Murder Blog Is Moving – Yay!

Though I’m biting my nails to the quick, I’m very excited to announce that Murder Blog is moving to a self-hosted site. The new site, if all goes according to plan, will be the same domain: http://www.suecoletta.com. I’m adding the upgrade to redirect http://www.crimewriterblog.com to the new site too, so, God willing, I won’t lose all of you in the process.

Why am I chancing this right before Marred is set for pre-release?

Because I’m a glutton for punishment I want to do so many things that WordPress.com won’t allow. As many of you know, we’re at the mercy of WordPress.com to tell us what we can and cannot do.

That’s not okay with me anymore. Also, I can only go so far with WordPress.com. I’d need to add images to the sidebar to sell books, I can’t use a Hello Bar, or any HTML coding. With the move I can also get better SEO ratings because I’ll able to track what works and what doesn’t. The reasons are endless.

WordPress.com was my home for so long it’s still kind of sad to leave. But I’m a firm believer in looking forward, not back. In order for me to achieve my new goals I must make a change. So, I’m jumping in with both feet and hoping for the best (after hours and hours of research).

The only con that I can see is the ability to reblog, which you cannot do on WordPress.org. However, if anyone wishes to republish a post, contact me using my email or contact form, both of which can be found here.

In this post, as well as notifying you of the change I figured I’d share the new features in case anyone else is thinking of moving. If you are, here are simple step-by-step instructions on how to do it: Moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org.

The best part of moving to a self-hosted are plugins. Here’s a list of some of the ones I’m going to use and what they do:

Comment Luv

I love this plugin. It’s sharing to the fullest degree. If you’re not familiar with this plugin, I’ll explain. When you comment on a post a link will appear next to your name with your latest post. So if you have a new book release, a kickass post, or even just a recent post you’re especially proud of, come by and leave me a comment. All my readers will see your link and you could get new readers. How cool is that?

Shareaholic or Easy Social Share (haven’t decided yet)

I already have share buttons, but these plugins allow for sharing buttons on the sidebar, big or small, you have more flexibility and more options. Plus, you can track your shares. Very cool.

Dig Dig

Allows a floating share bar. Not sure if the others do as well. Need to research more.

Google Analytics by Yoast

This plugin tracks your site and gives lots of information about your stats.

Yoast SEO

I just took a webinar from Mary at Write to Done about using SEO to optimize posts for first page ranking on Google. Stay tuned for an eye-opening post about how to best optimize your posts. She recommended this plugin.

Akismet

Ban that spam!

Front End Editor

Checks for typos and grammatical errors. A must, in my book!

Copyright Proof

So no one can steal your content and post as their own. I’m really not worried about it, but I might as well include it.

Mail Chimp for WordPress

No brainer. It intergrades Mail Chimp with the site so I can use an actual opt-in box rather than the hassle of using an image and having readers click a million times to get to the sign-up page.

Mail Poet

This is cool. It will send you guys an email of my new posts and when I reply to your comments. Because I don’t think I’ll be in your readers anymore, I needed a way to reach you guys. You should have the option of choosing whether you receive a “digest” or “instant”. Digest would be a weekly roundup and instant is self-explanatory.

Facebook and Twitter Widgets

Post directly to FB from the site. Or add Facebook Feed to show your custom feed for your author page. There’s also a Facebook Like Box widget. Show your latest Twitter timeline.

Hello Bar

Instead of those annoying pop-ups a Hello Bar gives a call-to-action discreetly at the top of each post and page.

Social Media Widget

Posts automatically to all my social media sites.

Goodreads

This is really cool. You can ask your readers to add your book to their To-Read List, which raises your rank on Goodreads. All you authors want one of these, huh? Squee!

Subscribe to Comments

Allows non-followers to subscribe to comments so when I reply they’ll get a notification.

Easy Digital Download and WooCommerce

To sell books directly from site, with shopping cart, discount options, and user data. Turn your site into an online store on the sidebar. How cool is that?

