Make Your Website The Bomb

Want to make your website hot? Make it the bomb? Previously, I'd posted Make Your Website Sticky. Sticky is the word commonly used to describe a site that attracts visitors and makes them stay on site.

How do you accomplish this? Exactly what can you do to make your website appealing to visitors?

Right Techniques

Whether you're a writer or a business person, the techniques used to create a website that's desirable are the same.

If you're a writer, you want to create and maintain a website that web surfers, hopefully readers, will want to visit, want to stay there at length, and return time after time. If you're a business person, you want the same thing. Both of you are trying to sell a product.

Writer's Product

In the case of the writer, the product is you and/or your books. In the case of the business owner, the product is an item you retail on your website. You both go about it the same way with minor variations based on your identity.

What you want to do with your website is what Barnes and Noble did with their bookstores. You remember how book stores just sold books back in the old days? Well, Barnes and Noble changed all that by putting in coffee bars.

What this did was create a social atmosphere, a community. No longer was this just a place to go buy a book. Now, it was a place to meet friends over a cappuccino. Sure, you could browse books and gift items and buy, and the social atmosphere that was created encouraged all that.

More Opportunity To Buy

The longer you hung out at the coffee bar, the greater the chance that you'd think of another book you'd been intending to get, or someone would mention a book and you'd go find it. The coffee bar experience brought MORE people into the store, and they stayed LONGER. They made the store sticky.

How do you apply that methodology to website design? You use proven techniques like the 3 Cs: Content, Community, Commerce.

Takeaway Truth

Come back next week for a lesson on using the 3 Cs to make a website that will pull in the visitors and keep them there.

Website Updated

Monday here at Sling Words is slow. Maybe because yesterday was the Super Bowl. I must say the game ended up being a lot more exciting than I'd expected. Though I didn't have an emotional investment in either team, I found myself rooting for the Packers.

I spent today wrapping up some loose ends from January and diving into February's work. One of those February projects was to finish the update of my website.

Highlights

Changes were made to each page -- new writer promotion products in The WRITE Way ads, links checked, some of my new book covers featured -- but you'll be especially interested in the new feature articles. Here's the Cliff Notes version of the update.

• interview with author Jacqueline Seewald appears on Running With Words 
• the newsletter has an entertainment piece entitled Me, Merlot, and Mr. Hottie: A Tale of Aliens and New Mexico Wine 
• also in Wordplay, the subscription newsletter, is an article for writers Writing for Beginners & Pros: 5 Ways to Educate and Entertain. 

Takeaway Truth

Drop by for a visit any time.

Football on Super Bowl Sunday

Since today is the BIG game, I'm giving you a selection of quotations from some of the games' greatest players and coaches.

Joe Namath, New York Jets

"Football is an honest game. It's true to life. It's a game about sharing. Football is a team game. So is life."

Merlin Olsen, Los Angeles Rams

"Football linemen are motivated by a more complicated, self-determining series of factors than the simple fear of humiliation in the public gaze, which is the emotion that galvanizes the backs and receivers."

Dick Butkus, Chicago Bears

"When I played pro football, I never set out to hurt anyone deliberately - unless it was, you know, important, like a league game or something."

Frank Gifford, New York Giants

"Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors."

Roger Staubach, Dallas Cowboys

"Nothing good comes in life or athletics unless a lot of hard work has preceded the effort. Only temporary success is achieved by taking short cuts."

Terry Bradshaw, Pittsburgh Steelers

“I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid.”

Archie Manning, New Orleans Saints

"I never intended to stay in New Orleans, ... [But] along the way, New Orleans was really good to me. We were the only pro team in town. We weren't too good, but the fans were passionate about the Saints and extremely good to me and my family."

Coach Vince Lombardi, Green Bay Packers

"The Dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price."

Coach Tom Landry, Dallas Cowboys

"Football is an incredible game. Sometimes it's so incredible, it's unbelievable."

Coach Don Shula, Miami Dolphins

I don't know any other way to lead but by example.”

Coach Bum Phillips, Houston Oilers

"Winning is only half of it. Having fun is the other half."

Takeaway Truth

Let's go have some fun. Enjoy the game!

EZ Ways To Promote

Here are 6 easy ways to promote your book, your name, your brand.

1. Befriend Amazon. Every time you order a book or anything at all from them, write a review and post it on the Amazon webpage for that item.

2. Spread your URLs around. Add to your signature on your emails and forums, but make sure you follow the rules. Also add your URLs to print media from business cards to stickers you place on every envelope you mail.

