In today’s fast paced online world, you need a professional looking website that assists you in establishing yourself online, increases your book sales, helps you connect with your readers and helps potential customers find you. After all, a website is your online business card and resume!
Here are 9 Author Website Must-Have Elements:
About/Bio page – This page is the most important for your author brand and usually the most neglected. If you aren’t sure what to include on your About/Bio page, look at what other authors are saying about themselves on their pages. Once you have defined your page, make sure that you keep it up-to-date.
Contact Information – Unless you really don’t want to interact with your readers (agents, publishers, media) you should have a contact form on your website and provide an email address. It is important for you to respond to all inquiries, unless it is obviously spam. Don’t play hard to get!
Blog – If your goal is to be seen by more people and drive potential book buyers to your site, you need to include a blog and add relevant content on a regular basis. Updates to your blog will increase your SEO (Search Engine Optimization)as well. Websites with blogs get more traffic that those without.
Email Signup – Either for a newsletter or to receive email updates when you post new content to your blog or both. There are several good email marketing platforms listed on our Author Resources page.
Social Media – There are actually two parts to social media on your site. The first, is to provide website visitors with the ability to easily find and follow you on your various social media platforms. Arkansas Authors uses the Social Media Widget which is a simple yet robust free plugin.
The second area is to make it really easy for people to share your site and your content with others. To do this add a sharing plugin and display the sharing options on every page of your site. We use SumOMe. SumoMe provides free tools you need to grow your WordPress site. This plugin will make it easy for your readers to join your email list, share your articles and optimize with analytics.
Events Calendar – Include a section or page on your site that allows you to let your fans know of your upcoming events. Include things like readings, book signings, interviews, speaking engagements, workshops, etc.
Your Books – The most professional looking and easy to use plugin that we have seen is called My Book Table by AuthorMedia. It is a bookstore plugin designed for authors to promote and sell their own work. We use the developer version on this site for book advertising and our bookstore. You can see examples in the left sidebar. Included in this plugin are the options to add a sample of your books for download by your visitors, and links to purchase your books through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Audible. A new feature has been added that lets you link your book reviews on Goodreads or Amazon to your book page(s) on your website. We highly recommend this plugin for self-hosted WordPress site.
Press Page/media kit -The purpose of a press page or media kit is to easily provide the media, or anyone wishing to profile you, with the information they need to feature you in their article. You should include your biography, a photo or yourself, contact information, information on your books, press release and links to reviews. You may want to create a .pdf of this information and have it available as a download.
Extras – This can include video book trailers and other media files, links to interviews, sneak peeks at works in progress, contests, and giveaways.
If adding these to your website design seems overwhelming, Southern Authors now offers WordPress website design and redesign services. You can learn more here.
Are there any other must have elements that you have included in your website/blog? Please comment below and let us know what they are.
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