Designing Your Writer’s Web Site

As a freelance writer today, your Web site is an important part of your marketing plan. It will be your online home, the place where hundreds and possibly thousands of people will get to know you. It’s the place where you can present your products and grow your business by obtaining more work. Once you purchase a domain and choose a hosting service, you’re ready to begin designing your site.

Whether you design your site yourself or hire someone to do it for you, you’ll need to know what to include. Professional Web designers may know how to put material onto the Internet, but you can bet that very few know what’s needed on a writer’s site.

Every Web site contains the same basic parts—a Home Page, an About Page, Content pages, a Resources or Links Page, and a Contact Page. The Home Page is usually the first page a visitor sees. It’s the introductory page to your site and connects through a navigation menu to the other pages of the site.

The next most important page on your site is the About Page. Here, you’ll present yourself—why you chose to be a writer, what publishing experience you’ve had, and your social media connections. It’s important to let readers know where else you’re active online. You’ll also want to have a professional looking photo of yourself on the page.

Another important page is the Contact Page of your site. This should include ways in which visitors to your site—either editors or readers or both—can contact you. Here, you’ll post your preferred methods of cotnact—regular mail by street address, phone number for home or cell, and Email address.

A page which you may want to include is a Resource Page, which contains links to other sites that are of interest to you or are related to the subjects you write about. Many writers think that they don’t need outside links because they’ll take visitors away from their site. Actually, these links help visitors to find your site. The right links help to raise your rankings on search engines like Google which enables readers to find you faster. The rest of your site contains pages of your content—books, article listings, etc.

Before you decide on what your site will look like, you need to figure out its purpose. What do you want your site to do? Do you want to connect with your readers or do you want to connect with your editors, or perhaps both. Your site needs to have a direction and a unity that visitors will eventually associate with you.

First and foremost, your name should appear as an integral part of your Home Page. Under it you may want to add a tagline that clearly describes the type of writing you do.

You may also want to include an Email newsletter signup. Whether you send a newsletter once a year or once a week, you’ll want to stay in touch with readers who visit your site. MailChimp is one email newsletter service that’s free for up to 2,000 names, which helps automate this process for you.

If you write non-fiction, your site should contain a sample list of articles you’ve published. And if you also write non-fiction books, you can either have a book page or a separate page for each book, with links to Amazon.com so that your visitors can easily purchase them. In the beginning, you could easily combine everything into one page.’

If you write fiction, both short stories and novels, you can follow the same as above. You may even want to include a sample short story, one that’s one or two pages long. Novels can be listed much as non-fiction books, but if you write books in a series, then you’ll want to group them by series, with additional separate pages for each book, with a synopsis, reviews, and an excerpt. And always include links to where your work can be read or purchased in both print and digital form.

Depending on what you write, you may have been covered in the media. Create a page with testimonials and links to reviews or articles about you.

One of the biggest mistakes many writers make when developing their site is getting clever with menu listings or pages. Your Web site isn’t the place to get clever. It must be clear and straightforward, with logical navigational links to your various pages. Try to limit your menu to five or seven items. If you have a lot of content, group it into sections, then list the section titles in your Home Page menu. Create a separate menu with items pertaining to that section on the first page of each section, called the Landing Page. And always link back to your Home Page.

Another mistake many writers make is creating a blog page and calling it their Web site. While a blog is on a Web page, it isn’t a Web site. Your site needs to contain the four basic pages, plus various pages containing your content.

Don’t think you have to create all your pages at once. Start with the four basic pages, plus perhaps one page listing your work, then proceed from there. Creating new content keeps search engines happy and brings visitors back.

To learn about a basic Web site design package, check out BBC Web Services.

Next Week: You’ve Got a Site—Now What?

What Does It Take to Create an Efficient Writer’s Office?

When you decided to become a writer, you probably didn’t think of what you’d need beyond your computer. But it takes more than a computer to make a writer. In fact, while your computer may be the heart of your writer’s office, it’s only one small part.

As anyone who works from home will tell you, there are some serious benefits. You can't beat the commute or the flexibility you have when it comes to structuring your day. But there are also drawbacks. Creating a makeshift office at the kitchen table could mean important documents end up with a coffee ring or worse, go missing.

Working full-time from home means that you’ll be in your office for long periods of time. It shouldn’t be a make-do situation. Thoughtful room design can make all the difference. From task lighting to functional storage, here are a few pointers for setting up an effective home office:

Lighting: Ensure you have both general and task lighting to prevent eyestrain. Ideally, office lighting should illuminate your work space without adding glare to your computer screen.

