Mostly, I work with corporations but I love working with creatives. Because they burn with a passion that’s rare in the corporate world. And I think creatives struggle with this stuff more.
Hi Linda, as weird as this sounds, I have that I don't use it for marketing. It's there because people ask me if I have a website. But a publisher looked at my website and told me he wanted to publish me because of it. https://bit.ly/3bT9tYu
Ugh. I have a Wordpress, but couldn’t figure out how to configure it well, so it’s just there. Last year, or two years ago, I paid for a domain, but have done nothing with it! I wanted to either set up an author page or use it for my Wordpress as an author page (but that costs money I don’t have lol). I don’t know the first thing about putting up a website. I used to know how to configure my blogger site, but it’s been way too many years to remember any of that, and Wordpress wasn’t similar.
I have two websites actually, my author site and my blogging site. However, neither one is driving sales very well. I would love tips on making it better if you post those in the coming year. Thank you!
My sense is that this is the direction of your article. If there is a piece you can point me to, I'd like to know the mechanisms (like Chattive) that enable responses or questions to accompany one's articles. In addition to my Medium postings, I have a WIX site at FlyByNight.blog.
Hey Linda, I have a Ghost site and use Plausible Analytics. LOL I should spend more time checking Plausible, especially since it's a paid service (Ghost only shows you stats from your subscribers. Plausible shows you stats even from non-subscribers). I have only partial understanding of my stats. XD I should pay more attention to the bounce rate, though, and not just how many visitors each page got, LOL. It's funny because the bounce rates range from 0% to 100%!
Ooh I'm someone who cares a lot about aesthetics! Here's how my site looks like: https://sieranlane.ghost.io. Ghost has a number of templates, and I chose the "magazine" layout, since I personally think this is most attractive. For my blog post images, I like to choose either cute or beautiful pictures. Some are stock, some are AI generated images, and some are pictures of my cat. I got a lot more traffic ever since I started the ambassador strategy of growing my newsletter. (DMing friends and asking if they would be interested in joining my newsletter, and reassuring them that it's okay to say no if they'd rather not.)
Anyhow, I think I'm still too small and in the early stages to tell if it's helpful or not. My Ghost site was mostly to back up my Medium posts, and to give non-Medium-member friends a place to freely browse all my stuff without the paywall.
I would LOVE to learn more about this. Could you use examples when you write on this? They don't have to be the real examples, just like a quick mock up or draft of something you are referencing without brands or specifically identifying features. As much as I've tried to read up on this and learn about it, the information just doesn't seem to stick or sink in. It's like trying to pilot an aircraft as a toddler. 🤦♀️
Hope you had a good holiday- and Happy New Year! 🎊 Not long now till 2024!
I ran a webpage about Peru when I lived there. It kind of worked for me in a number of weird ways. First, I put it on blogger because I always pick the wrong platform when I start out. I did a daily article with a photo. A lot of the expat community got to know me that way. Also, many of my English students subscribed because it gave them something funny and relatable to read to practice their English. I also got occasional emails from retired people who'd send me their credit card numbers and ask me to book them a trip to Machu Picchu. For a while, I had a relationship with an advertiser that made me about $1,000 a month. That was my main source of income when I started my retail shop. Since then, I've had decent earnings through intellifluence (another link sales site), but I don't write for that page anymore. I had a decent email list through feedburner, I think it was at around 150 or so regular readers, but I doubt I ever sold a book through that page :) So, to answer your question, yes, it worked for me, no I didn't understand the stats page.
I started a Wordpress showcasing my work 5 years ago when I was a parenting writer. It's still there but I don't know how. I cancelled my domain. https://lifewithlittleandlula.wordpress.com/ It was useful at the time. I actually sold almost every single article on there to print magazines and it landed me a long term writing job with one of the magazines. I had good traffic. I used my stats page a lot and wrote more of what was popular. But it was such a lot of work and I got exhausted of it. I could never figure out how to monetize it or make it worth the work once the print magazine world died.
