Spring has sprung!... well almost... in some parts of the world at least. It will hopefully come for the rest of us in the near future.
When we think of Spring, we often start thinking about Spring cleaning and new, fresh, starts. It's the perfect time to get organised and clean up your online presence.
Spring clean your author website
Here's a few ideas of things you can do to Spring clean your author website:
1) Update your author photo. Is your author photo current? If it's been a while since you updated your author photo now is a good time to take a new one. If you were to do a book signing tomorrow, would people recognize you as the same person on your website? If you're still using the same photo from years ago, maybe not. Get a good clear headshot for a professional look.
2) Check your contact details. Is it easy for people to connect with you? Do you have your social media buttons (with working links) in an easy to find spot on your website? Maybe you've added some new networks? Add new buttons/links and make sure the old ones are still up to date. Also make sure you either have a contact form or email on site so that fans and press can get in touch with you.
3) Update your website header. Your header is the first thing people see when they visit your website. What does yours say about you and what you do? Is it still current?
4) Update information about your books. Hopefully you at least have links to your books sales pages on your website. If not, do that now. If you've been busy writing you may have books that have been recently released. Update your website to showcase all your titles.
5) Update your author bio. When was the last time you updated your author bio? If it's been a while, a few tweaks here and there might be in order.
6) Update your "About" page. This follows on from #5. Did you know that the "About" page is one of the most visited pages on any website? Just check your own visitor stats and you'll most likely see it's one of your most frequented pages. Make sure yours gives readers a good overview of who you are and what you do.
7) Have a blog. Although static sites can be lower maintenance blogging will do wonders for your SEO. If you don't have a blog on your author website, start one.
If you do have a blog, take a look at your editorial calendar. This is something that often gets overlooked on author blogs. In fact many of you might not have even thought of having an editorial calendar for your author blog. It's a great way to make sure the content you put out is on target with your goals, suited to your target audience, and saves loads of time in the long run. Take a look at your goals for your website and brainstorm post ideas that help you reach those goals.
8) Add social share buttons to your website. Social media is huge. Nearly everyone is on at least one, if not more, social media sites these days. Make sure your making it easy for visitors to tell others about your website. Adding social share buttons is a quick and easy way to do this.
Do you Spring clean your author website each year? Got a tip of your own to add to the list above? Tell us about it in the comments section below.
advice for authors
advice for writers
author blogs
author branding
author brands
author websites
Jo Linsdell
Spring Cleaning
writers and authors
1 Comments
Dynamite Jo! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI love to hear from you. So feel free to comment, but keep in mind the basics of blog etiquette — no spam, no profanity, no slander, etc.
Thanks for being an active part of the Writers and Authors community.