Help Readers Find your Author Website is part five of the Essential Elements of an Effective Author Website series.

Picture this:  A golden retriever, lying on the floor next to your chair, hears a soft bang. He looks up, tilts his head and focuses on the sound. Will he have to leap into action or can he put his head back down on the floor and go to sleep?

Google is a little like that golden retriever. Every so often it tilts its digital head and listens for anything coming from your website.

If Google detects something new they leap into action, retrieving information, building new links, adding your fresh content to their search engine, and bumping up your ranking if they see the new information as useful.

If it sees the same thing that was there yesterday, or last week, or even last month, it puts its head back down and rests – no longer paying attention to your author website.

New content is the lifeblood of any website

This post is not to try and convince you to blog on a regular basis at your site. I personally think you should, and there are hundreds of topics that would be of interest to your readers, but I understand that most of you won’t consider it. That’s okay. It’s nice, but not essential.

What is essential is fresh content on a regular basis.

That content could come in the form of news, or updates, or new books, teaser chapters, links to reviews or dozens of other things.

Blog or News?

If you blog, you can use your blog to add all of this, but if you don’t, you need a menu item for it.

Some authors call this menu item News, What’s New, Updates, or dozens of other short, clever names. Whatever you want to call your page, that’s the place where you’ll add things as they happen, or you can use your blog for these little tidbits of information.

Did you just publish an article on The Huffington Post? Link to it here. Were you just interviewed by a local radio station? Write a couple of paragraphs and link to it. Did your guest post just go live on Jungle Red Writers? Same advice – Post something on your site and link to the site where the readers can get the full story.

Then, when you post something new to your website, share it and encourage your friends and followers to share it as well. Sharing posts and news items from your website on social media is one of the very best ways of getting people to your site.

Your blog or the news section of your site informs readers that you’re active in the publishing world, allowing them to find those witty posts you wrote on your last blog tour. And of course, the biggest benefit is waking up the golden retriever that is Google and letting them know that you’re creating new content and linking with other popular websites.

The post Essential Element 5: Help Readers Find Your Author Website appeared first on CamVen Media.

We started this training on the Essential Elements of an Effective Author Website by comparing your website to a house. Let’s take a minute and go back to that analogy.

Picture yourself walking down a sunlit street, looking up a slight hill at a beautiful home. The front yard has several large, mature trees. There’s a magnificent flower bed to the left of the home, and there are flowering plants and vibrant shrubbery lining the walkway to the front door.

The view from the street is creating a story in your mind about the house and the people living inside it.

Your website does the same thing.

What story do you want your site to tell visitors about you and your books?

I’m not going to get into branding, type fonts and color selection in this post. What we are going to get into is being clear on what you want your site visitors to think about you and your books when they visit your site.

Do you write cozy mysteries featuring a pastry chef? Is that obvious to site visitors without going to your book page?

Maybe you write historical romance that takes place in Ireland. Better yet, maybe you write multiple series, but they all feature glamorous locations around the world.

Can you begin to picture the different ways these websites might present themselves to readers?

As authors, we want our sites to attract readers who enjoy reading the type of books we write, right?

In a world where 55% of website visitors click away in less than 15 seconds, you want to let them know immediately if your books are a good fit for their reading preferences.

Taglines

A great tagline combined with the right images can tell a story in less than a few seconds.

Here are a few of my favorite taglines, ranging from the clever to the short and simple that I’ve seen over the past few months:

Author Liz Magavuro (The Pawsitively Organic Mysteries)

Elizabeth Edmondson writes historical fiction, but her two-word tagline refers to her work as:

Barbara Freethy is more to the point with hers, but it quickly tells site visitors what she writes:

JF Penn is equally short and accurate with hers, which simply says:

In each of these examples, it’s easy for readers to know what the author writes within seconds of arriving on the website.

So what does your website tell visitors about you and your books? Can a potential reader figure out what you write within 15 seconds? If not, they may be gone.

This post concludes the Essential Elements of an Effective Author Website series. If you missed any of the lessons, you can find them here:

Lesson 1:  Why you Should Have a Separate Webpage for Each of Your Books.

