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Follow These Tips To Improve Your Author Website

By on June 15, 2016
Follows These Tips To Improve Your Author Website - Writer's Life.org

As we’ve said previously, every author should have an author website. Without one it’s practically impossible for people to find you online. An author website gives you a chance to show your readers not only your portfolio of work, but also give them an insight into you, the author.

A professional, engaging website can work wonders in terms of increasing your readership, getting you more work, and encouraging readers, potential employers and other interested parties to take you seriously as a writer.

So hopefully you have your author website set up already. A basic website is relatively easy to create (even for the most die-hard technophobes) and it isn’t expensive either - so there is no excuse!

But once you have it up and running, what’s next? If you have gone to the effort of making it, why not make it the best author website out there?

Content

Obviously having good content is what your website is all about. This is your platform where you can show the world what you do and why you are good at it. It’s important, therefore, to have a clear homepage which says exactly what you want it to.

To do this successfully you need to think about your ideal client. Who are you hoping will land on your page? What do you want them to find out? What questions will they have and how will you answer them? How can they find out more or get in touch with you? How can they buy your work?

Having a clear, well laid out author website is imperative. The last thing you want is for people to be confused when they land on your homepage. They might have looked you up because they read something of yours they liked, or were recommended to check you out by a friend. Don’t make them lose interest my making your author website complicated, confusing or too wordy. Tell them who you are, what you’ve done, what you are working on and how to get in touch.

Contact

Making yourself accessible is another good tip. If you have only got a contact form this can be off putting. You may not want to put personal details on your contact page, but an email address is useful.

People trust that an email has been sent, they know they are getting to the person directly. If their only choice is to fill out a contact form it can simply disappear into the ether - many people don't like this uncertainty and so simply won’t fill them out in the first place.

Comments

Make it easy for people to leave you feedback. Readers who come to your author page may not want to get in touch, but they may wish to leave a comment about your work.

Engaging with your readers in this way is important. You can easily moderate comments so you don’t have to worry about ‘trolls’ or people being unfairly negative. Remember comments are sometimes useful even if they are negative, and constructive criticism can help us learn and grow as writers, we must accept that not everything can appeal to everyone.

Visuals

Make your website visually interesting, You don’t have to be a design genius to do this, but adding a picture of yourself, your book covers, and other relevant pictures, photographs and elements of design will make your website look more professional and interesting to browse.

Choose great images, and style your website in a relevant way. If you are a horror writer you can make your website dark and foreboding, if you write romance make it beautiful and warm.

Your website should reflect you and the work that you love, this way visitors will immediately get an impression of what you are about.

Simple tips like these can really advance your author website. So make your virtual presence known and give yours some thought - it could make all the difference!

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

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