This month-long series of blog posts will explain author websites and offer tips and writing strategies for an effective author website. It alternates between a day of technical information and a day of writing content. By the end of the month, you should have a basic author website up and functioning. The Table of Contents lists the topics, but individual posts will not go live until the date listed. The Author Website Resource Page offers links to tools, services, software and more.
Mine Your Interests for Blog Posts
Running out of ideas? Here are 5 other suggestions on how to do riffs on your topics.
Write a list of 10 titles for blog posts. Ex. 10 Things to Include on Your Author Website.
Turn that around and write the negative of the post, as a warning. Ex. 10 Things to Leave Off Your Author Website.
Turn in around again with humor or sarcasm. Ex. Top 10 Worst Author Websites.
Look at the list and find something timely to write about each. Ex. How Google’s Hummingbird SEO Update will Affect Your Author Website.
Take a topic from your list and predict the future. Ex. Why Pattison’s Website Topped 2 Million Hits in 2014.
Look at the list and take a historical slant. Ex. Then and Now: Darcy’s Author Website. This image shows my website on November 7, 2001. WOW! Even then, I liked red and black to brand a site.
Snapshot of my website from November 7, 2001.
Your goal for today is to write 5 most posts, for a total of 15. Get them scheduled. You don’t have to schedule one for every single day. Spread them out! Maybe 2 or 3 a week. You can fill in with spontaneous posts, of course, but this should get your site up and going for a month or two. Write!
A quick list of post topics I have in the hopper, lest I forget.
• the ways I use social media and how I might improve/streamline
• making chicken tikka masala and naan for the first time—so yummy!—and a couple of questions I have
• I have more to say about The Kitchen Madonna
• TBR pile crackdown
• kids’ sewing books/kits—I never did do the series of reviews I was planning on this topic back in Lilting House days
• my favorite gardening literature
• I have such a great interview with author Julianna Baggott waiting to be posted! Planned it for last week but more kids got sick. And so it goes…
Feel free to add suggestions in the combox. I know I’ve missed some questions here and there that I meant to answer. 
When you're starting a blog, you probably have the best intentions of blogging every day. And at first, blogging is so much fun! You share your opinions and thoughts on a subject you know about, you receive a few comments, and you're hooked. Then comes month three and four, and blogging has lost its newness. So, even though you've heard time and time again that when starting a blog, you should blog every day or on a regular schedule, it seems like it's not so important any more.
This happened to me with my blog, "Read These Books and Use Them." I just couldn't keep up with reviewing a children's or YA book a day AND providing activities for the book for parents and teachers. I knew my traffic wasn't good, and my blog wasn't what it could be.
So, I set up a daily blogging schedule (which is only five-days a week, M through F), and this helps me stay on track. It also keeps the repetition down and my excitement level up. I took each day of the week and made it a certain topic or theme. I have Maniac Mondays, which is like an opinion piece on the educational/homeschooling world today, and Tuesday Tales and Un-Forgettable Fridays--these are like my old format where I provide key information and activities about books for parents, teachers, and librarians. Finally, I made up Wacky Wednesdays and Timeless Thursdays. Wacky Wednesdays are where I provide some sort of lesson idea/plan for teachers, which could be a bit wacky and sometimes based on a book. Timeless Thursdays features an older book like Mrs. Piggle Wiggle that children still love and can learn from today.
I've seen blogs with certain days for giveaways, certain days for photos only--Wordless Wednesdays--. and certain days for interviews. You just have to look at the focus of your blog, brainstorm a little, and figure out some topics that you could stick to each day. This doesn't mean that you can't blog about something else on one of these set days if something really exciting happens. But in the morning when your brain might be a little foggy, you already have a start on what to blog about. Blogging every day helps build readership, gets your blog posted higher on the search engines, and provides monetizing opportunities. If you are interested in any of these but you are struggling, try a blog schedule in 2010.
Happy Blogging!
Margo Dill
http://margodill.com/blog/
photo by joyosity www.flickr.com
For Diana (of St. Fiacre's Garden) and others who who find some winter holiday songs completely unbearable, here is my Advent and Christmas mix. It's called "Love Past All Measure," a line taken from "Lullaby from Poland" by Madeline MacNeil. "Coventry Carol" by Loreena McKennitt, is of course for after Christmas, and it's a wretchedly sad song. Then again, even the proportedly merry tunes have
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I try to post a well-crafted essay at least twice a week and most weeks I achieve this. I think the pressure to write every day results in a whole lot of crap out there in the blogosphere and digging through it to find the writing gems is a chore in and of itself. I would rather see less and have it be good and I will support a good writer, returning to read them faithfully, even if they only post once a month.
Jayne,
I agree that there is a lot of crap in the blogging world, but I don't know if it is all from people who are trying to blog every day. There are some successful and well-done blogs with bloggers that do post every day. (Hopefully mine is one of them.) That said, I do have to say that many writers do not take enough time with their blog posts and do not treat them like the whole world can see them. And BTW, the whole world can see them! :) I guess the answer is you have to pick what works for you. I am merely suggesting that if you want to write on your blog every day that a schedule can actually help you post more well-written and thought-out posts than not. Just my two cents.
Margo :)
http://margodill.com/blog/
I agree with your idea for a schedule, and most certainly there are some well-done blogs with new posts every day, yours being absolutely among them, but you are clearly a professional, as am I. Many out there are new at writing and have not yet learned to distinguish quality from quantity. In the quest to get-and-keep followers, they often pressure themselves to put something -- anything -- on their blogs, when by just doing steady good work the followers will come (and stay) naturally. Does that make sense?
Oh, Jayne, you are too kind. :)
I completely, 100% agree with you.
Margo
Thanks for some nice ideas!
Question: What happens if the best time of day to write and post on the blog happens later in the afternoon? I would think that defeats the purpose of attracting readers at the beginning of the day, yes?
Elisa
Elisa, good writing attracts readers much more so than the time of day you post it. Write when it's best for you to do so and your writing will be its best.
Hi Elisa:
I think not everyone has time to read blogs in the morning; so if you want to post in the afternoon, then your readers will know that. If you want blog posts to go live in the morning but you are not able to write them then, Wordpress and Blogger have ways to schedule posts for the next day. SO, you could write your post in the afternoon and then schedule it to go live the next morning if you are more comfortable with that.
Margo :)
Thank you both for excellent advice -- I'm making it a New Year's Resolution!