Prepare Your Author Website for the New Year: Day 10

It’s the final day of our author website challenge! Here’s where we bring this series together to determine your content and web maintenance calendar.

The first thing to do is to plan your content. 

Plans work best when plotted over the course of many months. However, planning doesn’t mean you move content dates around or swap posts as you go. Having a plan enables to stay focused and not lose the plot. Best of all, planning a content schedule won’t cost you a thing. 

Remember the research you did on your reader personas? 

What were those frequently used keywords? What does your reader want?

Remember the survey you sent to your current subscribers?

What content did they request?

You know what you’re going to write about. Now it’s time to consider how to frame those subjects. 

Did you know that there are many types of blog posts? There are how-to’s, tutorials, lists, personal stories, editorials, short fiction, poetry collections, reviews and other opinion pieces, interviews, repurposed content, and more.

There are even more variations for content. You can include infographics (stay away from the clipart), video clips (Youtube is popular), audio clips (including podcasts), and slide presentations. 

Remember, your content must serve your web viewers, and it should serve your goals of selling more books or other content. Logical and ordered sequences work best for selling through an author blog.

Anything you put up on your blog can (and probably should) be repurposed to send to your subscribers.

How do you create an order for your blog calendar? 

Group content by theme. Choose a focus topic for a delineated period. Make every post you publish during that time relate to the topic. Consistent themes make it easier for your viewers to follow your blog. They help organize content. If you publish monthly, you’ll need twelve posts scheduled for the year. You could divide those into three or four different themes based on the primary problems you will solve for your readers. Use your keywords.

To get a jump on your content this year, start collecting material. Create high-impact, posts and schedule them for publication.

How else can you plan your website for the year? 

Document your processes to help save time in the future. Create a checklist to follow for each new post. This checklist should identify what’s important to you and your website.

Make a plan for your overall website. Content is critical but don’t focus all your web efforts on content alone. Write a mini business plan for your site management — document who you’ll serve, how you’ll help them, and why. 

Create a marketing plan or review your old one. Review your (web traffic, email sign-ups, total book sales, gross revenue) and evaluate what is and isn’t working for you. Plan your year accordingly. Don’t just create a checklist to work through. Use this to record ideas. 

Identify how you’ll measure your progress. Is it by the number of book sales, total profits, or the number of email sign-ups? At what points in time will you measure your success?

Keep updated on your market research. Audience personas can change. Can you diversify your revenue channels? What other types of income streams can you create as an author?

Don’t forget to check out your fellow authors. It’s not because they are competitors but because you may find or create opportunities to partner and grow your lists.

THAT’S IT FOR DAY 10! 

If you’ve tackled every day of our challenge, your website is ready to help grow your audience in 2020.

If you want to go even further, join us inside the Happily Ever Author Club. You’ll have a book marketing expert at your fingertips helping you overcome your mental blocks around marketing and institute a marketing strategy that actually works. You’ll also have access to two developmental editors, our Story Path course, and a community of fellow writers committed to building a successful career.

It’s our goal to help writers find the audience they need to sustain their career.