The Elite Guide to Creating an Author Website

The Elite Guide to Creating an Author Website

While the new “Must-Have” thing for any business or influencer in the 21st century is social media, your easy-to-navigate and visually-impressive website is not exempt from your online persona by any means! In fact, it can be the most useful tool in your kit, and is not to be overlooked.

An author website can reach beyond the bookshelf to help you generate more business and build your fan base. At Elite Online Publishing, we believe one of the most crucial steps in creating future success for our authors is picking the right type of website their audience will experience.

There’s a lot to cover when it comes to the meat and potatoes of your website, so read this blog on Why Every Author Should Have A Website to understand all the different types of websites you can build, and pro’s and con’s of each.

Domain Names

You’ve got to send everyone to one address, right? EliteOnlinePublishing.com is our Domain name. Ideally, your domain should be YourName.com. If your domain name is already taken, you can try YourNameAuthor.com, YourNameBooks.com, or even YourName.net or YourName.org. “.COM” is most definitely preferred, though. You should buy your domain name yourself with your email address and credit card. Make it a point to always know the username and password of your domain name account and where it’s registered (GoDaddy, Network Solutions, Register.com, etc.).

Elite Pro Tip: When writing out your Domain for marketing or design purposes, you don’t need to add the www. It also helps to use uppercase lettering for readability… for example: EliteOnlinePublishing.com is much cleaner and easier to read than www.eliteonlinepublishing.com (If you’re still confused when to use which, use this rule: If the viewer can’t actually Click on it, like on the back of the book cover, use the the clean version. If you want to get really fancy, you can ALWAYS use the clean version, and EMBED the coded version into the text- making it clickable.)

 

Website Cost and Construction

The free, do-it-yourself, options are appealing if you are willing to try, and have the time (LOTS of time). Wix is generally the most popular right now, along with WordPress and SquareSpace. You can hire a custom designer, but their rates are going to be closer to $10,000-$15,000. One option in between these two is to hire a college web design student or graduate to build your site on Wix or Squarespace. They will most likely have their finger on the trend-pulse, rates will be cheaper, and your monthly running upkeep cost will stay low; around $15 a month or $100 a year. Another pro to using Wix is that it’s a common language between web designers, so in the case you need updates made by a new designer, they can pick up where the last one left off with ease.

 

What to Include in Your Author Website

The key to including the following list of information is to organize it well… Make sure to vet your designers and look through their portfolio of work. Okay, now let’s get into it:

• • Author Bio, Photo, Link to Amazon Author Central
  • Book Mockup, Description, Reviews, and links to purchase
  • Mailing List Sign Up and Opt In / Call To Action
  • Blog (optional but recommended)
  • Contact for Speaking Engagements (or whatever your niche is)
  • Media Page (gallery of photos & videos)
  • Include your Downloadable One-Sheet on the Book page

Author Bio

Provide a short author bio and long author bio for your web designer. The long one goes on your “About the Author” page, and this can be pretty detailed. Again, if someone gets to that page they want to know more about YOU! The short bio can land on your home page, with a “read more” link to the full bio. Add photos, and your upcoming author events.

 

Books

Each book should have its own page on your author website with a long book description. You can list all of your books on a page, but then link (via a “read more” link) to a dedicated page for each book. It’s also better for search engine optimization (SEO) if you provide individual book information and use relevant keywords for the book and website metadata. Remember that this is what your site is for! Connecting people to your book.

 

Mailing List Sign Up

This step is crucial! You need to be collecting email addresses, even if you’re not confident with what you’ll do with them. When you eventually want to release a newsletter, you’ll be thankful you spent this time collecting these in such an easy, passive way. Use a service like MailChimp or Constant Contact. They give you the form to put on your author website and the signups go directly into your email list.

 

Blog

Some tips on the blogging experience:

• Try to choose topics that use relevant keywords to try to improve your Search Optimization
• Announce your blog posts on other forms of social media to drive traffic back to your website
• Aim to Blog at least once a week so you appear active

 

Contact

In all honesty, few authors will get too many messages, and the upside is interacting with your readers and possible speaking opportunities. Use a form that hides your email address or really any personal information, so it doesn’t get picked up by spammers. Be sure not to ask for too much information, because the fewer people will contact you if you do. There is no need to know their phone number or address in the initial contact.

 

Media Page

When it comes to your media page, include author photos, videos of you speaking and at parties, thumbnails and links to your online coverage, and even personal photos scattered in between. In addition, add a link to your contact page towards the top so that the media can easily reach you if interested. You can always add to this page as you create more content, but add as high quality photos as you can up front. You can always include your One-Sheet sales document here for download.

 

Click Here to view our Author Website Portfolio.

Contact us today to have Elite Online Publishing build your website.