Author Websites: How to Create and Promote in 2023
The importance of having a well-built, comprehensive website for every writer in 2023 shouldn’t be underestimated. Choosing the right promotional strategy can turn it into a gold mine for lucrative book sales.
In this article, we’ll cover reasons why authors need a website, guide you on website creation, and share marketing strategies that will drive traffic to your author page.
Why Do Writers Need Websites?
Firstly, in the heyday of the digital era, it’s expected for all creators to have a website. Secondly, building a website that attracts visitors and converts them into readers contributes to winning the race in the competitive digital world of publishing.
According to Statista, there are about 45,200 writers and authors in the US, but only 21% of full-time publishing authors make a living solely by writing books. To stand out, you need to put in the effort.
If you’re self-publishing, your website plays an e-commerce role, representing an online store. In the case of selling books with an independent publishing company, your website may be a significant part of your brand by revealing your credentials and letting your audience get to know more about you.
There are several significant advantages of creating your website using a constructor or coding it from scratch:
- Modern CMS provides broad opportunities for website design and functional customization.
- Wider reach - Drive more traffic since you aren’t limited to social networks, but anywhere online.
- Many promotional options - SEO, email marketing, SERM, paid ads, and content marketing.
- Better monitoring - You can track the activity of users, analyze the effectiveness of promotions, and conduct A/B testing.
- Property rights - As the owner of the site, you hold complete authority over your pages. You can even place advertisements for additional income.
- Grow your user database - You can leave a contact form to get email addresses or share links to your social network profiles
- Set up an online store to make it easier for readers to make purchases directly on your site.
How to Create an Author Website
Now you’ll find out how to create a professional-looking, mobile-friendly website for your marketing and branding needs.
Generally, website creation consists of 3 main steps:
- Choose a CMS
- Select a domain and provider
- Set up and customize your website
Choosing a CMS platform
If your budget for creating and maintaining a website is on the higher side, you can always work with a professional web developer for your needs.
However, modern website creation with CMS platforms has become so simple that there’s no need to hire a professional if you’re willing to put in some work to set things up. Anyone, even a newbie with a modest knowledge of computers, can make a functional website with an attractive, user-friendly design.
The most popular website building platform is WordPress. It’s free, has a huge number of templates, automatically makes your website suitable for mobile and tablet devices, offers good tech support with many developer-consultants ready to help.
Choosing a domain and hosting provider
To launch a new website, you need two things:
- Domain name (web address: yoursitename.com)
- Hosting provider (a service that connects your website to the internet)
The WordPress platform itself is free, but the domain name and hosting will cost you around $ 3-5 per month.
With the purchase of a domain name and hosting service, you will also receive a personal email address (or addresses). You@YourSite.com looks a lot more professional than a standard Gmail or Yahoo address.
Set up a website and fill it with content
Now that you’re done with the domain and hosting, it’s high time to create a website. All that’s left is to add some content.
Main elements of a writer’s website:
- Author Bio
On this page, you can briefly mention key details of your life and credentials. Add some photos of yours, mention any upcoming events (if any).
- Books
Each book should have its own page with the title, subtitle, publisher, book cover, series and series number, publication date, binding, ISBN, and page count. Offer an excerpt to view or download and add book reviews as they come in.
Additionally, share a link to the self-publishing company or book retailer, if you partnered with any.
If you set up an ecommerce website, make sure you set up the main ecommerce elements like “add to cart”.
- Email Sign-Up Form
Even if you’re not yet sure what to do with the mailing addresses, it’s never too early to start collecting them. Once you decide to make a newsletter – you’ll have email addresses at your disposal.
Tip: Offer something of value to the user for free so they share their email address.
- Blog
Write blogs on topics related to your books using relevant keywords. By doing so, you will increase the amount of organic traffic to your site.
Stay active and make sure you post at least once a month.
- Contact
Mention all the possible ways readers can contact you: email address, links to social media, contact forms, etc.
How to Promote an Author Website
Creating a good website is essential, but it isn’t enough to attract new readers or convert existing ones into buying your books. To do so, it’s necessary to promote your website on other channels.
We’ll share a few tools and techniques that affect website promotion on search engines. These recommendations are universal and applicable to any website, regardless of the way it was built.
- Connect Google Analytics
Analyzing data is essential to keep track of what works & what doesn’t. Google Analytics is a free tool for precise site performance. The installation process is simple – just check Google’s instructions.
The most important metrics for an author to monitor:
- Number of Visits/Sessions – number of times people come to your site;
- Page Views – the number of pages on your site that were viewed;
- Bounce Rate – the percentage of people who see one page and then leave the site or “bounce” off the page;
- Average Time Spent on Your Site – how long a user stays on your site
- Top Content – track the pages that get more sessions and better traffic and focus on creating similar content.
- Keywords & On-Page SEO
Keywords are individual words or phrases that internet users type into search engines to find products, services, or information. Carefully selected keywords can provide a website with a large influx of targeted users.
There are several tools for this task:
The initial analysis can be reduced to a small list of, for example, 10-20 core words/phrases, which you have to include in the content of your website.
The goal here is not to use as many keywords as possible, but one keyword with several related ones per page.
There are 7 main elements where keywords can be used:
- The address (URL) of the page.
- Title tag: 60-70 characters (including spaces).
- Meta tag Description: 155-160 characters.
- Headings and subheadings in the text. In the code, this is H1-H4.
- Description of pictures on the page: ALT tag.
- Text, also known as “content”.
Be sure to analyze your top keywords and their sources. It will give you an understanding of the words and phrases people use to find your website.
- Make a sitemap
A sitemap is a navigator that helps search engines crawl a site correctly and index its pages. To do this, you need to collect all the pages of the site into one file (sitemap.txt or sitemap.xml) using a sitemap generator, and put it in the root directory of your website.
- Social media links
Add “Follow me” buttons to your social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc. from your website. The more you’re able to build a following, the better. When you publish a new book or blog on your website, you can promote it to your followers to drive traffic back to your site.
This works both ways, it’s a great way to drive traffic to and from your website and social media accounts.
- “Q&A-type” websites
Make use of websites like Quora or Reddit. Answer user questions, share your expertise, and mention your website if it’s relevant. Remember, no spamming.
To wrap things up, we hope this convinces you to create your author’s website, build rapport with your readers, strengthen your brand, and sell more books!
In case you are looking for a convenient platform to get your book published – LiveCarta is always here for you! You can reach out to support@livecarta.com to help get you started.