Ideas for improving Zen Habits? I won't be able to implement or respond to all your ideas, but I'd love to hear them! Edit this page to add your thoughts -- please put your name on them!

Suggestions from Annabel Candy (In the Hot Spot)

I've learned a lot about blogging from you and your writing has inspired me to write better. I'd like to return the favour. I have some ideas to increase your passive income. You're a busy man so I'll get to the point. You need to update your website to improve the conversion rate of your readers. I know you're probably amazed by my cheek. I'm a bit obsessed by user-friendly web design and seeing sites which could do with an update sends me into a frenzy of excitement.

What Can This Blogging Upstart Teach Me About Website Design?

My husband and I have been designing websites for 13 years. Like you, we're very good at what we do. While you're the king of content, we know how to design effective websites. I've been obsessed with online legibility and screen layout for 13 years. I've written three theses on new media design and have an MA in design for interactive media. But I'm not just an academic. I like to use my knowledge to design websites for small companies that get results, and set them on a level, or higher, than bigger competitors.

We just launched a new website design company called Mucho in Australia but this is certainly not a sales letter. I am happy to share my expertise with you. Please don't get me wrong when I say we know how to sell stuff online. I don't recommend turning the lovely Zen Habits website into a gaudy display of ads. That would be so wrong. I want to serve your readers better by making it easier for them to buy your books and find the information they need. As one of your readers I think I'm well placed to know what improvements can be made to the ZH site.

Here's The Simple Idea

The more books you sell and the more subscribers you get to your site the better. I can tell you how to sell more books.

I'd recommend making some changes to your website to help improve your ROI. The investment is all the hard work and excellent content you've put into building up your site and brand. Of course you are already reaping rewards for that work but I think you can earn more from it and believe you deserve to. These are some of the changes I suggest:

1. Make your books visible on each and every page.

   There are two reasons for this. Firstly, it will increase your authority. Wherever visitors arrive at your site, they'll immediately see that you're an acknowledged expert in your field. You already have the number of RSS subscribers and I'd recommend keeping that as back up proof, but many Internet users probably don't know exactly what it means. When you've been using the Internet for years it's easy to forget that there are thousands of new users getting online every day who aren't familiar with it. In fact, many of those new users will be older people who are more likely to buy books and have the money to do so. Most people know what a book is and they naturally respect authors and want to listen to them.

   Secondly, by having your books on every single page, every time people visit they will be exposed to them. Therefore the first thing they'll think of when they need to buy a birthday or Christmas present is your books.

2. The navigation on your site needs reorganising.

   Take me. I'm a typical Zen Habits punter. I want to find out about you and your philosophy, plus the particular areas which interest me as fast as I can. But I can't. The current blog template actually makes it hard for me to find the information I want. That's frustrating. Fortunately, I'm not the type to give up easily, but some people will. I'd like to see a simple navigation menu at the top of every page, have an indication of where I am at the moment and sub-sections for the archives. For a example, health & fitness has sub-sections on running, marathons, motivation, diet etc.

    

3. The about section.

   You're too modest. It's time to sell yourself and that brand you've been building up. Well, not so much sell yourself as stop underselling yourself.

    

4. The archive.

   I recommend an archive where users can browse and find the information they need fast. At the moment if a user clicks on archive they get links to the last six articles you wrote. If users choose archive from the bottom navigation system they get various post titles over several screens. This is inconsistent and confusing. It's also unattractive and makes it hard to access all the great articles you've written. Who wants to scroll through five screens to find what interests them? Thanks to all your hard work your website site has grown. Now it needs reorganising. The problem is that your blog has outgrown it's template and typically blogs don't have a user-friendly archive. With so much information now on the ZH site it would benefit from implementing a strong easy to use archive.

    

5. The ad link

   I recommend keeping this prominent. You need to reward your lovely sponsors.

    

6. Support Zen Habits.

   Why should people support it? The website is free and all the information on there but it should be organised and designed so that it makes people want to buy the books. That's my feeling. You may disagree but I think it will make your website more effective. I understand historically donations have helped you. I wonder if that's still the case? Maybe it's just the wording that bothers me! It's not something I'm sure about just something to consider.

    

7. Design a clean interface

   There is currently a lot of wasted space at the top of the ZH site. I recommend tweaking the visual redesign to make the site look slicker and work better for the readers.

Sorry this is so long... I did want you that I'm a usability obsessive! For me, the site visitor is king.

I understand and admire your ethos. The professional bloggers who plaster their sites with ads will not receiving a detailed recommendations from me. I'm just your average user. We want to know that you are an authority and be able to find the stuff we need fast. We love the minimalist principle and we want it to translate into ease of use too: your readers want to be able to find you pearls of wisdom quicker. It will follow that more books will sell because of that and subscriptions will rise.

I feel that at the moment your ZH site is not zen. It had grown and got out of control. There's brilliant information here but it's all being lost in space. I wish you good luck with it whatever you decide to do and look forward to continuing to read Zen Habits.