We’ve previously established that having an author website should be a key component of your book marketing plans. All authors should have one, it’s the perfect place to link to on all your social media and include the latest information about you. To make the most use out of it, you’ll have to make sure you have fine-tuned said website and include all the features that will be the most effective for your book and your marketing strategy. Luckily, optimizing your author website isn’t too difficult.
Once you do a little research that is…
So what do you need to have on your author website?
There are a few schools of thought and differing opinions on what is the most crucial things to have on your author website. Some authors will have just a signup button for their mailing list, some will be adamant all authors should have a blog, and some believe you should offer as much free content as you can.
Make it pleasing to the eye! One thing you need to absolutely make sure you have is a good layout and design. You need to show people you have put (or outsourced out to someone else) effort and time into your website. Having a specific design on your website and coordinating it with your book design is also a great way to brand yourself, and it’s economical too! Plus, it proves that you’re not just some shady creep in a weird corner of the internet.
Build connections by collecting info on your followers. You should have something set up to collect data from your interested visitors who wish to learn more about you and your work, whether it be their email addresses, Twitter handles, or having them join your group on Facebook. You already have these people’s attentions, now you’ll want to reinforce that connection somehow and keep you in their orbit.
Offer something of value. Give people a reason to keep visiting your website. Some people tells jokes, some give tips or other kind of knowledge, some blog.
How else should you be optimizing your author website?
Possibly the most important thing to keep in mind regarding your website: have an identifiable goal you want it to accomplish. Do you want it to sell more books for you? Grow connections with your readers? Be the platform that launches the business your book is about?
Figure out what you want your website to accomplish. Truly the most important tip you need to learn as keeping this in mind will help you figure out how you should handle your author website.
Author websites can be the perfect element to center your marketing around but only if you have done your research and maximized everything necessary. Optimizing your author website can be a little tricky, but it’s well worth it in terms of the advantages it will provide to your book marketing plans.
Need more help? Read more on how you should be optimizing your author website at Bookbaby’s blog.