Lesson 2: The Four Most Important Elements for your About Page

Lesson 3:  Making the Most of your Contact Page

Lesson 4: Using your Website to Build Your Email List

Lesson 5:  The importance of fresh content on your site

Lesson 6:  Telling the story of you and your books (this post)

If you’d like to download the entire series as an e-book, that will be available soon. You can signup to receive a free copy the minute it becomes available by clicking the button below.

Yes, I want the ebook!

Creative Commons image by Hans

The post Essential Element 6: Does your website tell the story of you and your books? appeared first on CamVen Media.

If you’re a regular listener to The Author Biz podcast, you know that I and most of my guests believe an author’s email list is one of their most valuable business assets.

One excellent way to grow your email list is by actively encouraging your website visitors to sign up.

Here’s a simple two-step process to encourage people to sign up to your email list from your website: 

Step 1 – Ask
Step 2 – Make it easy

That’s the process in a nutshell.

Now the tactics for encouraging people to sign up can make the process seem more complicated than it really is.

Before we get to my two steps, let’s talk about some of the tactics that are working, and in some instances working well for people right now.

1.    Offer a free book or books for signing up to the email list. (Offering an incentive to encourage site visitors to sign up is often referred to as a Lead Magnet. You’ll see my lead magnet for this series as a blue button at the bottom of this screen)
2.    Have a pop-up show up over the content your site visitor is reading.
3.    A combination of those two things.

The free book tactic is being used by a number of authors with varying degrees of success, but it’s not for everyone. If you write a series, have multiple books and have the rights to those books, it’s certainly worth exploring.

The pop-up option is an entirely personal preference. Pop-ups work, but some people hate them.  I dislike them, but I use them because they’re effective.  On my CrimeFiction.FM website the pop-up attracts twice the number of subscribers that my fixed sidebar signup form gathers.

I consider pop-ups and free book offers to be tactics and those change on a fairly regular basis. Since we’re talking about foundational principals in this email series, I’d prefer to discuss the process of asking people to sign up and making it easy for them to do so.

The Ask

Asking people to subscribe to your email list from your site can and should be a simple process, which begins with building a subscription form at your email marketing provider.

You’ll notice the default options and colors on these forms tend to be bland and ugly, but they can be modified to match the look and feel of your site.

When building, or updating your form you’ll want to give some thought to what you’re going to deliver through your newsletter.  Will you be sending it out on a regular basis or only when you have new releases?  Will you alert subscribers to news like contests and discounts? If so include that in your ask.  Here are a few examples:

Subscribe to my newsletter
Learn about special deals, giveaways, and other reader perks.  Never miss a new release.  

Or

Join My Mailing List
Get Latest Releases and Exclusive Offers

Or

If you’d like to receive updates, news, and previews, please let me know by entering your email address in the box below.

It doesn’t need to be complicated and is in no way intrusive. You’re asking your readers and fans if they’d like to be notified when you have something to say.  And if they sign up then THEY WANT TO BE NOTIFIED.

Make it Easy to Join your Email List

The second part of the simple two-part formula is to make it easy, which meansmake it easy for your readers to find and complete your subscription form.

The best place for your subscription for, or link, or button is where readers will see it.  That’s not in the middle of your site, or at the bottom, or on your contact page.  It’s on the homepage, or better yet, on every page.

If you have a self-hosted WordPress site, you can put the code in a text widget on the upper right or left of your site. Or, you can use a WordPress plugin from your email list provider. (Note – This link goes to our affiliate link for Blue Host, the hosting company that we recommend. You’ll get a better price by following the link and we earn an affiliate commission from Bluehost.)

If you have a WordPress.com site, things get a bit more complicated. You can simulate a subscribe form the way I describe in this post:

http://theauthorbiz.com/trick-posting-mailchimp-signup-form-wordpress-com-site/

If those things seem overly complicated you can take the easy, yet still effective way out. Just add a Subscribe link to your main menu and direct it to the subscription form you get from your provider.

Some of you will have sites that aren’t built on WordPress. You may be on Wix, or Squarespace, or even Blogger. The same information applies. If you can add a subscription form, that’s the best way to go. If not, a menu item or a prominently placed button that links to your signup form will work. 

