Moving right along, we have another blog review today for TriciaJOBrien.blogspot.com. I’m beginning to run out of cute things to say here, so let’s jump right in, shall we?
Kathleen’s comments
Tricia,
Your blog doesn’t have bells and whistles and graphics and so forth, so I was immediately led to start reading your posts . . . and I saw instantly that you’re a very natural writer. Your words seem to flow from your mind through your fingers. And if you struggle with grammar or syntax, you hide it VERY well! (I really, really doubt it. Your words flow too effortlessly, your voice is too clear, and people don’t spend months editing blog posts!)
I never really did find what the goal of your blog was, though. Is it primarily for you, as a method of self-expression? If so, then who cares what it looks like!
The fact that you asked for this review, however, makes me think that you ARE hoping this blog achieves something. It doesn’t appear that you’re trying to promote your own writing, since a skim down through the posts showed me nothing along those lines. Are you trying to build a small community? Just meet people online? Right now this blog is a pretty clear reflection of you, as a person, and your love of words. 
It’s not a reflection of your stories or books or poems, or of a particular genre. Do you want it to be?
I’m not really sure what to suggest, since I don’t know what that goal is. But think about it. This is where every website should start . . . with a careful assessment of what the goal of the website (or blog) is, what you hope it will achieve, and who you hope to reach with it. Everything else needs to follow that.
I’ll try to watch the comments over the weekend (which is sometimes difficult). Let me know what you’d like this website to accomplish, and I’ll see if I have some ideas that might help you achieve that.
–Kathleen MacIver / KatieDid Design.com
Jordan’s comments
If I were guessing (oh, wait, I am!), I’d put your blog in the get ready phase—you’re networking with other writers, and discussing writing with them. Your blog is a good way to make sure that other writers can connect with you, and to start building a community.
Having the Followers widget high on the sidebar encourages your visitors to become followers—the prominent placement is visible on every page load, and it also promises 24 lucky readers their headshots on your front page. You can also directly mention the following option, explain it to your readers, or even run a contest for followers if that’s your goal. (More on Blog Followers). You could also use a subscribe widget in the sidebar to encourage your visitors to subscribe via RSS or email.
I can see from your site and its content that you like to write. But I can’t tell what you’re writing—whether you’re a hobbyist or trying to make a career of it (nothing is wrong with either of those, of course, but I just don’t know). I can’t tell what genre(s) you’re working in.
After a little digging, I found your post from Teaser Tuesday earlier this month, with the beginning of your WIP. You could feature that post more prominently—with a menu bar or a link in the sidebar—to help visitors know that you’re an active writer, working toward publication, in YA fantasy.
You mention that you were once a newspaper writer. Would you care to go into any more detail, maybe link to some columns? You could also write an “About me” post, and link to it in a menu bar or sidebar, so we can learn more about you right away. Even in the get ready phase, it’s important to have “You” in an accessible format on your site—people like to network with people. (On that note, you have your email on your Blogger profile, but a lot of people probably won’t think to check there. I know I harp on this, but seriously—contact page!)
Search engine presence
You’ve got some professional competition for [Tricia O’Brien]—a real estate agent who’s working for that top slot.
However, for [Tricia J O’Brien], your blog is in the top two spots and your Blogger profile is #3. Woot! Rounding out the top ten are two more references to you on JacketFlap.com, and some kind of random stuff.
Yahoo has your blog as #5 for [Tricia J O’Brien]. It’s outranked by posts mentioning you at Literary Lab, Corey Schwartz’s blog and JacketFlap.com.
Bing . . . sigh. Why, Bing, why? We’re right here! Look us in the eyes! Yeah, they got nothing. Not even close.
(Out of curiosity, I also searched for [Talespinning.] Only Google had your blog in the top ten, at #4.)
Okay, so you’re doing good on Google, but you could be doing better on Yahoo and Bing. My advice has been repeated so many times that I’m sure we’re all getting tired of it: get links. Guest blog. Write articles. You have lots of writerly friends out there, get them to link back to your blog. Get these posts that mention your name (as a source, as the author of a writing sample they’re critiquing) to link to your blog.
You have great content and great community on your blog—with the right direction, you can grow your blog even more.
What do you think? What goals have you set for your website? How did you choose them? How have goals helped your site to grow?
Photo credits—Book heart: Piotr Bizior
Wow Kathleen and Jordan,
This is so awesome of you. I’m really grateful. I was out-of-town for two days and came back to find this wonderful review of the blog.
I am a complete newbie to blogging. This is my first blog, and I started it in May. I wrote for years as Pat O’Brien for a daily newspaper, and published haiku under Patricia and won a fiction contest using PJ. But before starting the blog, I ran all the variations of my name and found countless pubs, frat boys, other writers already all over the web. The only name that didn’t turn up a lot was Tricia J. O’Brien, hence my new name.
