If you are an author and you need a better website (one that would make this list) please contact me today.  I can help you create a custom-designed site that is easy for you to update yourself.  Let’s not let this industry wallow in 1998 any longer – its time for authors to embrace good web design!

For inspiration and to offer a bit of hope here are a few stand-out websites for authors I’ve found on the web:

Absolutely stunning site that makes great use of a minimal design approach and limited color scheme.

Peter goes big and bold.  You definitely know whose site you are at, and the navigation is well done too.

Brash and colorful, Augusten certainly has the best use of illustration of any author website I’ve seen.

Mr. Brown’s site perfectly mirrors the mystery in his books.  Navigating the site is like unlocking a great puzzle.

Clean, simple, beautiful and functional.  Not much to go wrong with here.  Nice emphasis on the books right from the start as well.

Trevor gets extra points for his use of social media and blogging.  The way these are sorted and posted down below is brilliant.

Many sites try to be too artsy and leave the user behind.  Rachael’s site pulls off the scattered design well.

Spark’s site is clean and pretty and does a great job appealing to his target audience.

Get your own great author website! Click here to learn more »

Or, read one of these:

1. 18 Beautiful Websites built with WordPress

photo by Kristina B

There are considerable number of positives to business blogging.  Don’t get me wrong in this article – I think most companies should have a blog.  However, putting a blog on your site is not a quick fix; its not an automatic easy way guarantee that your traffic will boom and your website be a success.  Blogs take time, energy, and more time.  And because of this many blogs on business websites can actually hurt the business.  Few things worse looking on a professional site than a blog with one post, or a blog that hasn’t been updated in months or years.  So, take some time to think about if blogging is right for your business.  My suggestion?  Don’t start a new blog if:

You Aren’t Going to Update Consistently

Of huge importance to your blog is your consistency in posting.  I usually recommend clients try to be able to post 1 new article a week, twice a month at the least.  Even more critical though is the commitment to regular posting.  Its fine to even let your readers know how often you plan on posting to help them know when to come back for more.  Its not always easy (email me for my #1 tip on how to post consistently!), but it is important.

If you aren’t going to post consistently and just plan on updating your site with news about your business – don’t call it a blog!  Just have a Recent News section or something.

You Don’t Have Time

Image by TomStardust

As you might be starting to see, writing a blog is going to take some time.  Make sure you know that and plan for it.  If you see the potential for new business that your blog could bring you (many businesses main source of revenue stems from their blogs), plan to spend time on it just as you would other promotions.  You are planning out time for promoting your business, aren’t you?

You Don’t Know what a Blog is

This might seem silly, but many people think that by adding a blog or setting up a Twitter or Facebook account their company will automatically be inundated with orders from the internet.  Again, it has the potential for that, but it does not come easily.  If you don’t know much about blogs spend some time learning.  Read tops blogs in your industry, read blogs about your favorite hobby, read blogs by your friends.  Respond in their comment section and get involved in the site.  Spend time analyzing and seeing what works and what doesn’t in blogs.  Writing for the web is different than writing press releases or sending an email.  Expose yourself to the blogging world a bit before you dive in.

You Don’t Have a Target Audience

Promoting your business in any way begins with the knowledge of who your target market is.  Big businesses spend millions learning who will be most likely to buy their products and even more figuring out how to reach them.  You should always know who you are trying to get to in your marketing, and this is just as important with your blog (and your website in general).  The more niche a blog is, the better chance it has of standing out in an already hugely crowded market.  Also, knowing who you are writing to can really help you decide what to write about.

You Just Want to Sell Sell Sell

People don’t read blogs just to hear about how great your product or company is.  If you are expecting to draw in readers by just blogging about the latest promotion your store is running you probably have the wrong idea of what a blog is.  People read blogs to be informed of something they are interested in.  Continually tooting your own horn gets old quickly.  Make sure you are giving your readers quality content that benefits them.

You Don’t Want Feedback

The best blogs are a place for community to develop.  Authors may be the originators of the discussion, but responses comes from a huge variety of people and places.  New technologies like blogging are all about hearing from your customers and being able to engage them.  Lastly, don’t assume that all feedback on your blog will be positive (plenty of negative comments here), hearing people’s honest opinions can be tough, but its important to stay honest and transparent – something everyone can appreciate.