One last thing on making it easy for site visitors to subscribe to your list. Avoid asking for unnecessary information. A year ago nearly all sites were requesting both first name and email address. Now, many are just requesting the email address.

I’ve experimented with both options and prefer first name and last, but that’s purely personal preference. I like having the option of personalizing my messages. However, asking for just the email address simplifies things because you don’t have to clean up the mistakes people make when entering their names.

The information you request, like so many things with your website, comes down to personal preference.

Email List Marketing Providers

Several email marketing providers do what you’ll need to stay in touch with your readers. Companies like MailChimp, Aweber, Constant Contact, iContact, Get Response and others are all good options.

However, there’s one difference, especially early on. MailChimp has a free option for up to 2,000 subscribers. If you’re just getting started, free is good.

Here’s a current list of prices and beginning tiers for the providers I mentioned:

• Mail Chimp – Free for up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month
• AWeber – $19 per month for up to 500 subscribers
• Constant Contact – $20 per month for up to 500 subscribers
• iContact – $14 per month for up to 500 subscribers
• Get Response – $15 per month for up to 1000 subscribers

There are others as well, but I’m including the ones that I have used.

The features of each provider are different, but they all do the basics.

Interestingly enough once you get beyond the free tier at MailChimp most of the vendors are priced similarly.

I currently use MailChimp for both The Author Biz and CrimeFiction.FM.  For both those sites I use a feature called “Automation” which automatically sends out an email, or a series of email, when a trigger event happens. That feature is not available in the free version, so I currently pay them $13.50 per month.

I know some of this topic may be confusing. If any part of this is unclear please let me know in the comments below.

The Essential Elements of an Effective Author Website series continues with a post on the importance of adding fresh content to your site.

If you’d like to download the entire series as an e-book, that will be available soon. You can signup to receive a free copy the minute it becomes available by clicking the button below.

Yes, I want the ebook!

Creative Commons images by ALESSA_ABRAMOFF 

The post Essential Element 4: Using your website to build your email list appeared first on CamVen Media.

Making the most of your Contact Page is part three of the Essential Elements of an Effective Author Website series.

Quick – you’re an author with a new book coming out and a radio station wants to contact you to schedule an interview about your book.

How do they reach you?

Easy answer, right? They go to the Contact Page on your website. Well, not always.

Here’s a real life example of this that I experienced a few weeks ago. I saw that an author who’s work I admire had a new crime novel coming out in six weeks. Of course, I wanted to have her on CrimeFiction.FM, so I go to the website and click on the Contact page.

Oh No – Not the contact form!

The dreaded email form. You know the form – Enter your name, email address and a message and I’ll get right back to you. That form?

So, I enter my name, email address, and the interview request, and then I wait.

After a week, I wonder if the author got the message. Should I try again? No, I don’t like being a pest. I’ll give it another week.

Another week goes by, and I’ve totally forgotten about following up.

A third week goes by, and I get an email:

Hi – Ms. Big Time Author would be happy to be on your show to discuss her new book. Her email address is X.

Great – except that I’ve already booked the two weeks surrounding her book. So, I’m unable to interview this author.

I understand why some authors use those forms, but my experience with them is that somewhere over half those messages are never responded to, even three weeks later.

(If you’re wondering why someone would use a form rather than just including their email address on the page, it may be the fear of being overwhelmed with email. They create the form rather than expose an email address. The form often directs email to an address that’s rarely checked. Of course, it may also be a website default, which can be changed.)

So, unless your books routinely land you on the New York Times bestseller list, and you’ve got people who handle your email, don’t use an email form on your Contact page.

Who visits your contact page?

1. Readers and fans who want to open a dialogue with you.
2. Industry professionals who need to communicate with you.
3. Media members who wish to shine a light on your work.
4. Others who may have business/partnership opportunities.

As authors, we don’t want to hide from readers, industry professionals, or media, so make it easy for people to contact you and let them know it’s okay.

