Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie discussion

It has been a long few weeks, but after lots of research, questions, and yes...a few tears I have finally done it. I have created a website! Before announcing the website to my readers, I thought I would run it by my Goodreads family first. Feedback is greatly appreciated. Please, if you give feedback and I don't implement it, don't think I didn't like what you had to say. Most likely I am still trying to figure out how to do it lol. :) Here is the link: http://www.talkingtalesbooks.com

I really love the site and you've done a great job. here are just a few observations:
Strengths:
-Clean interface, mobile responsive
- Easy to navigate, user friendly
- The basics are covered in an organic layout
- Including a review snippet for each book in your series was a great idea - social proof is a powerful catalyst for book buyers.

Challenges:
- It should be immediately clear what your site is about within 3 seconds so I suggest a tagline.
- You should include a gallery of your titles that is either static or uses a carousel. People are visual and you don't want them to have to click anything to get a glimpse of your product. The book is the thing!
- Instead of a branded Amazon button you should have a large, easy to read call to action button such as BUY NOW or GRAB YOUR COPY or BUY HERE or something similar.
-- You should have a contact page in case people have questions or comments for you beyond connecting with you on social media.
- You should have a share bar iin addition to a connect bar. You want people to share your info to their own networks easily and organically.

Did you decide on wordpress.com or .org?

Again, I really love what you've done. Major points for keeping the work front and center.

Hi Erica. First off, I think it looks great. I immediately knew what the site was about (it look as though you may have already implemented some of Erin's suggestions - quick work!) and it is a clean design.

The below are some ideas that might improve things, but are offered as suggestions so please feel free to ignore or implement as you see fit :)

You have a lot of unused space in your footer bar. I would remove the search box and add social media links (eg your facebook, goodreads, amazon). That way, they appear on every page as well as on your Follow page. I would remove the search box only because you have a limited number of pages at the moment - everything is already easy-to-locate so I don't feel I need a search option as a user.

Could you have a call-to-action on the home page as well? Adding a "buy now" (or similar) to the bottom of the page may encourage people to click through to your Amazon page, as well as having this next to each book. Or, an internal link to the books page, if you would prefer to keep them on your site a little longer.

I'm not sure what the favicon image is? Could you use one of your illustrations (eg the one from the home page or the follow page) instead? The squares don't really communicate the sense of your page to me, I'm afraid.

It's looking good, though. Congratulations on getting this out there!

Thank you very much for the feedback Erin and Jon. I am working on implementing some of those ideas. :) Originally I wanted a home page with images of my books or a slideshow gallery, but I am still trying to figure out how to add it. I also agree with the social media share links and social media links in my footer, but that is another option I am trying to figure out how to add. My theme did not automatically come with those options but there has to be a way to add them.

Erin, I decided to go with .org

Jon, this may be a stupid question but what is a favicon image?

Thanks again for the input and a huge thanks to everyone who has provided me input along the way!!!

Erica, email me and I will be happy to walk you through step by step. I love wp.org. here's my address: (view spoiler)[[email protected] (hide spoiler)]

Erica wrote: "Jon, this may be a stupid question but what is a favicon image?"

Not a silly question at all. My fault for dropping into jargon!

It's the tiny image that appears next to your website name in the tab at the top of your web browser.

When I open your site (I'm using Firefox) and look at the tab at the very top, it shows "Talking Tales | Fun books for speech development" (which is great, good description) and, next to that, an image of some squares.

Similarly, at the top of my current tab (the goodreads one) I can see a small cream/brown "g" image. This is the image I was referring to.

Using an image that reflects your site is handy for when users have multiple tabs open in their browsers. They can scan along and easily pick out your site by the little image you use.

In your wordpress dashboard go to Appearance, then Customize, and click on Site Identity. You should see a "Site Icon" section and an option to change the image.

Please let me know if you run into any issues and I'll be happy to help.

Jon wrote: "Erica wrote: "Jon, this may be a stupid question but what is a favicon image?"

Not a silly question at all. My fault for dropping into jargon!

It's the tiny image that appears next to your websit..."

Great instructions, thanks! I did my logo that I use for my social media. I may need to make my words a little bigger though. Or just go with a character picture like you suggested earlier.

Very clean, uncluttered, and to the point! I can't tell you how many author sites I've visited lately that have a) had the content too wide, so it's hard to take everything in at once, and b) has so much on the sidebars -- stuff that's not integrated, even -- it's almost painful to look at, as well as making it hard to actually find stuff. I appreciate that the buttons are clear and easy to understand, and there aren't, say, three buttons in different places leading to the same thing, with half the other buttons not actually working. It loaded quickly, without unnecessary bells and whistles slowing it down. As for criticisms / suggestions, I think everyone else has them pretty well covered. :) All I would add is, maybe as a point of interest, you could have a page of links to resources on speech development -- maybe there's even a group you could become an affiliate with?

Thanks Wolfen! :) I actually have a resource page in my future plans. I hope to have articles with tips for parents as well as activity/craft ideas related to each book.

Hi Erica.

I had another thought and I wanted to mention it briefly. You might want to consider upgrading your web address to https:// from http://

Two reasons for this: you are collecting data from people on the Follow page and having https will give better security for that data, and I also think that Google are giving priority to sites on https over http (and you want to avoid anything that penalises you in Google search rankings).

The s means you have better security through having encryption when information is passed from a user's computer to yours/where your website is. I am not techy enough to explain it (or understand it!) much more than that I'm afraid, but I managed to install it on my wp.org site and I remember it was a relatively simple process. There are paid-for options, but there is also a fairly new free option that can do the same job.

This article might help http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorial...

Thank you for the tip Jon. The upgrade is processing :)