New dates added; a web design adage

It’s a question I like to bring up with clients I have in my dayjob web design business.

“Why is a web designer’s website like a builder’s house?”

If you work for clients, you’ll have noticed that if you have to do that work for yourself, it’s always a lower priority. The customer comes first. You have less time and energy to spend on your personal projects when you’re off trying to make things absolutely perfect for someone else. It ends up with you having a huge backlog at home, and are always having to catch up with yourself.

The electricians with flickering lights at home, the chefs who eat a ready meal after a long day on their feet, the mechanics who drive old clunkers; there are plenty of examples. You get the point.

When I talk about “builders’ houses”, it’s a wry acknowledgement of these difficulties. So, a contractor might do amazing work for their customers, finish everything to the highest of standards, but in their own home they keep meaning to fix the porch steps, and the new coat of paint in the living room will have to wait.

Websites, it turns out, are very similar.

Do what I say, not what I do.

I constantly remind clients to keep their websites up to date, filled with fresh and accurate content, or they will actually be harming their brand.

Let’s imagine a scenario. A customer comes to your website. It looks dated. The contact form isn’t working on the latest browsers. The last blog post was five years ago. Why would you buy from this company?

As a web designer, I am somewhat of a hypocrite. I should be updating my blog at least once a month. I should keep all my sites as tuned for performance as I would my client’s. I should be checking my stats daily.

But I’m only human.

So here I’m addressing it by adding a new blog post and hoping that it helps people see the site’s alive and kicking!

New dates for webinar tutorials

After the busy times of Eastercon, and then Cymera festival, I’ve had a bit less time to put up more webinars, and they are something I enjoy doing.

I also like being able to feed myself!

New summer tutorials on writer websites (and other things that are of interest to authors out there) will be popping up over the next few days and weeks. So, do keep an eye on here or follow me on Bluesky to hear when they drop!

And if you already have a website but feel like you need some help keeping the content fresh and looking professional, why not check out part 2 of “Your Writer Website” webinars for inspiration and help? I go into everything from author branding, colour schemes and fonts, what kind of content to add and, most of all, how to put your writing front and centre.

By the way, any shares and reposts of the webinars are fully appreciated – it’s hard out there, so supporting small businesses by spreading the word is awesome!

You could do that by sharing a link to the webinars in your social media, email or WhatsApp the website address to a friend, follow us and repost on Bluesky (see the link in the footer). Or just chatting to your mates about this small but friendly site that teaches writers how to handle websites, called “bibliotta!”… It all helps.

Thanks in advance 🫶