Love It Pro

Because WordPress.org does not use “likes,” this plugin puts a tiny heart at the bottom of a post so you can “love it.” Awesomely adorable!

Jet Pack

This is a beast of a plugin with all kinds of features, including a social sharing. I need this in order to switch, but there are tons of other things to do with this plugin. I can hardly wait to see what they are.

WP Touch 3

To make your content mobile-friendly.

Super Cache

This plugin has more users than there are people in Costa Rico. Why? Because it streamlines your site for super fast uploading and allows you to use a static page, like I do now, turning your blog into a website as well.

Notification Bar

Because WordPress.org does not have one, I’ll have to install this plugin in order to see my notifications.

Contact Form 7

I get so many people using my contact form on the front page that I’d be remiss not to include one on my new site.

BackUp WordPress

This is really cool. You never know when problems can arise. So with this, you back up every time you publish and if anything goes wrong…voila. You’re up and running in minutes. Incidentally, you can get your backups emailed to you so they don’t take up space on your hard drive. Cool, right?

Uber Menu (premium feature)

This only costs $19., but I think it’s important to have. With this menu option you can create drop down menus, layered menus, all kinds of different menus to make navigation easy for your users.

Security Ninja

There are two. The Lite, which is free, and the regular. This protects your site from hackers. Very important. Wouldn’t you agree?

Pretty Pink Lite

This is cool, too. You know how bitly.com shortens links but turns them generic? Well, Pretty Pink allows you to customize short links for sharing, using your domain name, or anything else you want, and tracks that link wherever it goes. You can see how well a post is doing on Twitter, or any other SM site, by using this feature.

WP Google Fonts

No more paying for the custom fonts that have a limited supply and you can only use one font for certain things, like header, site title, post font. With WP Google Fonts you can choose from 600 fonts and use them wherever and whenever you want in your theme.

Font

And this free plugin allows you to change the font in portions of your posts and pages, and/or change the color too.

YARPP

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin allows readers to see related content, like you get with WordPress.com. I get many click-throughs to other posts this way, so I’d be remiss not to have this plugin.

Automattic (yup, two “t’s)

If you’re thinking of switching, you should add this plugin to ensure your WP site stays up-to-date and working properly. With one click you’re all set, and safe from hackers, too.

Plugin Performance Plugin

You can install 50 good plugins and if you install 1 bad one, your site will crawl to a stop. By utilizing this plugin, it will test your plugins to make sure they’re working for you instead of against.

There are so many other plugins that I haven’t listed here. Honestly, there’s a plugin for every need imaginable. If you’re thinking of switching to a self-hosted site, you need to be careful when choosing plugins. Like anything else, there are people looking to infect your site with malware, and they do it by offering free plugins. I’ve stuck to WordPress recommendations and ones I know others use and love.

So, I’m off to pack up and move. I’m told my site (this one) should not go down or become temporarily available while I’m implementing the switch.

Wish me luck and I’ll see you on the other side!

Power Of StumbleUpon & How-to Add Sharing Button To WordPress.com

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StumbleUpon drives massive traffic to websites and blogs. In a earlier post Brand Building On Social Media I discussed how to use StumbleUpon to your advantage, along with Twitter, FB, Google, Pinterest and Reddit. For those who haven’t read this post, as an author your brand is you, not your book. That’s your product.

The Power of StumbleUpon

Whenever I added a blog post to my “likes” on StumbleUpon, including my own, that site received a burst of traffic. But I had no idea how or why it worked.

Until recently.

To help illustrate my point I’m using an infographic from Column Five.

As you can see StumbleUpon drives more traffic than Twitter, FB and Reddit — combined! This infographic shows that 51 pages per minute are added to StumbleUpon. Think about that a minute. That’s 3,060 pages per hour, 73,440 pages per day, 514,080 pages per week.