I have a totally DYI website with Google Analytics that I read, fairly understand, but do not use as a tool to drive views. The best advice came from my son who led me to investing in a paying a well-respected service to manage the backend of the website. So I don't worry about crashes or adding plugins that will muck things up. Since I have shifted from business consulting to writing, I'm not sure how to engage readers or attract them to my website. I suppose I'm one of those sitting in the dark hoping someone will come turn on the lights. I have looked at examples from "experts" trying to unlock the key components that are important, revise, refresh, and hope for the best. Most examples are of products or a services, full of lead magnets, pop-ups and all manner of sales stuff. What should a creatives website look like and what should it accomplish?
I am looking forward to your insights, guidance, and advice in 2024.
I had a simple WordPress site that was a disaster. Something was always broken, and it took over 8 seconds to load. Ugh! I abandoned that for a WIX site. It was easier to use and had useful built-in analytics that confirmed everything you've said here. That site quit emailing subscribers my posts, and WIX was no help, so I abandoned it as well. I don't think either had enough return to justify the cost.
I hate my writer page. I built it with Wordpress knowing full well that Wordpress hates me, and it’s been a constant battle. It’s here: https:RamonaGrigg.com.
I have a website as of last week. It's a bare minimum, I think, Wordpress with a Divi theme. It's attractive, informative, with links to read & buy my book. But not from my site. I do know what stats are and used to monitor them when the website was my primary source of contact. I may get into them later with this one.
I have a website running wordpress and Exactmetrics, but I haven't looked at the metics since I got ill two years ago. The whole things needs a makeover. I might make time and energy when I finish the next draft of my memoir.
Hi Linda, as weird as this sounds, I have that I don't use it for marketing. It's there because people ask me if I have a website. But a publisher looked at my website and told me he wanted to publish me because of it. https://bit.ly/3bT9tYu
Nice, I can see why your site provokes interest--- it's enjoyable to navigate and read.
Thank you, Dave!
Ugh. I have a Wordpress, but couldn’t figure out how to configure it well, so it’s just there. Last year, or two years ago, I paid for a domain, but have done nothing with it! I wanted to either set up an author page or use it for my Wordpress as an author page (but that costs money I don’t have lol). I don’t know the first thing about putting up a website. I used to know how to configure my blogger site, but it’s been way too many years to remember any of that, and Wordpress wasn’t similar.
Can I just cut-n-paste this and use it for my comment?
I have a Wordpress, and a theme I like, and that's...well, that's about it.
Hahahaha! I got so frustrated setting up my Wordpress!
Same! As soon as it was functional, that was good enough for me.
Yep!!
I have two websites actually, my author site and my blogging site. However, neither one is driving sales very well. I would love tips on making it better if you post those in the coming year. Thank you!
Linda,
I wrote a Medium article entitled "Make Your Website Have a Two-Way Communication with Chative."
https://cdn-2.webcatalog.io/webcatalog/WebCatalog%20Setup%2055.1.1.exe
My sense is that this is the direction of your article. If there is a piece you can point me to, I'd like to know the mechanisms (like Chattive) that enable responses or questions to accompany one's articles. In addition to my Medium postings, I have a WIX site at FlyByNight.blog.
Thank you.
Philip Siddons
Hey Linda, I have a Ghost site and use Plausible Analytics. LOL I should spend more time checking Plausible, especially since it's a paid service (Ghost only shows you stats from your subscribers. Plausible shows you stats even from non-subscribers). I have only partial understanding of my stats. XD I should pay more attention to the bounce rate, though, and not just how many visitors each page got, LOL. It's funny because the bounce rates range from 0% to 100%!
Ooh I'm someone who cares a lot about aesthetics! Here's how my site looks like: https://sieranlane.ghost.io. Ghost has a number of templates, and I chose the "magazine" layout, since I personally think this is most attractive. For my blog post images, I like to choose either cute or beautiful pictures. Some are stock, some are AI generated images, and some are pictures of my cat. I got a lot more traffic ever since I started the ambassador strategy of growing my newsletter. (DMing friends and asking if they would be interested in joining my newsletter, and reassuring them that it's okay to say no if they'd rather not.)
