Category: WebsitesCategory: Websites

This comment from Zaskoda post, re: Publish on your own site, syndicate elsewhere on Hacker News is gold:

We followed this practice at a Non-Profit I volunteered for some years ago. For us, it was motivated by a few reasons:

– we trained the community around us to look to our website first for the most recent news and information

– we did not want a social media platform to be able to cut us off from our community (on purpose or accident) by shuttering accounts or groups

– we did not want to require our users have accounts on any 3rd party platforms in order to access our postings

Get people used to the idea of visiting your site, guard against losing touch with your audience because a 3rd party site cuts you off, and make your information accessible for anyone with a web browser (not everyone has an account on whatever social media account you’re posting to).

This is absoutely what I’m doing here at Social Media Escape Club – everything gets published to my site first, and bits and pieces (never the full post) ends up on the Substack platform.

Before seeking more (subscribers, audience, fans), seek flow. This is something I bring up a lot through my Email Guidance offering.

Is your website set up in a way that pulls people in? Or is it a bunch of links to third party platforms that seek only to monetize and collect data from your fans?

Does your sales page include comforting and informative videos about what you offer? Or do you only post those sorts of videos on Instagram for just 3% of your followers to see?

Does your store have more than one item (this one from Laura Kidd 💌 Penfriend) in stock?

We want to expand and grow our audience, but stepping back and making subtle changes to our current operations might be a better place to start.

This from Davin Trail-Risk: “a tip for people making their own websites… you don’t have to “finish” it before you make it live. The joy of websites is that they can be living changing things.”

You probably don’t need to officially “launch” your website. You don’t need even need to announce it.

Simply start linking to your website from your newsletter and various other places. When a podcast host or someone asks you where they can find you online, just give them the URL of your website. Print your website address on postcards and flyers and hand them to friends, or leave them in coffee shops.

If you’re still using one of those Link In bio services (here is mine), take some time to clean it up. My god, I’ve seen some artists with 50+ links in those things. Do you expect fans to dig through all those? More choices just means your fans aren’t even going to click anything.

Consider putting all the things you’re linking to (YouTube videos, music, upcoming appearances, store) on your own website, then just simply linking to your website. One link to rule them all.

I worked with artist IKSRE via my Email Guidance offering, where we swapped emails about getting Instagram followers to their Substack email list, clarifying her live offerings, and their website.

They were originally on Square Space, but I introduced them to my WordPress guy Tommy and now they have this great new site!

Note the lead image which says THIS IS ME, then the “latest from the blog.” This shows things are current, updated, “this is what I’ve been doing lately.”