Part 9 - The Web Site Design

The above image is a list of the graphics I am working on and getting ready, to place on my INDEX page. I had to create a lot of these, alter, make the backgrounds invisible, and spend a ton of time just on getting the graphics ready.

You can throw up a webpage in a day, but if you are interested in using the website to sell yourself, as a writer, or your writing, you will need to give some thought to:
1. Why are you doing it?
2. Who do you want to reach?
3. What is your message?

This is the fourth web site I have designed: Three were for my artwork, one for another person. But, I still felt the need to spend a lot of hours, this time, checking out other writers, published and non-published, web sites. I made notes on what I liked and what would work for me and notes on what I thought was bad. I googled “What makes a good web site” and I have read a ton of information on what works and what to avoid in web design. Website Ideas for Writers, is a great site to stop at: Website Ideas for Writers, the official idea site for writers

If you are still unsure if you should have a website, as an unpublished writer, here are some reasons to do it. Dawn Chartier ~ A writers life: Websites for unpublished writers

I have mentioned before that I am going a bit off of the “writers” site advice and going directly for the series of books I am writing. I have a few minor writing credits, like a story in “Good Housekeeping” and I would just like to try something different. To me, I am selling, not just myself, as a writer and my writing, but I am selling this story. I want to make my site fun and interesting and something that might make someone, preferably a twelve year old reader, a teacher or a librarian, refer someone else to look at it, and that might entertain and enlighten an editor or agent.

All the while, keeping this doable with the time I have to invest in this site. So, my design is first. I already mentioned working with Master’s Daughter and others on the design for my site. I want it to be interactive, just a bit, and so I have designed a bulletin board interface, with objects that will move a bit and link to other pages. Is this above my capabilities? Possibly, but that has never stopped me before.

Above my bulletin board will be a line telling my viewer to click there for the Text only version, for accessibility. I am creating a simple link to a text version of the page. I know there are programs that will pick this out, but I am just going to cut and past the text and put it on a simple page with no graphics.

A note here: You need to sit down, at this point, and draw a simple sketch of the layout of your page. Where will your links go? What will they be? What text will you have on your index page (that is your first page)? What colors will you use? Google that if you are unsure, or go to 500+ Named Colours with rgb and hex values and drool over all the great colors you can get. Believe me, it is a lot easier to have your design down on a napkin than to keep redoing it in your WYSIWYG html editor.

After I have my graphics ready, I will print out, to scale, the bulletin board and the graphics and do some cutting. I will probably spend an hour or so rearranging the printed objects on the board until I am pleased with the design. I have found, in the past, that this is the easiest way for me to arrange the look of an element of my page, than doing it by rearranging code within my WYSIWYG editor.

There is a ton of help on the web. Not sure of a background? Google it. Need a template? Google it. Want to look at what others have done? Google it.

Web Site Preparation for writers - page 7 - Titles and EMail contact

I don’t know about you, but I love to learn new computer programs and, in my first rush excitement to play with my new program, I have a tendency to think I can just jump in there and make a web page.

Yes, you can do that and I have. But, if you want to make the best page you can, some research time is well spent.

First is to decide who your target audience is. I have a tendency to spread myself off into too many directions. I am a painter, a potter/sculptor, a doll maker and a writer. Since 2003, my website has been targeted for selling my artwork from my home based studio. It was geared to show what work I could do and what work I had available for sale, and about visiting my studio.

When I started to redesign the website this time, I still had that in the back of my mind. It was research and Master’s Daughter, who pointed out where I was going wrong. After going over the initial design for my website (and I spent way too many hours on creating the page that was eventually declared to be going the wrong way), we decided that I was not focusing my site on what was important to me now. I had links to my painting and my pottery. Not only were they distracting, but they were taking up space that was better spent on telling about my writing experience and drumming up interest in my Young Adult Fantasy Series.

Research tells me that author’s seeking representation need to focus their site on themselves, first and foremost. I have a focus on marketing for my book, and I have decided to spread out my focus and cover my writing background, as well as generating some word of mouth, hopefully excitement for my book series.

SECOND: As Mike Cherim points out in Beast-Blog.com - Mike Cherim's Professional and Personal Web Log - Home Page, there are millions of websites out there. That means there are 999,999 + other websites, beside yours, for a viewer to click on. If you create a website that requires JavaScript, or large images to load, or “mystery meat navigation,” you are going to lose viewers. I am a dial-up user and no matter how much I want to view a site, I will close out of it if there are large images to load.

THE SEARCH: How will viewers find you? One essential element is the “title element” that is shown on the bar of your browser. It is the content title with the terms in it that users will search for. Each page of your website should have its own unique title. It is contained in carrots, at the top of your webpage. We are talking coding here in your WYSIWYG editor.

That would be the title for my first page, the INDEX page and a different one for each succeeding page. In my current webpage, I never thought about that fact that if you have twelve or six or more pages to your website. Each individual page should have its own title so that there are that many more titles to be found in a search. So, change that title for each page.

Also, it is important to NOT put your email address link on your site. Even supposedly secure ways of doing it will eventually be Spy Bot-ted. You do need a means of contact though. Use a secure contact form and we will get into that, just as soon as I have it all figured out. If you are in a hurry, Google it. This is from a person who has already had my domain email address harvested by SPY BOTS.

NEXT POST: Site Maps