BLB24 HW#4 - Zackary Russell

I’ve had a website for a few years now, but had let a number of things grow stale. Worse, even though I’d purchased Divi I never really made use of it. The Home page was also not configured properly, nor was my headshot, and the About page did not exist.

I’ve fixed all of these things now, and tried to add some sizzle to the homepage. And since I’d already crafted a proposal for my (in the submission queue) sci-fi novel, it gave me more ideas for some “resume” content, which I added under the Stories menu dropdown, and linked to in the About page.

Give it a look and let me know what you think: zackaryrussell.com

Some items I still need to tackle:

• Contact form. I had a basic one for a while but it only ever gave me spam. I used Divi to set up one with CAPTCHA but it doesn’t seem to work. Gonna have to dig deeper here.

• Short bio. I’ve sort of got this on the homepage, but it needs some work, as does my signup form.

• Speaking of…I need to switch my newsletter list to Mailerlite. And probably use the Bloom plugin.

• Press Kit / Speaking Events. I’ve guested on 2 podcasts so I’d like to put those on a special page. But, actually, I’ve been invited on 3 others, so it might make more sense to do those shows and then build the page with all 5 interviews. Might be too sparse otherwise.

• Longer-term: I need to settle on a story to use as a reader magnet and make that happen.

• Not a to-do item per se, but more of a puzzle I’m trying to figure out, is how to attract readers who are culturally Christian, or mostly secular (but conservative). My main/public persona is tied to a Christian ministry, and I view that as a strength, so I don’t hide my faith. However, I still want to relate to readers who are not actively religious, but who share other concerns and interests. The type of sci-fi I write contains many Christian elements but it is not written exclusively about or for Christians. So I’m brainstorming how to reflect that on the website.