Shelagh Watkins - Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine

by Shelagh Watkins
(UK)

Shelagh's site

url of your site:

shelaghwatkins.co.uk

If you know, how much traffic do you get?

statcounter: 21,014 visits; 6,908 first-time visitors.

If you know, how much comes from the search engines?

I couldn't guess accurately but I would say that most of my visitors click on a link they see on another web page (forum, myspace, facebook etc.)

How much money and time have you put into the site?

Hosting and domain fee (approx £22 per year)

Has the site met your expectations? How so? How not?

It has improved as my skills have improved. My Yahoo! blog has received over 31,000 hits and requires much less work to maintain:

360.yahoo.com/shelaghwatkins

Shelagh, thanks for stopping by. And I'm not sure how much advice I can offer. Clearly you know a heck of a lot already! So I'm going to speak to other visitors to this site as much as I speak to you.

Want traffic? Some web experts would say that the top three things you can do are

1) Build Content
2) Build Some More Content
3) Keep Building Content

(Quick explanation: "Content" means text. Words. Why do I say, "Build content" instead of, "Write words"? Because writing your own words and posting them to the web is only one way to build content. Consider this site. Most of the words on the site are written by my visitors, not by me!)

Shelagh, as authors we're taught to be concise. Use the fewest words necessary to convey meaning. Lots of authors turn to the web and try to do the same thing, but the web rewards expansiveness. So we see lots of authors with their one book websites and a sense of minimalism that causes the search engines to decide "there's no there there."

And in most cases, they're right. A site about a book isn't really a site. People scour the web for free information. The only information on the standard one book website is

1) Why I, the author, think you should buy my book
2) How you, the reader, can buy my book

It's kind of silly to think people will arrive in quantity at such a site. I, the reader, know I have millions of books to choose from. Even if I were somehow to stumble upon your site, why would I buy your book? Just because you tell me to? But I already have a list of books a mile long that I haven't yet read, books recommended by people I know and respect!

Your sites are about much more than your books. On your main site, you feature the books and poems of other writers, the artwork of other artists. You feature larger works you've contributed to. Your home page alone has thousands of words.

Words are the net that catch search engine visitors. You have a big net.

Your blog is a marvel of networking, as proven by the traffic. And your generosity continues there, as you feature other authors. (And even mention this site. Thank you!)

I think you know something that most web novices don't. You-you-you attracts more traffic than me-me-me. Giving, in the form of providing free information on well-searched subjects, is what the search engines respect. "'Tis better to give than receive."

Because only by giving (providing that free information) do you GET the visitors to whom you can sell your wares.

And, Shelagh, I think you've been modest. If I'm not mistaken, you've created an entire site for the purpose of letting authors interact and learn from each other at publishedauthors.org. As the Site Administrator you've written 1249 posts (as of this day; a LOT of content) and met and helped a whole lot of other writers.

All three of your sites are generally interlinked, uniting your web presence in a way that search engines recognize. All that activity with other writers has resulted in a ton of them linking to your sites...

Another thing that search engines recognize.

All that said, and despite the fact that your traffic numbers will leave most other authors in complete awe of you, you could be doing better.

shelaghwatkins.co.uk will always be limited by its domain name and its focus on subjects that aren't widely searched. Your search engine traffic will likely always be rather long tail oriented. A site with a self-named domain is never going to rank highly for popular search terms.

Similarly your blog. I don't see a lot of search engine traffic coming its way, though kudos on all the networking traffic!

PublishedAuthors.org is something else again. You have a dynamite domain name and a pretty successful forum, with over 8000 posts and nearly 200 registered users. That's a terrific web presence.

Still, most forums I'm aware of operate in conjunction with a more standard website, and I'm quite confident that a publishedauthors.org website filled with information offered by you in your voice would eventually multiply your web efficacy. (Forums alone are hard to monetize, labor intensive to minister and tend not to attract the kind of search engine respect that a traditional website does - all facts I'm sure you've come to realize!)

What would a full out publishedauthors.org website look like? Well, your forum has the answer. Sections like Marketing and Writing And Publishing could be sections on your website marked off with navbar buttons. Those "2nd Tier" pages could link to deeper pages on the subjects covered in your more specific fora, like Marketing Tips and Marketing Problems.

In writing these pages, you would use the massive knowledge you've accumulated by administering the forums. You would leverage the authority you've gained as the webmaster of publishedauthors.org. Instead of the site having a Google PageRank of 0, you'd likely soar to a 2, 3 or 4 in short order.

I have a just over 2 year old site, Best Children's Books - Find, Read or Write. While your numbers are impressive, I get over 40,000 page views per month from that site. I shudder to think what you could accomplish in adding a true content site to the empire you've already established.

I guess that's what I'm saying: I think you're "leaving a lot of traffic on the table." You've built three legs of what could be a four-legged marvel. You've done much of the hard work already, but (in my opinion) you haven't experienced a fraction of the payoff you could by properly building the fourth leg.

If you want to discuss further, reply by commenting. Thanks for stopping by!