Now, as far as the infographic showing FB as the number two site… Sorry, I don’t buy that. But I’m guessing it’s because so many people on Twitter use bitly.com or something equivalent to shorten links. This, in turn, can skew the results. Regardless, Twitter will never surpass StumbleUpon. Ever.

This is why…

StumbleUpon is essentially a browser add-on, which adds a second menu bar that shows a thumbs up/thumbs down button, allowing you to “stumble upon” random sites geared toward your interests. Any post you give the “thumbs up” to is automatically added to your “Likes Page”. Your “likes” are built over time.

StumbleUpon isn’t simply a sharing site where you physically plug in a blog address. But you can certainly use it that way, too. What it does is it grabs other posts off the internet and suggests them to you. If you’ve tagged your post, or someone else’s post, properly StumbleUpon will suggest your site to everyone with similar interests. Which, in turn, drives huge traffic to your site that you wouldn’t normally receive.

Therein lies its power.

For instance, recently Nicholas Rossis wrote a very inspirational post (click link to read). I, then, added that post to my “likes” and tagged it “inspirational” “writing” and a few other things. Anyway, within one hour he received over 700 views. Why? Because I gave his post a “thumbs up”. Yes, it only takes ONE person to drive that kind of traffic. Now, imagine if two or three others also gave a “thumbs up”. His numbers would have been astronomical. Another example is my Q & A With A Real Undercover Operative – Part I. In less than an hour I had over 2000 views. Meaning, more than one person gave it a “thumbs up”. That three-part series garnered more views faster than anything else the previous year. Incidentally, if you missed this interview you can find Part II and Part III by clicking the links.

I’m always surprised by authors that don’t use this powerful site. I can only conclude that they don’t realize its inherent magic. Hence, my motivation for this post.

Still not convinced?

Let’s take a look at the life of a post. Herein referred to as a link. Because StumbleUpon grabs posts by “interests”, which is why proper tagging is so important — that’s a post for another day — it doesn’t matter if that post is one year old or three years old. See where I’m going with this? You got it. Your old posts are magically resurrected with StumbleUpon. Which is why I don’t shut comments off. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten a new comment on a six month old post, and often times that leads to a new subscriber. As a reader of blogs I find it frustrating to not be able to leave a comment when a post really resonates with me. This, of course, is up to you. But why not encourage communication regardless of date?

Here’s the next half of the infographic…

With Twitter and Facebook the half-life of your link is only a couple of hours. Meaning, that’s how long it survives so others can share it. With StumbleUpon that same link lives on for 400 hours. And that’s only half the life. Take a moment to look at the life cycle of a link in the lower half of the above infograph. This is not to say that a link will die after 800 hours. As stated earlier, since you know to properly tag your posts your link can survive for years after it was first posted… with StumbleUpon.

Below is the last part of the same graphic…

Nowadays people don’t spend much time reading blog posts. Instead, they skim. Personally, I still haven’t figured out how to do that. Anyway, StumbleUpon beats out Twitter and Facebook by 25%. Incidentally, that’s longer than the average web page view. A StumbleUpon session, where people are reading the “suggestions” lasts for over an hour. Where with Twitter and Facebook most people only spend a little over twenty minutes browsing links.

If you’re still not convinced of StumbleUpon’s power there isn’t much more I can say to change your mind. All I can suggest is try it. See for yourself what it does to your traffic and how many more page views you’ll receive. The proof will be in your stats.

Problem is, when WordPress.com changed our sites around again — the so-called “improvements” — we lost our StumbleUpon sharing button. After noticing a pattern I took a look at my own site and was absolutely shocked when I find it gone. This isn’t okay with me. And it shouldn’t be all right with you either.

Don’t fret. I have a solution.

Go to settings > sharing > available services

Available services is where it shows your sharing buttons. Only now you will no longer see StumbleUpon as an option. You’ll need to install it manually.

