The Website Revamp

As promised, I am popping back onto the blog to share the website redesign plan.

Also, I like the word “revamp.” It sounds like vampires are probably involved.

It’s not a huge makeover. There’s only so much I can do within the constraints of WordPress, after all.

The catalyst behind the changes is, as previously mentioned, the online author summit I attended last week. I learned that my website has very little in the way of discoverability and stuff that keeps people hanging around. I also learned that boring design things like headlines (H1, H2 text, etc) actually matter if you want people to find you!

I’ve gone over my notes and assembled the beginning of what almost looks like a plan.

Phase 0: Minimal market research. I have a few things I want to look at, so I can make a few decisions about the design. Research is a place where I can get stuck, so I’m setting a timer before I start this part.

Phase 1: Fix book shopping links. Like, can we please get the most basic parts right? lol

Phase 2: Static (mostly) page clean-up and redesign. This includes the Home page and the Contact page, basically the ones that I don’t change very often.

Phase 3: Bonus content pages and navigation design. This will involve some individual pages on the back end for series and stuff.

During this process, I also want to evaluate how well WordPress is serving me. There’s a lot I like about the system here, but I’m well aware of the constraints as well. We’ll see where we end up.

I don’t want to spend too much time on it because I have book projects I need to work on. But what do we think? Questions, comments, concerns? Suggestions?

Oh, I also have a newsletter coming out this week! I might’ve mentioned it Monday, too. It’s about crafting a fictional cult and should go out on Thursday. If you want in on that and/or you’d like a free ebook of flash fiction stories, here is a link for the signup.