helpful content for them too.

Once you get your writing in gear and have a collection of articles to post, you can select photos to go with them. Eye-candy is always welcome.

I used to be a professional web designer. One of the most frustrating things about the job was working with clients who wanted a site but who had no text or photos to post. Whether you design your own site, or go to a web designer for help, you'll appreciate having a lot of writing and images ready to use.

Blogging isn't for everyone but it is a great way to get started on a website fast, free, and easy. A lot of people take the blogging path without totally understanding what it means to have a site that requires continual writing for months and years to come. Your fans will expect frequent updates, so it will become a project that lives on forever.

On the other hand there are great search engine optimization advantages to having a site frequently updated. As a blog owner you might be the kind of person who writes voluminously and needs an outlet. You might be a person who likes the give and take interactive networking that blogs provide.

If you're determined to have a blog, I've got suggestions for you. The first is not to use Blogger.Com. I know dozens of writers are already using Blogger.Com for blogging, and I myself had quite a few blogs there. I've still got one or two. But it isn't a perfect blog platform - the main reason being that there are other blogs with better search engine optimization (SEO) capacity. You'll need better SEO if you want people using search engines to find your blog. I get 90% of the readership of my blogs from search engines, so I consider this vitally important... and I believe you should too.

Another drawback to Blogger.Com is that the comment interface is clunky. A lot of people don't bother leaving comments on Blogger.Com blogs. I confess I'm one of them, because I find it difficult, time consuming, and at times, frustrating. The only things I find Blogger.Com useful for are having blogs that contain links to my other web projects, and secondly, Blogger.Com blogs are truly great for beginners using them for informal personal ranting, story-telling, or fact-gathering places. Blogger.Com helped me immensely through my first years of blogging and I'll be forever grateful.

However if you're sure you want to be a professional blogger, my recommendation is to try out a WordPress blog... they are beautiful, professional quality, easy to use and very configurable. You can add a huge variety of plugins to increase the functionality.

Fortunately you can try WordPress for free at http://www.wordpress.com. If you decide you like it you can later switch to a hosted site using your own domain name... but this free site will get you started and show you what the blogging platform is like.

Almost everyone likes the idea of being thrifty. There's certainly nothing wrong with creating a website yourself on a free site, and if you choose that route you're sure to pick up a lot of valuable website building skills.

On the other hand, if you want someone else to do the web work for you, there's no harm in that. So long as you're prepared with your articles and graphics, this should take a lot of pressure off you.

Whichever way you go with this, remember, there's no stigma attached.

If you choose to purchase hosting, expect to pay less than $10 per month. If you're paying more for your web host you're most likely being ripped off. For a simple writing site, especially a new site without a lot of hits, you don't need anything elaborate, cost-wise, for hosting.

Besides hosting there's the cost of the domain name. Expect to pay about $10 annually for that. I buy all my domain names through GoDaddy.Com. I recommend that if you use GoDaddy, buy the domain name only; during the checkout process they will ask you to buy a lot of additional services - to which I always say no.

We all know not everyone needs a professional designer, but it is a reasonable choice for some people. Whether you do or don't hire a professional depends on your confidence in your ability to learn new skills, and your budget.

If you decide to hire a web designer, first have a good idea of how many pages you want and what they'll have on them. Write down a description of exactly what you want. Choose a few pages from the web that are similar to how you want your site to look. No good designer will copy another page exactly (that's a copyright violation) but it is helpful to have an idea of what type website you're hoping for.

Once you decide what you want your site to look like, ask a few different designers for proposals. Look at their online portfolios to make sure they're capable of the quality of work you're looking for.

White Space

The most important quality of a professional web design is that it is uncluttered and clean looking. This is most often achieved using a white background rather than a colored background or a graphic background.

White space makes a page look professional because it makes the words most legible. Compare your reading experience on a page that uses a black background with white letters, or any other odd combination. Also check out pages using background graphics under the lettering. Then look at a plain white background with black letters. Most people prefer black letters on a white background it as it is easiest on the eyes.