Click “Add a new service” and a pop-up window will appear. In the “Add sharing url” input: https://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url= (and then choose your variable from those listed below) I use: %post_full_url% But you can play around and see what best fits your needs.

Like with most improvements in WordPress.com they tell you that you can add any variable to your sharing link. I tried them all. None of them worked by just adding the variable to the end of StumbleUpon’s url. You must include this: /submit?url= And then the variable. Without this formula you’ll either get an error message that says StumbleUpon can’t locate the page, or it violates the site in some way.

If it’s easier for you to just copy what I did the entire url looks like this:

https://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=%post_full_url%

In the box below (same window) it will ask for the icon image. Here’s where it got tricky because most sites want you to buy image icons. What I did was to Google “StumbleUpon Icon” click “image” and then copy and paste the image into my library. I then took the url for that image and pasted it into the “icon url” box. Voila!

Within that same window press “Save” Then drag your new StumbleUpon sharing button into “Enable Services” window and press “Save Settings” at the bottom of the page.

Since I wasn’t able to find a StumbleUpon icon image that fit the perimeters of WordPress.com, under “Button Style” I chose “icon and text” instead of my usual “icon only”, and then dragged less important buttons like “print” “email” “pocket” etc. into the shaded box of “Enable Services”. What that does is it adds a “More” button to your lineup that readers can press that will show the other sharing buttons you offer without taking up a lot of space.

And that’s the power of StumbleUpon. I hope this helps to increase your blog traffic and make you all hugely successful. If anyone finds a better icon image I’d love to hear about it. Also, if you use a self-hosted WordPress site I could probably help you figure out how to add sharing buttons. Just shoot me an email or fill out the contact form on the main page.

Want to take it for a test spin? Press the StumbleUpon sharing button at the bottom of this post and give me a “thumbs up”. Tell me in the comments, leave a link to your post (once you add the button) and I’ll do the same for you. And isn’t that what the writing community is all about, helping one another?

If you haven’t received your copy of 50 Ways To Murder Your Fictional Characters you can get a sampling and sign up by clicking the title or go here.

Brand Building on Social Media

I have received so much great advice about building a brand on social media that I thought I’d share some of the tips with you. For those of you who don’t know– you are the brand. Not the title of your book. Not your favorite catch phrase. You.

This is a common mistake among authors. They think the title of their book is their brand. It isn’t. Your book is the product. Your name is the brand.

Okay, now that we know what we need to promote let’s continue.

No one can use all of social media and be good at it. The first thing you need to do is to decide which site(s) you want to get proficient in and then really engage. I’ll talk more about engaging later.

The best sites to drive traffic to your blog are:

Twitter

Contrary to what some believe Twitter is not only used for sharing what you’re eating, reading, cute animals photos, what happened on your date last night, etc… It is a huge resource for writers to gain a following and an audience for their work. The potential is enormous.

Facebook

Again, Facebook is not only used to share the first thing that pops into your mind, it’s a great catalyst for selling books, engaging with readers, promoting your brand.

Google+

Do I really need to explain how big Google+ is? It’s Google!

Pinterest

Here’s one you might not have thought would be worth your while. I, for one, had no idea of the potential this site had. This was my goof-off site, where I went to play. I’d pin writing quotes, writing tips, funny animal pictures (my favorite), but I really wasn’t using Pinterest as a branding site. This was a mistake. Pinterest is gigantic and it gets more traffic than Twitter and Facebook, believe it or not.

Instagram

Instagram could end up bigger than Facebook in the coming years. Facebook just bought Instagram and they have funneled all kinds of money into it. Because of this it’s growing at record speed.

Reddit

It’s not called “The front page of the internet” for nothing. Get a post on Reddit and your blog will blow up with visitors. Seriously, I know this from experience. My top posts/comments were all posted in Reddit. But– and this is a big but– you cannot post your own content to Reddit. Someone else has to post it for you. If you do post your own content the moderators will catch up with you and they will ban you from using the site and/or the subreddit you posted in. Also, since Reddit allows anonymity people can be unbearably cruel, rude, downright nasty. Personally, I don’t even bother to read half the comments on Reddit any more.