3. Start slow, get comfortable, pick up the pace. If you’re shy or new to self-promotion, start slow so you can get comfortable with the concept and the practice. Pick 1 thing and begin. That might be commenting in an online list or forum. Read what others say and add a comment if you have something germane to the discussion. It's like a cocktail party so get your chit chat on. When you're comfortable doing that, add 1 more thing. Don't lose sight of the need to have time to write.

4. Rehearse. Practice talking about your book. Do it in front of the mirror. Do it with your family. Set up a mock TV set in the den and have your kids interview you a la Oprah or Regis/Kelly style. Get comfortable talking about your book and yourself. This will pay off the next time you’re asked, “What do you do?”

5. Write articles and post them for free to some of the credible article sites online. You’ll have created an account there beforehand so you can write your bio and link to your website or blog, both if it’s allowed. When an article is used, your byline and linkage goes with the article. Be sure and choose an article site that has good content. You don't want to be associated with a site where the content is full of grammar errors or is scraped from other sites.

6. Tour the Internet. Ask your friends to let you guest blog and set up your own blog tour. Take the readers from one blog to the next as you move through the day or the week.

Takeaway Truth

There are many ways to promote that cost nothing monetarily, only a bit of time. When your promotion budget is low or non-existent, online promotion may make a difference.

3 Hot Drinks For Cold Weather

Since the whole country seems to be locked in a freezer, let's all make a kettle of a warm, soothing beverage.

3 Hot Drinks For Cold Evenings

Spiced Cranberry-Apple Punch

Adjust the quantities depending on how much you want to make.

Into a saucepan, pour 2 same-size bottles of juice -- 1 apple and 1 cranberry. Add the peel of 1 orange, a few cinnamon sticks, and a few cloves if you like that taste.

Bring to a simmer. At this point you can serve it then reduce the heat to keep it warm. If you'd like to kick it up a notch, add a shot of any of these liqueurs: Frangelico, Amaretto, Cherry liqueur, applejack, brandy, or rum. The quantity depends on the quantity of juice you've used.

Old Fashioned Cocoa

I think the best cocoa is the recipe on the back of the can of Hershey's Cocoa Powder. You'll need the cocoa powder, milk, sugar, and a dash of salt. Make a cup or a batch using that recipe. When you bring it to a simmer, add a splash of heavy cream, stir. Turn heat off and add a splash of Kahlua. Again, adjust the splashes based on the quantity of beverage you made. Top with a big marshmallow.

Irish Coffee

Irish Coffee is my all time favorite. To make 4 cups, brew some strong coffee. Pour into cups and add 1 jigger of Irish Whiskey (I like Old Bushmills.). Stir, top each cup with a nice dollop of whipped cream. You can sprinkle with cinnamon and/or nutmeg if you like. I don't.

Takeaway Truth

Sipping hot beverages is a tried and true way to feel warm during the winter.

Punxsutawney Phil

It's official. Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning. That's supposed to mean that we'll have an early spring. Since today is the coldest day we've had so far, an early spring will be welcome.

However, I think we'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, I think I'll just watch one of my favorite Bill Murray movies, Groundhog Day, directed by Bill's buddy, Harold Ramis. Several networks are running it 24/7.

The movie also stars Andie MacDowell. Not only is this movie laugh out loud funny but also it's romantic and has a wise message that reminds us to make the most of life.

Takeaway Truth

Heartwarming movies make the most of cold nights.

8 Rules for a Happy Writing Career

Tee fromCafePress.com/WriteWay

Let's start the new month with some Common Sense Rules that will help you have a Happy Writing Career.

1. Don't let other people's ideas about what constitutes literature affect your writing.

2. You must sell a product a buyer wants. Publishing is a business driven by the bottom line. Do the research to find out what publishers want to buy. How? Read widely, network, join professional writers' organizations.

3. Learn to want what the market wants. This is similar to #2 above, but it's more of a philosophical thing. My husband is an energy trader. One of the first things he said he learned is that you must want what the market wants. If the markets are moving up, then you must want to take a position that takes advantage of upward motion. If the publishing market is moving toward a particular genre, find something about that genre that really appeals to you. Then create your own niche within that genre.

4. There is no one way to succeed. What works for Nora Roberts, Stephanie Meyer, or James Patterson may not work for you. Learn what works for you.

5. Know yourself. In order to successfully create, you must know your abilities, aptitudes, desires, and commitment to your goal.

6. Don't be a literary snob. Every genre out there exists because there's an audience for it. Respect what other people write and read.

7. Don't think your words are carved in granite. Any agent or editor will tell you they're not. Learn to take editorial guidance without getting upset.

8. Writing should be fun. If you're not having fun, take a step back and figure out what's killing your joy.

Takeaway Truth

Print this list and post it over your computer as a reminder. Then go forth and write.