5 Things You Must Include on Your Author Website
Your author website is one of the most important tools that you have as a self-published author. It is a place where people come to see who you are and what you are about, as well as to check out what else you have written. When someone really likes your work, one of the things they might do is type your name into Google to find out more about you, and if you have an author website set up and optimized to be in the first spot for your name or pen name, then they will likely visit it first. But what kind of things should you have on your author website? Here are five elements that you absolutely should have.
Information about You
The first thing that you must include on your author website is information about you personally. That is what people are coming there to find out. People want to know things like where you live, how old you are, whether you are married or single, how many children you have and maybe some personal information like your favorite authors and books. Whenever someone thinks of you as a celebrity or someone that they would like to find out more about, you want to make sure that you oblige is much as you can, even if you are a private person.
A List of Your Books
You also want to have a list of your books available on your website, as well as a link with each one that leads directly to the Amazon page for that book so the people can buy them if they want. Having a good, high-quality picture of the book cover that is large enough to see as well as a basic blurb is a great addition to any author website.
An Opt-In Mailing List
You are also going to want to have an area where people can opt in your mailing list. This will allow you to email people whenever you release a new book, and have a list of your readers basically on speed dial so that you can send out news, tell them about specials that you are having or simply announce the release of something new.
Contact information
You are also going to want to have contact information on there. You can just have a contact form if you want, but you do want to leave both readers and other people way to contact you. Suppose a traditional publisher came along and wanted to contact you about a book deal or someone wanted to buy the movie rights to your book for some reason.
An Active Blog
Finally, you want to have an active blog. The reason for an active blog is that it provides more keywords for your website to be indexed for, and posting regular content improves your search engine optimization as well. Plus, the more blog readers you have the more potential sales you have for your books. If you need an author site made, check out this IT Support NYC company.