Designing an Author’s Website
I’m not going to pretend my website is perfect by any means, especially considering I don’t actually have any of my books published yet. Having a website is an important part of promoting yourself as an author, however, and for me it’s a place to start.
The first thing you should decide is how to build your site. Using a website building site is beginner-friendly and can be done relatively quickly. Platforms like Wix and Squarespace are designed to help you build a professional-looking website quickly and easily. When picking a platform you should factor in how much you’re willing to invest. Make sure to look at how much it will cost you after the promo rate runs out.
If you’re like me and prefer making life as difficult as possible for yourself, you can use WordPress. I had previous experience using WordPress, so I knew what I was getting into, but if you’ve never used it before I highly recommend going with a beginner-friendly website builder instead. It has a very steep learning curve, but if you do want to learn how to use it, have a look at free courses on sites like Udemy. WordPress has thousands of themes to choose from, some tailored to authors, complete with pre-installed plugins and blog post examples. Using WordPress will also require a hosting platform. I’ve found Hostinger to be incredibly user-friendly and I highly recommend it.
Now that you have your author website, what should you include in it? Here are a few important things to include:
Contact Info: This gives any potential business opportunities a place to get in touch with you. It can also be a place to engage with fans.
Blog: A blog is a place to share whatever you want as a writer and gives your readers a place to learn more about you, your writing, and whatever else you want to share. Using SEO keywords in your posts also helps search engines to find and index you, which in turn helps people to find you in search results.
Books: If you’ve already published your books, you’ll want to have information about them, covers, and links to where you can purchase them.
About/Author Bio: This helps people to get to know you better as a person. If people like your work, they’ll want to know more about you!
Bonus Content: This can potentially be subscription content and a way to make extra money once you have a following.
Social Media Links: Fans of your work will want to know where to find you online. It gives you a place to promote your work and them a place to check in and see if you’re working on that juicy sequel to the book they love.
Newsletter Signup: This is an additional way to market yourself to your target audience. You can include things like latest blog posts, upcoming appearances, promos, contests, and even ask for feedback. It’s also a great place to announce that new book you have coming out.
Media Page/Testimonials: It’s good to include praise for your book because it will help to drum up interest and help people to decide if they want to read your work or not.
In conclusion, there’s a lot to think about when building a website to promote your books, and a lot to learn as well. As you start your journey to being a self-published author, remember that some of it is going to be tough. Creating a website is one of your first big hurdles, but if I can do it, you can do it!