Why The Tech Details Matter

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

 

My life as a writer is filled with many details. These large and small details don’t seem important in some regards but they add up to making a difference.

 

Create It To Open When Clicked

Whenever I add a website link to a blog post, I make sure when someone clicks it, the reader opens a new window and doesn’t click away from the page. This detail is important to keep people on your website and not moving away from where you want them to be reading. On a monthly basis, I write for a website. When the post launched recently, I checked the various links to make sure this advanced feature was initiated. It took a few minutes but I carefully reviewed each one and in many cases added this feature. It’s just one example of where the tech details matter.

 

Tag Others on Facebook

When I post on Facebook, I will often tag others. Why make this additional effort? When you tag someone, Facebook adds your post to their news feed. It is a simple way to get more readers. I’ve seen some people make excessive use of tags. They will tag me when I'm not involved at all in their article so I will remove the tag. Use it wisely and in a limited fashion but do use it. 

 

Use Hashtags with Your Social Posts

For each of my social media posts, I include two hashtags. You can certainly include more than two but the general standard is two. Many people search by hashtags and use it to read social media posts. I include this tool to get some additional readers. 

 

Shorten Your Links in Posts

Many times I’ve seen long website links which are too long and broken. When someone clicks a broken link, they do not reach the intended destination. What is an easy way to prevent this issue from happening to you? Use an online tool to shorten the link. There are a number of these tools. I personally use Bitly but there are many others. It takes some extra time to use it but it is worth it to make sure your material gets read.  

 

Make Your Content Easy To Pass To Others

You've invested the time and energy into writing some content. Make sure you create an easy means for the reader to pass this content to others. There are many technical tools in this area which are simple to set up and use. I use ClickToTweet. I add this tool to the end of each of my blog posts. It takes effort to add this tool to my post. From my own social media, I can see others use my ClickToTweet to pass my articles on to others.

 

Why Do These Boring Actions?

The reality is my time is limited and valuable just like your time.  I want to end this article with some motivation about why these technical details are important. These boring actions help you reach more readers and increase the effectiveness of your taking the time to post it in the first place. Sometimes I want to forget it and not do it—but then I do it because it reaches more readers. Figure out your own motivation to keep going but that's the reason I continue doing it. As I handle these various technical details, I know that it will help the effectiveness of my posts and help me reach more readers. Reaching readers takes priority over boring for me every time.

 

These technical details are a few of the ones I use on a regular basis. Which ones do you use? Let me know in the comments below.

 

My Writing On Other Websites

On a regular basis, I encourage you to write for other websites. Here’s several recent articles that I’ve published on other websites.

Don't Depend 100% on Your Publisher It almost sounds counter-intutitive. Don’t you get a publisher to lean on them? This article gives the reasons.

Five Ways to Break Through the Competition Publishing is a competitive field and I give five ways to stand out from others.

 

A Simple Proposal Formula I boil the book proposal process down to a simple formula and explain the details in this article. 

Tweetable:

The technical details are boring but they matter. This prolific editor and author gives examples and the reason why he does it. Get the details here. (ClickToTweet)

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How to Show Up in Different Places

As writers, we need to show up in different places. If you are reaching the same people over and over with your message, you will not expand your reach and audience. I believe each of us need to consistently work at reaching new and different audiences with our message. In this article, I want to give several specific ideas about how to reach new areas of the market.

Before I give you the specific ideas, there are some basic steps that every author needs to take first. The first step is to create a giveaway or a lead magnet. It can be a free ebook or audio file but something which has value to your target audience (something they will want). You need to set up this giveaway on a website where you capture their first name and email address (which adds them to your email list).

The next step after setting up this giveaway is to learn how some simple HTML which gives a clickable link when you show up in these places. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then click this link and get a single page about creating clickable HTML that I've written). Otherwise you put the effort into showing up—but don't gain any help for your bigger goal (finding new subscribers to your email list). I'm encouraging you to work smart with this larger goal in focus as you show up in these various places.

Make Relevant Comments on Blogs

Most blogs allow you to make comments. I have the comments turned on to monitor on my own blog because often the comments are simply not related to my post and SPAM. When you comment, add to the article with some additional content. As you write a relevant comment with some additional aspects to the post, you will add value to the blog. In addition to your relevant comment, add the HTML link to your free Ebook or some other valuable tool. Make this link clickable and it will be kept (not marked as SPAM) and you will have created another link on a different location where you can get sign ups for your newsletter list. The key word is “relevant” with your comment. Do not SPAM or that impression will also be made.

Actively Participate in Email Discussions

I'm on some writer email lists where I contribute. If I do, as with commenting on blogs, I do add to the content of the discussion (otherwise you are writing spam). At the end of my post, I make a point to include a link to my website. You can be strategic about where you send people with this single link.

Write an article for a Guest Blog

You can also write an article for another blog. This week I exchanged emails with the editor of a well-known writer blog and in her response, she encouraged me to write another article for them. I seized the opportunity and did it. Other blogs include guidelines in their blog about how to become a guest blogger. Look for those guidelines, follow them and send in your article. In the article include some clickable links to your free giveways and you will add more people to your email list. A related way is to become a regular contributor to a blog or website. For the last several years, I've been writing an article once a month for Writers on the Move and here is the link to one of my recent posts as an example. 

Become a regular contributor to a newsletter

 I have a couple of newsletters where I am a regular contributor. They use my complete articles in their newsletter and are grateful to get the content. I am not paid for this work and I don't write original material for them. Often I will lightly rework an old article from my blog. It could be something I wrote several years ago. I give it a new opening sentence and title, then I skim the article to make sure there is nothing that is dated in it (and if I find something I rewrite it). I have set reminders on my phone to send this material every month to these newsletters. They are not a huge time commitment and I make sure each one includes links to valuable content for that reader (yet clickable links for the reader to get on my newsletter list).  

What are the ways you show up in different places? Are you using clickable links in these places which lead people to your free resources (and signing up on your email list)? Let me know in the comments below.

 Tweetable:


Learn four ways to show up in different places and achieve some of your goals from a prolific author and editor. (ClickToTweet)