Writing Website Maintenance

After almost four years of preaching about writers needing websites, it's time to move on to the next logical step to success: maintaining websites. It is debatable if a static site is worse than none at all. Visitors who return a few times and find nothing new, seldom come back. More importantly, fresh new content keeps search engines spidering your site and sending people who search on your keywords to your little corner in the vast web.

A professional also keeps up with developments. If you're going to use new media, be thinking about podcasts and video. Do as I say, not as I do, too. Interactive sites are also "stickier" (keep visitors longer and returning more often). You can achieve the interactivity by participating in at least one social networking service (LinkedIn and Facebook are examples) and integrating it with your website through appearances and links. Much better, however is to develop similar features for your own site.

A third aspect of website maintenance is to analyze your site's statistics. Every host gathers information about website visitors and "logs" them into files that can usually be downloaded and analyzed. Some provide a simple service as part of the hosting package. For the free Cadillac of analysis, sign up for Google Analytics. If you include a blog with your site, many of the blogging services also offer data analysis. Some are initially free, with more data considered for a fee. I use several of these because each tweaks the information a bit differently. Do not depend on Alexa figures, however. Those reports are so bogus, based entirely on data Alexa retrieves only from users of the Alexa tool bar.

Yes, websites are complex to construct and complicated to keep going. If you'd rather spend your time mostly writing and submitting, hire a professional for website maintenance. Accept that it's an ongoing expense, just like your hosting fees and domain registration fees. This is part of what I mean when I urge you to invest in your writing career. No free lunches, remember?