Ignoring content will be to your detriment.
Yes, I write a lot. I blog 6 days a week, plus my podcast and my fiction works. I probably write on the order of 3000 words a day. Six days a week that’s 18,000 words a week. For the sake of argument, let’s decrease that to 15,000 words a week. Which, in a year, amounts to 780,000 words total. That’s a lot of words (far more than in the English language as a whole).
However, these many, many words aren’t worth a damn towards my brand as an author if they never see the light of day. Which means content.
Content takes a lot of forms. The obvious is books. A book with zero content is a blank journal. Awesome for filling with content, but otherwise a blank canvas.
A website with zero content is non-existent. Or just a page with some form of “under construction” or the like upon it.
You can build a website and then leave it out there for the world to find, see, and explore. But – without updating content regularly it becomes just as obscure as an actor who hasn’t been seen on stage, screen, or film in 25 years.
As a brand, to be seen and appear in searches on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and the like – content is king. That means updating webpages, writing blogs, and keeping the content fresh and ongoing.
Website creation and maintenance
There are a LOT of tools available to you for creating and maintaining a website. Two of the biggest are WordPress and Squarespace. Both of these offer free templates that are fairly easy to use and work on altering so that you can build your presence online.
But once you leave the basics, this gets more complicated. You can do a lot to create an amazing website, but you can also create some pretty impressive garbage, too.
Like anything you write, words matter. If your grammar is crap and you don’t get to your point, nobody’s going to explore your page. What’s more, if your site isn’t mobile-friendly – anyone who reaches it via tablet or phone will run from it rather than explore it.
Like with blogging, search engine optimization (SEO) matters. Fortunately, if you don’t know the current (and ever-changing) SEO rules, there are plugins you can get for WordPress like Yoast SEO. (There are others, but this is what I use). It tells you if you have built a readable page as well as general SEO compatibility.
This is NOT for everyone. I am a VERY basic website content creator. I keep discovering new and awesome tools I can use in WordPress the more I play with it. And that’s not just accounting for cool widgets and plugins. While I know I can benefit from a professional – my sites as I’ve built them are not bad.
If, however, you don’t have this ability – consider hiring someone. The year is 2021. If you have any business of any sort – retail, wholesale, maintenance, real estate service, arts, etc. – and have no website, you might as well not exist.
Other content considerations
Since all of my books are on Amazon, I have an Amazon author page.
I have some control over this page and how it looks. Hence, content is in my control. When I send people to my author page – that will make an impression on them.
What will they see? My bio, the books I’ve written and published, and the RSS feeds from my blogs.
While this can be super helpful and awesome – it can’t be ignored. For example, the book covers of my fantasy series were obviously made by me. This is even more apparent when you compare them to the newest covers I hired an awesome artist to create.
As I am working on editing the 3rd book in my fantasy series (The Source Chronicles) I know the time has come to redo these covers. But rather than wait until I start assembling the 3rd book for publishing, it may be time to do this NOW. Content is king – and what I have in these so/so covers is not very impressive.
This brings up another fun consideration. Blurbs. I’ve had a lot of help in writing stronger, more interesting blurbs for my books. That’s the 2nd impression after the cover. A great cover and lousy blurb won’t draw the reader to acquire the book. And that also appears on the Amazon author page.
The other content to consider is advertising. In addition to focusing on where you advertise – and who your audience is – content matters. Too many words will be disregarded. A bad image will be a turn-off. And this is another factor that might require hiring help (which is what I’ve done).
Lots to consider – and this can be overwhelming. But just being aware of it is the first step.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help
For all the things I know about content creation, and all the places it’s a necessity – there’s more. I am constantly learning new things. And that can be massively overwhelming.
To grow my brand – and ultimately sell more books – I need to do more marketing. Marketing is an industry in-and-of-itself that I’ve worked in before. And for all I’ve done – I still know nothing.
That’s why I sought out help. I hired a marketing company to help me with advertising and looking over my website content to make sure I am not missing opportunities that will ultimately garner more sales.
One of the more frustrating aspects of this, however, is that results are not immediate – and hence I am spending more money currently than I am bringing in.
But that’s part of what I know I need to do to make the most of this and improve my brand recognition.
This can be scary, annoying, infuriating, frustrating, exciting, and challenging. But this is what I desire to do with my life. Writing is my love, and it’s the career I am pursuing.
When I need help, I am not afraid to ask for it. Granted, I’m more scared to pay big money for it – but given my goal, that’s inevitable.
Content is king. Hence why ignoring content at any level will be to your detriment. On your own, or with help – whatever form it takes, do what you can to make the content you share the best that it can be.
Thank you for being part of my ongoing journey, for joining me, and for inspiring me and my craft.
Please take a moment to check out the collection of my published works, which can be found here.
Feel free to explore the rest of the website. Also, visit Awareness for Everyone to check out my weekly podcasts.
Enjoying the website and my endeavors? I’d be grateful if you would consider becoming a patron through my Patreon.
You can subscribe to my newsletter. Fill in the info and click the submit button to the right and receive your free eBook.
Follow me here!
You must be logged in to post a comment.