The Writing Life: Why The Tech Details Matter

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.