Kathleen, the goal is to build community with other writers and/or people who love reading stories. Hopefully, I would be in position to promote any books I get published by already being part of a writing community. I write across genre, but do have a couple of YA fantasy novels in the works. I thought if I get published, I would need a website and perhaps either different pages for various genres or even another site.
Jordan, yes, I’m in the get-ready phase. I’m a pro writer but not yet published in fiction. I read what you said to other people you reviewed about the contact page and I will try. I had chosen the easiest thing to set up since I’m limited in my tech skills.
I will read your comments through several times, as well as the other reviews, to try to do what I can to improve it. Again, thanks a billion times for this.
Oh, dear. I’m supposed to talk about my writing on my blog? 😉 I do remember to occasionally, mostly about a WIP. I add in writerly thoughts. I fear I may not have mentioned my genre.
I’m barely in the get ready phase! Oh, my!
Thanks so much for your helpful posts!
Hi Tricia!
You said your goal was to build community, so let’s consider that.
The next question is: WHO do you want to build community with? “All writers” is a goal that’s too broad. I’m guessing you’re like most of us and would love to find writers who’d have interests in common. Perhaps YA. Perhaps Poetry.
How about another question?
Pretend there are thirty other aspiring authors/writers out there who are exactly the type of people you’d love to meet and get to know online through your blog. What makes those thirty different from the other thousands out there?
For example…I’m not really all that interested in meeting horror writers. Yes, I know they’re probably great people, and there are probably a few that I could be good friends with…but we all know that loving the same types of books is a very powerful and significant indicator of friendship. And I don’t read horror. At all. So it’s very likely that I am not going to share as many interests with a horror writers as I am with a sweet romance author, or a YA author.
Why am I asking this question? Well…when those thirty future friends of yours happen across your site, HOW will they know that YOU are a prospective friend of theirs? If they read 5 or 10 of your posts, they might sense that you’re “kindred spirits” (to quote Anne Shirley), but what if they’re in a hurry?
Sooo…what can you do to portray YOUR interests and tastes in less than three seconds? (Because that’s about how long you have to catch your visitor’s interest.) Maybe adjust your catchphrase slightly. ie: “celebrating poetry and _insert genre_ young adult fiction.” …something that narrows your field of interest down, from “all the written works and authors that history has every known” to a much, much, much more specific group of writing and authors that will be the common bond between you and your followers.
See what other ideas you can come up with. Put yourself in your prospective friend’s minds…if you happened across one of their sites, what two or three things, that you’d notice right off the bat, would tell you, “Hey, this is someone I’m interested in!” Now add those two or three things to YOUR site.
Feel free to ask again, if you have an idea and aren’t sure how to go about implementing it!
Katie: You’ve given me lots to think about. I may need another site for YA once published, something friendly to younger readers. But as a writer I really do work across genres. I’ve written mainstream, fantasy and even a horror short and a picture book. I like stories of many kinds, and I like writers who work in different material, as well.
I understand that romance writers and picture book writers and horror writers get a lot out of working with people in the same genre because there are specific requirements for each. And maybe I need to focus on one area, but I love it all. And some of my favorite authors, such as Neil Gaiman, Ursula LeGuin and Jane Yolan, also write across genre.
What could I do? Put up WIP sidebars giving the story pitch or snippets?
I do understand what you are saying and realize the blog is vague in that respect. Thanks for taking so much time. You’re fantastic!
Hmmm…
Well, here’s the thing. It’s perfectly fine loving all genres. But the thing is, in order for something to succeed in today’s world, where the whole world is essentially connected and available to everyone, is that you have to find a niche…a smaller target or focus. We all can’t “afford” to be interested in everything and involved in everything, so we “weed out” what is slightly less important. We look for that thing that interests us 101%.
Your website/blog will be more likely to succeed if you find SOMETHING to center it around…something a little more specific than just “writing.” If you don’t want to center it around a genre, then you can center it around your location, and try to find writers near you. Or you could target writers in your age group. (I have no idea what age you are, but I can imagine that grandmother writers would love to have a place to gather, or that moms of teens might, etc.) Or you could center it around writers-who-live-in-the-country. You could even pick something quirky, like writers who love yellow or writers who love to go barefoot. Of course you’d welcome writers (and readers) who love pink a little more than yellow, or writers who really don’t go barefoot all that often…but just the fact that it’s got this “grabby” idea…like barefoot talespinning…will make your visitors more interested, and also make your blog stick in their minds a little more.
Have some fun with ideas!
This all reminds me, I recently did a couple posts on my other blog about finding your blog niche and expressing your blog niche. Those might be able to help a little, too.