There’s always room for improvement on an author website. Whether your site was built 10 years ago (in which case, it most definitely needs updating) or 10 months ago, there are always new and interesting things that can be done to both update and improve your site.
Thanks to my trusty Internet and Marketing Report magazine, here are six ways to do just that:
1. Add punch to your headline. Play the role of a website visitor. Imagine that you arrive on your website, with no idea of who you are or what your books are about. Would your headline explain it? Just your name certainly doesn’t say much. Add some punch to your headline or tagline, explaining who you are, what your writing is about, and how it can change the lives of the readers. An example would be, “BOOK TITLE HERE: The most heart-wrenching novel you’ll ever read.”
2. Cut down on copy. It’s hard, as a writer, to keep our words to a minimum. But that’s exactly what we should be doing on our author site. Once you reach a certain point, your words begin to become annoying. Apparently, that point is about 100 words per segment of the page. Segments of an author homepage may include “About the Book,” “About the Author,” etc… Any more than 100 words in any of those areas and you’re making your readers work too hard. Speaking of which…
3. Break up your text. Writing for a book is very different from writing for a website. Books tend to have long, wordy paragraphs that really set a scene. Websites … well, not so much. Break up your website copy into bite-sized chunks — even bullets, when possible. A one-sentence paragraph may sound awful to you as a writer, but it’s actually very effective on a website.
4. Move your call to action above the fold. I’ve written a great deal of posts about making sure that your website offers clear direction to visitors (buy the book, enter your email address, etc…) But if those actions are “below the fold” — meaning, a visitor has to scroll down on the page in order to find it — they’re less likely to follow through on that action. So make sure your important links are above the fold.
5. Remove “click here” and “go” references. You’re a writer, so you know that some words are truly wasted words. “Click here” and “go” are pretty much that: wasted words. You’re much more likely to get people to take action by having the link be the actual action. So, for example, “Buy now” or “Save today” are much more effective links.
6. Add social media buttons. Hopefully, you’ve already created a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc… If so, then you need to link to them from your author website. Chances are if people are “liking” or “following” you, they’re going to write some nice stuff about you on these social networking profiles. So give your new visitors the chance to see it with links, embeddable widgets, etc… to your social networking site of choice.
Ready to talk with us about building — or upgrading — your author website? Contact us today for a free consultation!