• Readers and fans – Let them know in big bold type that you love hearing from them about your books.
  Industry professionals – Nothing needs to be said here, just make it clear what your email address is and use an email address that you check regularly. If you don’t want to attract spam bots do what others do and enter your email address like this: author at authorsite dot com.
• Media – If you’re up for an interview, let people know.
• Others – Not everyone who may want you to co-write their next bestseller will be friends with you on Facebook. Make it easy for them to reach you through your website.

What else Should I put on my Contact page?

Your Contact page is a great place to add buttons or links to your social media accounts. (Of course your home page is another great spot for those buttons. Make it easy for people to connect with you.)

It’s a great place to include contact information for your agent if you didn’t put the information on your About page.

If you enjoy speaking with book clubs, add a blurb about how you do that as well (In person or Skype).

It’s a great place to list your social media accounts so that readers, fans and others can connect with you where they’re already hanging out.

Think about why people would come to your Contact page and try and answer their questions in advance.

Yes – I love hearing from readers – contact me.
Yes – I love speaking with book clubs – contact me.
Yes – I’d be interested in being interviewed by you – contact me.

Your Contact page should be one of the easiest pages to create on your website, but make sure it includes the proper elements.

The Essential Elements of an Effective Author Website series continues with a post on encouraging site visitors to sign up for your email list.

If you’d like to download the entire series as an e-book, that will be available soon. You can signup to receive a free copy the minute it becomes available by clicking the button below.

Yes, I want the ebook!

Creative Commons images by Namrakhan and  kheinz.

The post Essential Element 3: Making the Most of Your Contact Page appeared first on CamVen Media.

The Four Most Important Elements for your About Page is part two of the Essential Elements of an Effective Author Website series.

Is the About Page on your author website doing all the work it should for you?

Does the photo you have help to tell readers who you are? How about your bio? Is it as dry as a stale cracker or does it give readers a glimpse into who you are and what you write?

Every element of your website is an opportunity create or enhance your relationship with readers and potential readers by helping them to understand who you are as an author.

What Should your Author About Page Include?

Before we get into detail, there are a few elements that your About page should include. Let’s be sure you have each item that applies: 

1. Your bio
2. A professionally done author photo
3. Social Proof
4. Information on your agent, publisher, and PR firm (if applicable)

Your Bio

This is the one that gets all of us. How should we write the bio?
Should it be first person chatty or third person snobby? Should we be funny and open or strictly professional?

Here’s my answer for this one:

It depends.

Sorry, but it’s different for everyone and here’s why.

The author who writes international geopolitical thrillers will have a much different bio from the author who writes mysteries featuring cats and cooking.

Your bio should fit in with what and how you write. If your books are funny, your bio could stand to have some humor. If your books are detail oriented and serious, your bio could emphasize your subject matter expertise.

Some authors choose to put multiple biographies on their website to serve different purposes. One might be for readers while a second might be for potential agents and publishers.

It’s important to remember that About pages aren’t etched in stone and what you have on yours today might change as your publishing journey changes.

If you’re in the process of looking for an agent or a publisher you can rest assured they’ll check out your website and the About page. Be sure it includes the information you want them to have.

A professionally done author photo

Oh, I’ll just have my husband/mother/nephew take a nice picture of me, and I’ll use that as my author photo. I don’t need to spend the money for a professional photographer.

Wrong.

If you’re serious about your writing, you’ve spent months writing and polishing your books. Hundreds or even thousands of dollars on editing, proofreading, formatting, cover design and all the extras that go into a professionally produced book.

Consider spending some money and time with a professional photographer to have a series of pictures taken. Not just one, but multiple photos that can be used in different ways for the next several years.

How much will this cost? Well, like so many things I’ve mentioned in this email series, it depends. But it can be done for a little as a few hundred dollars.

Having a professional author photo is something that will make EVERYTHING you do as an author look more polished.

Social Proof

Adding social proof is a simple but often overlooked part of the About page. Include some of the nice things people have said about you and your books. Awards, bestseller listings, sales information, anything that will show readers that you’re a serious and accomplished author.

Social proof may seem like an overwhelming challenge if you’re a new author, but it needn’t be. Amazon reviews, Kirkus reviews, blog reviews, or even blurbs can be used here.