Ergonomics: Arrange your desk, chair and the computer screen so you're sitting in a neutral position while typing. Avoid any positions that require twisting or leaning forward, as both put a strain on your back. A good adjustable chair is a must. And that adjustment should be more than just up and down.

Cable Management: Computers are great but they and their peripherals require connecting cables—lots of them. Keeping them organized can be a challenge.  Keep control of cables with color-coded ties and clips. Identify each of them by taking an ordinary mailing label and folding it in half over the cable, then printing on it which device the cable connects to your computer. Don't forget to include a charging station for all of your electronic devices. Charging stations with multiple USB sockets are available online. Of course, you can always buy new wireless devices if you're on a broadband Internet network.

Aesthetics: Since you’re going to be spending a lot of your time in your writing space, you’ll want to make sure it looks good. Don’t just put your computer in an existing room, but design the space to make it pleasant in which to work.  Consider the view from your office window. If you don't have the luxury of overlooking a beautiful outdoor space, add decorative touches indoors.

Storage: Integrate functional storage into your office space. Plan for future storage, for if you’re in business for quite a while, you’ll need it. If space is at a premium, go vertical, adding storage boxes and file holders to shelves. Today, you have a wide variety of storage containers and units to choose from. But think out your storage first and don’t succumb to building your office like topsy.

Staying Afloat in Today’s Market

With the economy the way it is today, it’s become harder and harder for freelancers, like myself, to stay afloat. The age-old doggie paddle just won’t work anymore. Sure, by kicking your feet you’ll keep your head above water, but little else.

So what can you do to make sure the Big Bad Wolf doesn’t come knocking at your door. The answer is diversify. Regular businesses learned this long ago, so it’s time that you as a writer learn it, too.

Before you cut the cord to a full-time job and seek work as a freelancer, you need to figure out what kind of financial base you have from which to operate your freelance business. Yes, that’s right, I said “business.” Every business has some sort of backup plan for tough times, and you should, too.  Thoroughly do your homework so that you’ll have the confidence to know about the writing markets before you begin.

I started out slowly, writing on Sunday afternoons. Then as I got better and got some assignments, I worked at night after teaching school all day. Soon I was writing as much as I was teaching. But I really didn’t do enough research, so when I did quit teaching, I didn’t have much to fall back on.

I decided that if I was going to do this, I would see work in areas that used the knowledge I had gained from the subjects I wrote about. I began teaching continuing education classes about travel destinations—I was an aspiring travel writer—at a local community college. This led to teaching writing classes. After all, I was both a writer and a good teacher, so why not combine the two.
But I still wasn’t making enough.

I sought out a part-time  job at a travel agency since I did know a lot about travel and world destinations. That gave me a regular paycheck with enough time to continue writing. Eventually, I got a full-time job at a better agency while still writing. But that put me back in the same position I was in as a school teacher with one exception. I had learned a lot about the travel industry working in these agencies and this gave me the knowledge and experience to write for travel trade magazines. Once I started doing that, the assignments kept coming in. By the time I had moved to a third agency, I knew I was in a rut. So one day I quit.

But now I had travel trade assignments and articles published weekly in five local newspapers. Plus I was teaching more continuing education classes in the evenings which left my days free to fulfill my assignments. I was on my way to freelance success.

Today, my company, Bob Brooke Communications, encompasses several different areas. Besides writing articles and books, I also have a fairly packed continuing education course schedule. My interest in photography led me to learn as much as I could about digital photography and now I teach that at several locations several times a year. I have also developed a modest lecture circuit which pays well for the time involved. To get material for lectures, I use the information I gather for articles on various subjects and combined with my photography, turn them into lectures.
But to fill in the voids left when writing markets go astray, I began designing Web sites, mostly for small businesses. I began with my own site, then developed three more informational sites. I’ve designed over 25 sites to date. These I do occasionally, but the pay is good enough to tide me over.

So if you have to seek out other work, make sure it’s related to what you write or that you can learn information that will be useful in your writing. My continuing education courses and lectures are all based on what I write. My technical expertise, which I developed solving my own computer problems and designing my own site over the years, has helped me tremendously in my web design work.

Remember, don’t work at anything that will take away from your writing. Work only at jobs that complement it–if you have to seek outside work at all.