Where Do We Go From Here?

I’m working on developing my website because right now it’s honestly quite boring. As of now, it’s just a space for me to post examples of my writing: papers and assignments I’ve done for classes, and one short story that I wrote last year. Really, there needs to be a lot more content on there. At the moment, my ideas for added content are lists of helpful links and communities, a page showing off some of my photography (just ‘cause it’s pretty), and – if I can format it properly – a blog embedded onto the homepage for updates and things. If I can manage it, I’d like to split the site off into two different sections: personal and professional. By personal, I mean more along the lines of my photography, a blog just about me (sort of like this blog), things like that. The professional side would be basically what my website now – an assortment of papers displaying my awesome writing ability. As a professional website, the only things I can put up there now are examples of my writing. If I do start getting published or something eventually, then I can add more content up there, but for right now, it’s just a record of some of the work that I’ve done.

My audience, or as far I as can guess, will be anyone who I give my business card to who has enough time to go take a look at my website. Other than that, I’m not sure anyone else knows it exists at the moment. I’m still in the process of figuring out who the readers of my website would be. I’m too used to blogging – thinking in terms of my website, which is much more static, is a difficult shift for me.

I want to make some changes to the design of my website. At the moment it’s pretty simple, but it’s boring-simple, not aesthetically-pleasing-simple. Things I need to work on? A good, subtle color scheme – pleasing to the eye but not completely boring. Better site navigation system with headers and sidebars. Adding all of the little technical details – copyrights, last update dates, my name.

One of the things I’d really like to add is a list of links that are helpful to me, and that would probably be helpful to other writers or people who share my other interests. Right now my site is pretty self-contained – I don’t think there are any links to the outside web anywhere, except for crediting sources on papers.

Actually making all of these changes will be the real challenge. I’m in the process of learning CSS, so that will help. I’d love to be able to use Dreamweaver, but I really can’t afford it right now, so hopefully CSS will do the trick until I have some actual money. I don’t really need anything fancy, just something that looks good and navigates smoothly. Good luck, me.