Your most important goal with your website is to get people to read it. If their eyes suffer when reading your site, you're not achieving the prime objective.

If you are attached to a background graphic there are ways of superimposing a white text area on top of the graphic area so you can have your design plus a decorative graphic on the sides.

Pages That Match

Many website owners like to create new pages with different background images, or different colors. That may be fine for a personal homepage, but when you do a professional site, all the pages should match. There may be different photographs used, and different words, but for the most part the format of every page should be exactly the same so that people know what to expect where, and so that all the pages look like they belong together.

Easy Navigation

Navigation refers to the internal links of a website that will show your readers every page you have available.

This is related to the last point (pages that match) in that people like to know where to find new pages. If you have different navigation systems on various pages it will be confusing for your readers.

A good way to set up a system of navigation for your site is to have a set of links near the top and another near the bottom. Professional web designers often set up the navigation links near the top of the page as part of the web design. They also include a set of plain text links at the bottom of the page. Here's an example: Lost In The Fog.

Clutter

Most sites start looking cluttered after a while, especially if you're changing things around constantly like I am. It is important to redesign, reevaluate and reconsider what you want on your site from time to time.

What are the most important elements of your site? What do you most want people to see? Keep those things and get rid of the excess. Let eyes be drawn to the places they should go to.

Animated Gifs and Other Distractions

People put a lot of strange things on their pages - like javascript cursors with trailing hearts. These may be okay on personal pages, but if your intention is to create a professional site to showcase your writing talents, you should consider getting rid of (or never installing) all the cute little do-dads that you might see elsewhere.

Along with those decorations, I highly recommend you not use any animated gifs. Many people find them annoying. I'm one of those people. An animated gif (or ad banner) is very distracting when you're trying to read an article. And when you have the attention of a reader, you should want them to read that article rather than have their eyes wandering toward the cute little kitten running across the page, or the pretty twirling dancing girl, or whatever it is that amused you enough to want to use it on a web page.

Here are a few ideas for your website plan:

Who are you?

Your site visitors will want to know who you are, so I suggest either an "About" page or a "Bio" page.

How can we reach you?

Include a contact link or page. Do NOT put your email address directly on the web. I use javascript to cloak my email address from intrusive spiders that gather email addresses to be used for nefarious purposes (spam).

What do you write?

You might want to include a page for each type of writing you do. For example, if you write news you could include a "Journalism" page. If you write fiction you could include a page about your novels or short stories.

Where can we read what you write?

Do NOT post any writing you want to sell on the web. You might want to post writing you don't intend to try to sell, or writing that has been previously published.

Of course you can also post information about how readers can buy your books, find your articles, or read your short stories and poems online at other sites.

How can we learn to write like you?

Other writers would love to read articles about how you write. I suggest you write as much as possible for other writers because they will use your site as a resource for their own writing.

I strongly suggest you choose a few photographs of yourself for your website. Your readers will want to know what you look like. Don't be shy! This site is all about self-promotion. Come out of your shell.

If you don't have a good graphics program, try a demo of the one I use: Paint Shop Pro. (Sorry Mac users - this is for PCs only.) You might get some good tips on using Paint Shop Pro by visiting the Paint Shop Pro Users Group. If you're unfamiliar with graphics programs, I suggest you get the demo (good for one month of free use) and experiment with it. If you like it and want to buy it, you'll see the price is considerably less than that of Microsoft Photoshop.

SEO is one of my favorite topics, so I'm looking forward to discussing it with you in October at the Muse Conference workshop.

The most important thing you need for good SEO is great content. What you write will be what the search engine spiders read and index. The more you write, the better it will be for your site's SEO.

I'm going to leave it at that for now as I want you to have plenty of time to plan your site and write articles to include on it. Bring me your SEO questions at the workshop in October and I'll share more of what I know about it then.

Thanks for coming by and reading...

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