The September Marketing Challenge begins in seven days! I hope you're as excited about it as I am. But if you don't know what the heck I'm talking about, you should go to my previous post where I describe it, HERE.
In this post I'm going to discuss your website. Because every author needs a website - it's the central axis of your entire marketing campaign - I'm going to assume when we begin on September 1st that you have one. So I thought I should give you some warning. :-)
The most important thing I learned about websites from marketing guru Thomas Umstattd is that your blog must be on your website. If your blog is at a separate URL - or through a different provider - every time you write a new post and send people to it, you're sending them AWAY from your website, AWAY from the place where they can see your books and click to buy them.
Why have a blog at all? Why not just a website? A blog does two things. It creates interest and it makes your website interactive - and both of these draw people.
Imagine you owned a store, and very rarely got in any new merchandise. People would stop coming, right? Well, it takes months, if not years, to write a book, but it takes hours to write a post. You're providing new things to look at, and people will come in to see them.
The second advantage of a blog is, it gives visitors to your site a place where they can talk to you, by leaving comments and seeing your responses. Imagine you invited someone to your home, but refused to let them talk to you. They'd leave, and might not come back.
Some of September's challenges will involve your website and your blog, which is why I'm making this suggestion before we begin.
There is a wonderful variety of authors taking this challenge, and we can all learn a lot from each other.
If you already have a website, please share it with us. Leave a short comment introducing yourself and add your website URL. Then, over this next week, drop back here, read through the comments and check out each others' sites. If there's a place on their site to leave a comment, say hello, tell them you're taking this challenge too, and comment on their site.
In this post I'm going to discuss your website. Because every author needs a website - it's the central axis of your entire marketing campaign - I'm going to assume when we begin on September 1st that you have one. So I thought I should give you some warning. :-)
The most important thing I learned about websites from marketing guru Thomas Umstattd is that your blog must be on your website. If your blog is at a separate URL - or through a different provider - every time you write a new post and send people to it, you're sending them AWAY from your website, AWAY from the place where they can see your books and click to buy them.
Why have a blog at all? Why not just a website? A blog does two things. It creates interest and it makes your website interactive - and both of these draw people.
Imagine you owned a store, and very rarely got in any new merchandise. People would stop coming, right? Well, it takes months, if not years, to write a book, but it takes hours to write a post. You're providing new things to look at, and people will come in to see them.
The second advantage of a blog is, it gives visitors to your site a place where they can talk to you, by leaving comments and seeing your responses. Imagine you invited someone to your home, but refused to let them talk to you. They'd leave, and might not come back.
Some of September's challenges will involve your website and your blog, which is why I'm making this suggestion before we begin.
There is a wonderful variety of authors taking this challenge, and we can all learn a lot from each other.
If you already have a website, please share it with us. Leave a short comment introducing yourself and add your website URL. Then, over this next week, drop back here, read through the comments and check out each others' sites. If there's a place on their site to leave a comment, say hello, tell them you're taking this challenge too, and comment on their site.
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