What Worked

• The site is well-edited.  That’s absolutely crucial for a writer’s website. 
• The website generally looks professional. 
• The site conveys ”I write military fiction” at a glance.  
• I like how he used his picture, easily establishing his military background.  You don’t have to wade through the “About the Author” to learn the most compelling part of this author’s bio. 

What Could Have Worked Better

• The site could use a better name than Mike Angley.  That’s not optimized for search-engine performance or memorable.  If you didn’t specifically know who Mike Angley was, you would almost certainly just scroll past “Mike Angley” if it came up in a Google search.  At the very least, I would recommend adding a phrase that suggests what he writes.  Like “Mike Angley: paranormal military fiction with a punch.”
• I am not fond of light text on a dark background for a writer’s website.  Since authors generally have quite a lot of text on their website, the additional eye-strain is particularly noticeable.   
• I’d recommend placing a one-sentence synopsis of the book/series above the fold (ie easily visible from the first screen that someone sees after coming to his website).  
• The site felt very laggy.  I’m not sure if it was an issue on my end or his, but I haven’t been having any problems with other writing websites today.   
• I feel like it’s pretty important to know whether his books are religious in nature.  I’m getting some mixed messages on that front.  For example, he has “At Home with Christian Fiction” in his blogroll and the booktrailer includes a religious image and a vague reference to the character’s faith.  Generally, I wouldn’t recommend leaving any doubt as to which niche you’re writing for. 
• I don’t think that the site answers “what’s in it for me?” very well.  For example, the first item on his sidebar is Mike’s Profiles.  That’s not very interactive.  I’d recommend leading with something more interactive, like writing advice (if you have any), personal interviews, or information about how to interact with Mike.  For example, if the author does promotional events, I think that a blurb about his next event should be displayed very prominently. 
• I would recommend shortening the “About the Author” section.  Some of these details, like the five professional organizations he belongs to, are probably irrelevant to prospective readers.  Also, his bio focuses too much on his work experience and not enough about his writing.  He’s worked with OSI for 25 years, including five tours as a unit commander.  That tells us pretty much all we need to know about his (impressive) credentials, I think.  Right now, he spends about 275 words (3 long paragraphs) describing his military background.  Too much.  Also, I’d recommend cutting out the detail about the dog and family or inserting a detail or two that are really interesting. 
• The image of his Military Writers Society of America badge has a white background, which looks garish on his otherwise black page.  I would recommend Photoshopping it so that the color blends in better.  (Just replace the white border with a black one).   
• The book trailer looks cheap.  It probably would have been more effective to buy a digital recorder and narrate it by voice rather than do a slideshow with text captions and music.  Alternatively, use a font/color combination that look good on the background.  Finally, the words themselves are not yet interesting enough to intrigue prospective readers, I suspect.  
• Generally, I would recommend making the book trailer more prominent than it is here.  However, I don’t think that this book trailer is particularly compelling, so I would leave it where it is. 
• I would recommend removing the comments feature until the author has enough readers to regularly generate comments.  This is social proof: if you have a lot of comments, people will get the impression that the author is popular, which will encourage them to see what they’re missing.  Conversely, if a reader sees ”0 Comments” after the end of every post, he may wonder if he’s the first person to ever view this website.  As a rule of thumb, I would recommend against enabling comments until you get about 100 viewers a day. 
• I don’t feel like I know what the author’s style of writing is like.  One of the tabs at the top of the website reads “Bloggy News,” which sounds a lot more casual and whimsical than the rest of the website. 

• Traffic tends to drop considerably.  In summer, the weather is really nice and people have things to do besides sit inside with a computer.  So don’t get depressed if your numbers drop during the summer; it happens to pretty much everyone.
• Regular readers will probably comprise a larger share of your readership than they do outside of summer. In non-summer months, about 30% of our readers are returning visitors.  In the summer, that jumped to 51%.
• Because it’s harder to lure in new readers, direct traffic will probably become more prominent. In a non-summer month, our audience split 16-52-32% in terms of how they got to our website: direct traffic, referral and search engine.  Over the summer, it’s been 33-30-37%.

Here are a few tricks you can try to make the most of the summer slowdown.