–

Still have questions about blogging or if a blog is right for your business?  Go ahead and contact me for free consultation!

Or, read one of these:

1. 4 Ways to get More Traffic to Your Blog
2. Guest Blog Post on Creating a Healthy Work/Life Balance

You can get your own Gravatar really easily at www.Gravatar.com.  Just enter your email address, confirm it when you get the welcome email, and upload your photo!  It will then begin appearing when you enter your email address (usually required anyways) on a Gravatar-enabled website.

Here’s a video that does a good job explaining Gravatars:

Gravatars are easy to implement in WordPress.  Many new WordPress themes have them included, and you can definitely ask for them if you get a custom designed WordPress theme created for you.  Gravatars can be used to show the author of a blog post (especially helpful in you have multiple authors), display who left comments, show regular community members and more.

Designers and developers using WordPress can drop Gravatar functionality anywhere in their code with this line:

  <?php
   echo get_avatar( 'email@address.com', 80 );
   ?>

but there are also plenty of WordPress Plugins for implementing Gravatars in WordPress.  Don’t use WordPress?  Don’t worry – you can get Gravatar code and plugins for a range of other CMS platforms.

I implemented Gravatars in a variety of ways on the Wenatchee Valley Fitness Blog:

And here are some other examples of Gravatars being used nicely:

Most people just use profile pictures for their avatars, but here are some examples of a few really cool Gravatar images:

Need a WordPress blog to connect with your current and potential customers?  I can help!  See examples here or get in contact with me to get started!

Or, read one of these:

1. 10 Excellent WordPress Plugins to Make Your Site Better
2. 18 Beautiful Websites built with WordPress

I’ve been on vacation for a few days and seem to have missed the announcement that Google is releasing their own web browser.  Its called Google Chrome and they’d like you to think its going to tip the browser world on its head.

Google hired the fantabulous comic book artist Scott McCloud to illustrate an online booklet describing the new browser.  In typical the McCloud fashion the artwork is clean and simple, but with wonderful subtle elements.  The booklet gets pretty technical, but is a great way to let people learn about this new product.

Kudos to Google, such a huge company, for using great design and illustration to promote themselves.

Or, read one of these:

1. Wenatchee on Google Map Street View

That makes it all the more beautiful when a website is created in a horizontal fashion and done well at the same time. Such is the case for a new website we found called How To Cook A Wolf. The site is for an (apparently) upscale restuarant in the Seattle area. Georgeous photographs, sparse type, and great layout make this site work. What makes it stand out is the navigation. Visitors have the old option of scrolling across with their scrollbar, but LookAtLao Studio has added JavaScript buttons that slide nicely to the sections of the site.

Makes us wish we would have thought of that.

Or, read one of these:

1. 18 Beautiful Websites built with WordPress

(via cre8d design )

Or, read one of these:

1. Some Links You’ll Love
2. Music for the Flow
3. What is RSS?

our first topic – rss. Have you heard the term RSS but really have no idea what it is or how it may make your life easier? read on for a brief introduction.

RSS in its current incarnation stands for Real Simple Syndication. As the internet continues to evolve more and more emphasis is being placed on website’s content being updated often. this is especially true in the realm of blogs which may be updated multiple times daily. other examples of constantly updated content include news stories, sports scores, photo albums, and forums.

now, if you are interested in getting multiple streams of current content often you could quickly find yourself spending all day going from site to site to check for anything new. this is where rss comes into play and can save you enormous amounts of time. instead of going to find all of this information, you can make it all come to you!

the first step is to download an rss aggregator. one of the most popular is google reader, though there are a variety of free aggregators. some customized homepages like igoogle and myyahoo can also be aggregators.

after you have an aggregator you need to subscribe to a site’s rss feeds. you will often see the rss logo or a ‘subscribe’ link to click on. this will automatically notify your aggregator when the content you have subscribed to has been updated.

now instead of visiting multiple sites, you can just open your aggregator and it will let you see which of your subscriptions have been updated, as well as show you the new content. don’t worry, if you need to go directly to the page that was updated you can do so easily from your aggregator.

finally the best news – real simple syndication is all free! so go ahead and subscribe to this blog for updated tips, ideas, and links – just click the ‘subscribe’ button at the top of the blog page!

Or, read one of these:

1. A New Site for Apt