Some writers—understandably—don’t want to blog. Blogging can take away from our writing time. Thinking of post topics can be difficult. And if we don’t gain a readership (or our blog readership doesn’t cross over into the target audience for our books), it can feel like a waste of time and effort.
However as I mentioned last week, if an author doesn’t want to blog, that’s no excuse not to have a website. Websites can be just as free as blogs, require less maintenance, and most importantly, act as our online home.
When we think of author websites, we might think of the fancy, flash-based, custom-designed sites of our favorite bestselling authors. Kudos to those who can justify that cost.
Personally, I use the WordPress platform because it can handle the static pages of websites just as easily as the changing posts of blogs. We can choose the free (WordPress.com) or low-cost (WordPress.org) option that works for us and create a basic website with or without the hassle of a blog.
Whichever way we choose, creating website pages is easier than we might assume. Next month, I’ll be teaching two workshops on WordPress for beginners to help writers build that online home. Now, let’s talk about what we should include on those website pages.
Who Are You?
A visitor to our site should be able to discover who we are.
- At the very least, include an “About” page for our author bio.
- State what we write (fiction, non-fiction, both?) and our genre(s).
- Additional pages can include FAQs, links to interviews or guest posts we’ve done, lists of our favorite things/songs/other authors, etc.
In short, visitors should feel a connection to us. Whether we write fiction or non-fiction, they want to know we can tell a story. (Even non-fiction without any voice is boring.)
It’s up to us and our brand to decide how we want to create that connection. Do we have a great “this is how I got published” story? Do we have interesting pets or hobbies? Or do we have the perfect background and experience for writing our book?
What Do You Do?
A visitor to our site should be able to find what projects we’re working on or have completed.
- At the very least, include a “Books” or “Works in Progress” page.
- Published books should have buy links and back cover blurbs.
- An “Extras” section can include pictures that inspired us, soundtracks, deleted scenes, book trailers, etc.
- The more information we include, the more important it becomes to include a search function on our site.
This is our opportunity to create a deeper connection between visitors and our work. Our focus in this section should be to make the information as easy to find as possible, such as by providing book lists (with series books in order).
Even websites need some maintenance, and this section should be kept up to date. A website that hasn’t been touched to include our latest news is next to worthless. Do we have updates about our publishing journey? Have we started a new book? Do we have a new release?
How Do You Connect?
This broad question covers everything else. Essentially, we should give our visitors a “call to action” or some homework. *smile*
- At the very least, offer a newsletter sign up for future news.
- At a close second, provide a Contact Page with an email and/or snail mail address or a contact form.
- Link to our social media accounts.
- If we have a blog, include a tab for the blog page or for a link to a separate blog.
- For sites with blogs, include ways to follow new posts, like an email sign up and RSS.
- For sites with blogs, a search function is a must.
The number one thing we can do to encourage visitors to connect with us is to promise and provide good content. And as I mentioned in the What Do You Do section, we have to make it easy for visitors to access that content.
I’m constantly surprised by how many blogs are missing a search function. All that great content doesn’t do any good if it’s lost once it’s been buried under new posts.
But Wait—There’s More…Website Tips!
My friend Roni Loren has a great post with lots of ideas about how to make our websites “sticky.” She lists suggestions for the extras that can be included in each of the sections above. The Writers In The Storm blog has a post about how to keep our website professional.
For branding and technical reasons, I also recommend using your name as the domain name (yourname.com and not yourname.wordpress.com). This is an upgrade on the free WordPress.com platform and is the only upgrade I recommend for the WordPress.com version. If you want more customization, you’re probably better off going the self-hosted WordPress.org route.
The Cheap Way to Have a Website
Yes, a blog is better in the short term for gaining traffic and making a name for ourselves, but in the long run, especially for fiction authors, a website is far more important. Most readers will never follow the blog of a fiction author, but they might check our websites for book lists and extras. And for unpublished authors, websites give a quick summary of our work and our experience for any visiting agents or publishers.
None of the suggestions here requires a fancy, custom-designed website. The WordPress platform can handle every bullet item in this post. We might discover we have more freedom to implement some ideas if we pay for a self-hosted WordPress installation (WordPress.org) rather than stick with the free WordPress.com option, but many of those limitations depend on which theme (i.e., template) we choose for our site.
No matter which direction we choose, websites don’t have to be as expensive as we fear. They can also be easy and straightforward to set up. Those of us on WordPress already can simply add Pages to create those “About” and “Books” sections above. And if we have a theme that allows a static (unchanging) home page, we can create a welcome or landing page for the website separate from our blog.
Ta-da! A static home page with other static pages? That’s a website. *smile*
Registration is currently open for my two workshops designed for those with no knowledge of WordPress, websites, or blogs. Interested? Sign up for only one of the workshops: For a free website/blog: “Develop a Free Author Website in 60 Minutes (or Less!)”; or to set up a website/blog you own: “A Newbie’s Guide to Building a Self-Hosted Blog or Website.” (Blog readers: Use Promo Code “jamisave” to save $5 on registration.)
(Note: I don’t want to be a workshop presenter who occasionally fits in time to write, so unless I have tons of requests to run them again, this might be the only time this year I present these workshops. Plan accordingly. *smile*)
Do you agree with my “at the very least” must haves? Can you think of other “must haves” for our websites? Which suggestions above do you think are most or least important? If you have only a blog so far, what’s holding you back from adding static pages?
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