This is not a “more the merrier” situation. Somewhere between one and three social proof items will do the job, and remember, they can be changed as new reviews/awards come in.

Agent/Publisher/PR Information

Including Agent, Publisher and PR contact information accomplishes at least two things. First – it’s more social proof, it shows that you have those people on your team, and second, it makes it clear to industry professionals who they should contact for specific requests.

If I’m a movie producer who wants to option your book for film or television, I’ll know to contact your agent. If I work for the Today Show, and I’m looking for author guests, I know to contact your PR firm. You get the picture.

If you don’t have an agent, a publisher, or a PR company, don’t sweat it. The movie producer who desperately wants to make a blockbuster from your book will just swing on over to your contact page (next in the series) and reach out to you directly.

The Essential Elements of an Effective Author Website series continues with a post on your website’s Contact page.

If you’d like to download the entire series as an e-book, that will be available soon. You can signup to receive a free copy the minute it becomes available by clicking the button below.

Yes, I want the ebook!

Creative Commons image via FlashBuddy

The post Essential Element 2: The Four Most Important Elements for your About Page appeared first on CamVen Media.

Why you Should Have a Separate Web Page for each of your Books is part one of the Essential Elements of an Effective Author Website series.

Which website ranks the highest when readers search for your book?

For many authors, it’s Amazon, or maybe Goodreads.

Some of you may be saying that’s great.  My reader can go directly to Amazon and buy the book. That’s what I want, right?

Well, yes and no.

Yes, we want readers to buy the book — that’s a given. But not everyone is an Amazon customer. How hard to you want those readers to have to work to find your book?

More importantly, If you’re sending your web search traffic to Amazon, you’re helping to cement the relationship between Amazon and your readers.  Our goal as authors should be to build adirect link between the reader and ourselves. The best way to form a mutually beneficial relationship with your readers and fans is through your website.

Why it’s important to have a separate web page for each book you’re selling

Whether you have one book or thirty, whether you write one series or five, each of your books should have its own separate web page.

Why?

There are a few reasons, but the most important is that it makes it easier for Google to find you and your books. In other words, it’s important for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes.

We want readers searching for your name and book title to have your website to come up as the top result.  Once they land on your page, you can encourage them to signup for your newsletter, as well as providing them with links to ALL of the different places your book are available online.

What should my book page include?

There are a few items that are must haves on each separate web page for your books, but before we go there, let’s get technical for a minute and talk about URL construction.

The URL is the address that shows up in your browser address window when you’re on a web page. You want each of your book pages to include your book’s title. So, if your author name is John Smith, and your book title is BIG BESTSELLER, your URL might look like this:

http://www.johnsmithauthor.com/big-bestseller

That’s obviously a made up link and domain. So here’s a real example of a book page, from Gillian Flynn’s website.

http://gillian-flynn.com/gone-girl/

Note the author name and the book title in the URL. This link is a simple and straightforward step to improved search engine optimization.

I know – URL construction is boring. So here’s what else a good book page should include:

• The book’s cover
• A description of the book
• Purchase links
• Social proof (blurbs or reviews)

There are other items you can add to a book page, but those are the Essential Elements.

Create series pages if you write multiple series

If you write more than one series, you should have a page for each of them. That page can be as simple as a series title, covers, and links to the book pages. Here’s an example from Barbara Freethy’s Callaway Series:

http://www.barbarafreethy.com/books/callaway-series/

Click on any of the book links and you’ll see the individual book page.

Series pages would also work well for SEO purposes because some readers will search using a series name, rather than book titles.

The important thing is to capture as much search traffic as possible at YOUR website, before sending readers to online booksellers to purchase your books.

The Essential Elements of an Effective Author Website series continues with a post on your author website’s About page.

If you’d like to download the entire series as an e-book, that will be available soon. You can signup to receive a free copy the minute it becomes available by clicking the button below.

Yes, I want the ebook!

Creative Commons image via Klimkin

The post Essential Element 1: Why you Should Have a Separate Web Page for each of your Books appeared first on CamVen Media.