Crafting a catchy website
Crafting a Catchy Website
Gone are the days when it was enough to have a portfolio of one’s work in a folder. A crisp printed resume might not ever be looked at. A printed copy of your 300-page novel may never need to be printed for a publishing proposal. But in the twenty-first century, every author, filmmaker, actor, musician, or small businessman will need a website.
Websites are a lifeline in publicity today. They are one of the most essential tools for building any foundation in marketing and publicity. And although at first crafting and constructing a website may seem daunting, it will allow you to convey who you are—your brand, your message, your project—in a clean and compelling way.
It is only too easy to overload your website with too much information. So the first thing you may want to decide is: Who is your audience? Should your website be primarily image-based with key icons and links, or should it have a more literary-bent? Should you use a serif or a sans-serif font? Should you have a Bio page? Where should the contact information be located? How prominent should your (book, music CD, artwork) be on the homepage?
Make it concise. Lots of visuals, short videos, and blunt quotations will help guide your audience through your website. The last thing you want to do is to overload your site and overwhelm visitors. Avoid too many pages, if possible. Do your best to simplify, clean up, and clarify before you launch your site to the world.
Once your site is up, Google can be an incredible tool to check to see how many visitors come to your website. You can get started at: http://www.google.com/analytics/
It can also be incredibly valuable to have material that will draw your audience back for more and keep them in touch—such as a newsletter, blog, giveaways that you can create a consumer email list.
Sherri Rosen @ Tyler Blanski, Sherri Rosen Publicity, New York City
Tags: authors, publicist nyc, publicity nyc, sherri rosen publicity nyc, small business, websites
This entry was posted on Saturday, October 15th, 2011 at 7:36 am and is filed under Clients, Friends and Colleagues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