StumbleUpon

You wouldn’t think this site would drive traffic to your blog, but you’d be surprised. I get a ton of my traffic this way, especially when I use a photo that stands out. It’s the number two site for driving visitors to my blog, and that’s only because I don’t spend much time there. It could easily become number one.

Before we get into how to use each site effectively let’s take a step back and talk about your website/blog. First, every writer should have an email list. An “opt-in” it’s called, where people sign up for a giveaway (like I’ve done), a newsletter, and/or a new blog post. Just putting the “sign up via email” button on your blog is not enough. You need to start collecting email addresses so when you have a new book out you have people to tell. This also becomes extremely important for those going traditional. Agents/publishers want to see that you are able to sell your work.

How do we show that? You guessed it! With the email list.

For those going Indie, or who have already self-published, you need to be able to tell your audience where they can buy your next book, or that sequel they’ve been waiting for. Or, if they have shown interest, where they can buy all of your books.

Now, please don’t abuse this. Your email list IS NOT for spamming people to buy your book(s). If you try this, most will unsubscribe faster than you can say, “No. Wait. Don’t go.” Your email list is sacred, and should be treated as such. Your email list is as equally important as your blog.

I’ll be making more changes to my blog, too. Like adding a blogroll, changing my menu options (if I can figure out how to do it with CSS), and add resources for crime writers. By adding a blogroll this will also connect my brand with the ones on the list. And that’s key. You want your brand to be associated with big names in your field. So, if you write crime you’d want to include influential crime writers. If you write sci-fi you’d include blogs that concentrate on sci-fi. As harsh as it sounds you need to choose carefully, not just slap anyone’s name on there.

This is your brand!

Now, should you include people who always comment on your posts? Absolutely! Your blog is also a place to connect with like-minded folks and form friendships. Including them in your blogroll is a great way to show them how much you appreciate them.

Write good content

You’d think this goes without saying. Boring posts will get you nowhere fast. People like to be entertained, informed, educated. Stick to one of these categories and you can’t go wrong.

Spelling and grammar

I’m not a Grammar Nazi by any means. I use the same grammar in my posts that I use in my books. Sometimes you need to end a sentence with a preposition in storytelling, use gerunds, or keep hidden verbs. Should you try to rewrite to avoid this? Well, that’s up to you. I do. But sometimes you can’t get your point across effectively without bending a few grammar rules. I do, however, avoid clichés in my books, where I’m more lax about them in my posts.

Avoid typos

I can’t tell you how many blogs I’ve stopped following because typos littered the posts. I’m not talking a typo here and there. I’m talking about a typo in almost every sentence. It gives the reader the impression that you don’t care. And if the blog owner doesn’t care then why should I? It takes two seconds to press the “proofread button”.

Okay, now that we have great content we want to share it and drive traffic to our site. Here are a few tips on using the above mentioned sites…

Twitter

• Feature a link to your “opt-in” page in your profile. This is the first thing people see. Your goal is to build up your email list and drive traffic to your website/blog. There’s no better spot for this.
• Make every tenth tweet about your free offer with a link and a picture that grabs people’s attention.
• Pin a tweet to your Twitter page. When people arrive at your page this will be the first thing they see.
• Reply to tweets. If someone thanks you for RTing their post take two seconds and reply. Being polite and courteous counts.
• Retweet other people’s stuff. Don’t be a taker. You must give to receive.
• Interact with people. Nothing builds a brand faster than a short conversation. The next time that person sees your name they’ll retweet for you because they’ll remember your little chat.
• Put links to your guest blog posts with the blog owners Twitter handle. If someone was kind enough to have you on their blog make sure you promote that post widely, and include their Twitter handle so they know it.
• Use hashtags to reach your audience. If your post is about books use #books. If your post is about writing a new novel or short story use #amwriting. For a list of hashtags see my previous post Writers, Are You Using Hashtags? Here’s Why You Should, or go here.
• Use clickable tweets in your posts. This one is new to me. I’m trying it for the first time today. Try to make them inspirational. And, for the love of God, don’t use “Buy my book”. I decided to go with the image tweet.