1. It’s a great time to experiment with site-design and content. Generally, new readers are the most likely to leave forever if they encounter something they don’t like.  Summer is probably the safest time to experiment because fewer new readers are at stake.  For example, this summer I’d like to try posting some reader-written material.
2. In particular, I’d recommend trying out some new content aimed at long-time readers. For example, we do a lot of writing contests over the summer.
3. Think long-term. Fewer readers are at stake in the summer.  So what can you do that will help you when traffic picks up in the fall?  One possible answer is writing “evergreen” content that will lure in readers months and months down the road.  For example, our List of Superpowers is still one of our most-frequented pages.

2.  Stay away from adspeak and flowery language. For example, our title includes the phrase “how to write superhero novels and comic books.”  That’s much more user-friendly than something like “superhero writing insights.”  What’s an insight?  Don’t make readers struggle to translate what you’ve written.

3.  Make it clear what you want readers to do. In most cases, this should be pretty self-explanatory (read our content, buy our book, sign up for our mailing list, etc).  However, it’s not always that simple.  For example, here’s the front page of ChangeThis:

There are a lot of problems with this page, but the main one is that it’s not clear what it wants you to do.  Notice that their goal is “creating a new kind of media… that uses existing tools to challenge the way ideas are created and spread.”   Uhh, what does that have to do with me?

4.  Introduce the reader to your content in a way that will make him want to read more. You have three main tools here.  First, write titles that make it clear what the reader will get out of the post.  For example, if you saw a post called “How to Do Superhero Gadgets Well,” it’s clear what the article is about and why you should read it.  In contrast, I have no idea what “The Recognition Microscope:  Fuel for Human Acceleration” is about.   It sounds trippy as hell.  Second, you can use your sidebar to present your best content and reinforce your site’s theme.  If you want superhero writing advice, our sidebar makes it pretty obvious that we offer a ton of it.   Finally, I recommend using opening sentences that smoothly introduce the material.  ChangeThis has a poor grasp on this.  For one, it doesn’t even let itself complete all of its opening sentences.  “I am convinced that a good deal of the ‘survival strategies’ that organizations are adopting are…”  Umm, yeah.  That sentence is absolutely meaningless without the missing content.  I’d change this to “Many of the ‘survival strategies’ that organizations are adopting are disastrous because of [main reason].”

1.  Establish a niche, ideally one that appeals to readers that are interested in what you plan to sell. I started this blog as a superhero comedy, given that I wanted to market a humorous superhero novel.  But there are already many solid superhero comedy sites (such as ISS and Evil, Inc).  We had much more success attracting readers after we rebranded ourselves as a superhero writing site.  As far as I can tell, we don’t have any competitors.

How is your writing blog unique?  Do you have a different style?  A different audience?  A different genre, subgenre or focus?  Etc.

2.  Make it clear what you offer.  Why will a stranger want to read what you have to say?  The worst writing blogs are usually loosely organized around a theme like “the random thoughts and ruminations of [Author X].”  Ick.  That’s far less effective than something like “how to write romance” or “so you want to be a sports writer.”

3.  Organize! The typical online reader will leave instantly unless you make him see that you offer quality content that fits their interests.   The best way to do that is to organize.  If you’re the sort of person that wants to IMPROVE YOUR WRITING or read SUPERHERO WRITING ARTICLES, it’s pretty clear that this is the right site for you. Just check our sidebar!

4.  Organize redundantly. If you absolutely need readers to see something, include it in several places.  For example, let’s say that you’re a first-time visitor to SN and you’re not sure what we offer.  You could find this information by reading our title, clicking either prominent link to our site explanation, or by reading our very prominent header.  When you’re designing your site, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

5.  Make everything on your site accessible within two clicks. One easy way to accomplish that is to use indexes of popular articles.  For example, if you like our writing articles, it’s pretty easy to navigate our list of writing guides or our list of superhero writing articles. From there, it’s just one more click to any of our writing advice.

6.  Post regularly. Ideally, at least a few times a week.  Depending on your niche and target audience, I recommend focusing on 200-400 word posts.

(We’ve also considered the appeal of Twilight and The Hulk).