Some authors
have simple, plain looking sites that seem to get huge traffic and engagement.
Others have amazing looking high tech, design masterpieces that barely even get
visited. Clearly there’s more to it than simply a good looking design and
graphics or photography.
Along with
my Agency, Rocket Expansion, we’ve been building websites for authors and
creatives for years now. We’ve picked up a thing or two about what works in an
author website and what doesn’t, and it’s definitely a whole lot more than a
pretty homepage.
The Important Aspects Of An
Author Website
I’ve just
published an extensive resource on author
websites with 67 author website examples and a
thorough walkthrough of what I think is great about each. It will give plenty
of opportunity to see how these points I’m about to mention actually work.
Easy Navigation
This goes
beyond just having a tidy menu bar. Your site needs to be well organised in a
logical fashion. If you don’t do this, no one's going to be able to find all of
your great content (which we’ll get to shortly.)
Clarity
Similar to
navigation but in a broader sense, your site needs to be understandable and
feel easy to use. Don’t leave it to chance that your visitor may click on
something in your crowded home page that you want them to. Make the clickable
areas of the page extremely obvious by making them stand out clearly. You can
use strong contrast or color to make this distinction.
Make each
page have a focus. What do you want your visitors to do? Make it really clear
and more of them will.
Branding
Branding is
not just your logo, your colors or even your name or slogan. Branding is the
entire communication package that your website makes use of to make you come
across as uniquely you.
Branding is
an opportunity to truly differentiate yourself from others in your genre and
other authors in general. Make your site clean and clear for sure, but also
have fun with who you are when you create your website.
Stephanie
Meyer calls her blogs “Obsessions”. Each blog post is “5 Reasons We’re Obsessed
with_____”. It’s a light fun touch, but also a good example of a part of her
branding. She’s fun, and well, obsessed!
Author Funnel
If your
website isn’t actually contributing to growing your audience and selling your
books, then how much of marketing tool is it?
I’m not a
huge fan of the term “funnel”. It feels somehow spammy or manipulative, like
herding cattle through a narrow chute. But when I started getting more involved
in marketing I learned that the sales funnel concept is actually regarded as
one of the oldest established principles in marketing, first mentioned in 1898.
A sales
funnel is very simply a process that takes someone who has never heard of you
on a series of steps that build the relationship until the become a buyer. Then
the relationship is nurtured into them buying again, promoting you to others
and your book sales sky rocket. Sounds great right?
In a digital
age a sales funnel can be as simple as giving a highly incentivised reason to
join your mailing list. Offer a fantastically valuable resource for free. Then
you can get a second chance to build a relationship with your website visitors
and they can get to know you.
Digital
marketers often cite that on average it takes at least 7 interactions with a
customer to get a sale. If you can convince a visitor to sign up for your
newsletter, you’ll be a whole lot more likely to get these 7 touch points and
therefore get more book sales.
Create a
welcome newsletter series with an email marketing software. Make your series
packed with useful and interesting resources your ideal reader would be
interested in.
Getting this
right means the difference between having a glorified book brochure online, and
a sales machine that does your marketing for you on autopilot.
SEO
Search
engine optimization can seem technical and confusing. It’s not.
50% of all
traffic on the internet comes from search engines. You’d be stupid to ignore
them.
There are 3
simple, important rules for SEO success:
- Create epic content
- Optimize it for your keyword
- Get others to link
back to it
Great
content means content that entertains, educates and inspires. It also usually
has the obvious quality of some real work having been put into it. Anyone can
rehash someone else's work. Writing a few thousand words of original, well
referenced, well written, well edited content gold will mean people will
actually read it, and this is the first step to getting noticed on Google.
Optimising
each post for a keyword is not that hard. If you’re using a WordPress site, use
a plugin called Yoast SEO. Add your keyword in the “focus keyphrase”. Then
follow the prompts in the “SEO Analysis” till it turns green.
Finally,
links to your posts are the strongest signal to search engines that your site
is valuable enough to show in search results. Getting links is simply making an
effort in the author community to share your stuff with others who may be
interested. Guest post on others blogs, just like I’m doing now. You’ll get
more exposure in general, and you’ll get links back to your blog and website.
Fan Resources
Finally
without a really good reason for visitors to come to your website and keep
coming back, it’s not going to be very helpful to you as a resource.
As a
creative person you already have a fantastic advantage over 99% of the
internet. You can have great ideas and you can write! There are so many ways to
create valuable resources that will make your website a place where everyone
wants to hang out and keep coming back. The point is to set out a strategy that
engages your audience in the long term and stick to it.
Now that
you know what makes an author website great, take a look at some great
author website examples in which I show how all the
above can be put into action.
Author: Matt Ziranek
Artist, Writer and Managing Partner at
Rocket Expansion Digital Agency.
Matt Ziranek is an artist and writer who helps other artists and writers
shine online. As the managing partner of creative design and marketing studio
Rocket Expansion, he’s built websites and successful marketing campaigns for
best-selling authors and Grammy Award winners