BLOG is where the heart is.

To use the clickable tweet option go to: https://www.clicktotweet.com. Sign up, authorize app and write your tweet. The program will generate a code. Copy this code. For WordPress.com users, go into “text” instead of “visual” mode and insert where you want the tweet to appear. Then switch back to visual mode and you’ll see it on the screen. When people tweet this it will link back to your post.

Facebook

• Set up a fan page, even if you don’t have any books for sale. This is a biggie. You can add your opt-in page right to your profile.
• Interact. Social media has the word “social” in it for a reason. That means posting engaging content, sharing other people’s links/posts, etc.
• Share your guest posts here too with the blog owner’s FB name so they’ll see it.
• Post fascinating content that relates to your brand. If you are a crime writer like myself post crime scene photos with questions like “What weapon was used here?” I just did this, as you can see from the above broken glass image. It’s already generated some really great conversations.
• Ask questions. Answer questions. Like other people’s posts. Share. Engage.
• Join a FB group that relates to your brand. I’ve just formed Crime Lovers because I couldn’t find any group for crime readers/writers. All are welcome. Why not make this your first group? Click the title, or the image below, to take you to the group page.

Google+

• Put a link to your opt-in page in your profile
• Pick a background that people relate to your brand.
• Post your guest posts here too with the blog owner’s name.
• Ask questions. Answer questions. Interact. Engage.
• Include the names of the people you want in your circles to get in on the conversation. Again, you’re building your brand. You want your brand connected with influential people in your niche.
• Add people to your circles. Most will add you back.

Pinterest

• Create subject boards on which to “pin” shareable content that will appeal to your target audience.
• Follow other people’s boards and pin their content to your boards.
• Create an image for your opt-in page like I’ve done (image above) and link it.
• Motivational images will get the most traffic and are often circulated.
• Here’s an article about creating and using shareable images that I got from Traffic Cafe, an excellent site for branding. http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/shareable-images/
• And here’s a cool tool for creating your own images: http://www.canva.com. A few different branding experts told me about canva.com, so I had to try it out. And I loved it!
• Here’s another good one for creating images: http://picmonkey.com

I’m skipping Instagram. Since I don’t personally use this site I can’t talk intelligently about it. Reddit I’ve basically explained above, so that too I will exclude.

StumbleUpon

• Post every one of your posts to StumbleUpon with the same title and tags and choose a category. I usually use writing or crime.
• Use hashtags in your tags, but limit to one or two.
• Turn on the StumbleUpon bar and when you find a post you like press “thumbs up” and it will automatically go to your “likes” page.
• Post your guest posts here, too.
• Browse other people’s “likes” pages and give the thumbs up when you find something that interests you.

I know it doesn’t sound like much, but believe me it works.

To find out just how powerful StumbleUpon really is see my post entitled Power of StumbleUpon – How-To Add Share Button To WordPress.com.

And that’s it!

Obviously if you try to do too many of these you’re setting yourself up to fail. No one can juggle all of this work and still find time to write. I concentrate my efforts on Twitter and Facebook. I still post to StumbleUpon, but I don’t really engage there. Nor do I engage how I should on Pinterest. Although I’m going to try to fit it in. It’s worth the extra effort.

Join me next time for more branding tips when I’ll get into the finer details of using Twitter effectively to grow your followers list.

If you haven’t gotten your free copy of “50 Ways To Murder Your Fictional Characters“ you can sign up here, or click on the image above. This is a 13-page booklet! You can learn more about it here.

What sites do you use? Or, what sites are you going to start using to promote your brand?