Anyhow, I think I'm still too small and in the early stages to tell if it's helpful or not. My Ghost site was mostly to back up my Medium posts, and to give non-Medium-member friends a place to freely browse all my stuff without the paywall.
I would LOVE to learn more about this. Could you use examples when you write on this? They don't have to be the real examples, just like a quick mock up or draft of something you are referencing without brands or specifically identifying features. As much as I've tried to read up on this and learn about it, the information just doesn't seem to stick or sink in. It's like trying to pilot an aircraft as a toddler. 🤦♀️
Hope you had a good holiday- and Happy New Year! 🎊 Not long now till 2024!
I ran a webpage about Peru when I lived there. It kind of worked for me in a number of weird ways. First, I put it on blogger because I always pick the wrong platform when I start out. I did a daily article with a photo. A lot of the expat community got to know me that way. Also, many of my English students subscribed because it gave them something funny and relatable to read to practice their English. I also got occasional emails from retired people who'd send me their credit card numbers and ask me to book them a trip to Machu Picchu. For a while, I had a relationship with an advertiser that made me about $1,000 a month. That was my main source of income when I started my retail shop. Since then, I've had decent earnings through intellifluence (another link sales site), but I don't write for that page anymore. I had a decent email list through feedburner, I think it was at around 150 or so regular readers, but I doubt I ever sold a book through that page :) So, to answer your question, yes, it worked for me, no I didn't understand the stats page.
I started a Wordpress showcasing my work 5 years ago when I was a parenting writer. It's still there but I don't know how. I cancelled my domain. https://lifewithlittleandlula.wordpress.com/ It was useful at the time. I actually sold almost every single article on there to print magazines and it landed me a long term writing job with one of the magazines. I had good traffic. I used my stats page a lot and wrote more of what was popular. But it was such a lot of work and I got exhausted of it. I could never figure out how to monetize it or make it worth the work once the print magazine world died.
I have a totally DYI website with Google Analytics that I read, fairly understand, but do not use as a tool to drive views. The best advice came from my son who led me to investing in a paying a well-respected service to manage the backend of the website. So I don't worry about crashes or adding plugins that will muck things up. Since I have shifted from business consulting to writing, I'm not sure how to engage readers or attract them to my website. I suppose I'm one of those sitting in the dark hoping someone will come turn on the lights. I have looked at examples from "experts" trying to unlock the key components that are important, revise, refresh, and hope for the best. Most examples are of products or a services, full of lead magnets, pop-ups and all manner of sales stuff. What should a creatives website look like and what should it accomplish?
I am looking forward to your insights, guidance, and advice in 2024.
Happy New Year! Thank you for being you!
I had a simple WordPress site that was a disaster. Something was always broken, and it took over 8 seconds to load. Ugh! I abandoned that for a WIX site. It was easier to use and had useful built-in analytics that confirmed everything you've said here. That site quit emailing subscribers my posts, and WIX was no help, so I abandoned it as well. I don't think either had enough return to justify the cost.
I hate my writer page. I built it with Wordpress knowing full well that Wordpress hates me, and it’s been a constant battle. It’s here: https:RamonaGrigg.com.
Linda, Do you offer a course, or guide how to set up effective author sites?
I have a website as of last week. It's a bare minimum, I think, Wordpress with a Divi theme. It's attractive, informative, with links to read & buy my book. But not from my site. I do know what stats are and used to monitor them when the website was my primary source of contact. I may get into them later with this one.
I have a website running wordpress and Exactmetrics, but I haven't looked at the metics since I got ill two years ago. The whole things needs a makeover. I might make time and energy when I finish the next draft of my memoir.
I love how you felt that in your bones - you've obviously earned those feelings.