You Need a Website
To make a go of it, you really need to have a website. There’s really no way around it. Your readership, potential publishers, agents and press need a way to access you. Not only can you showcase your work, but it’s an opportunity to put more work out there. Think of it as your digital business card.
Don’t think because you aren’t selling your work on the website, you don’t need one. There’s a lot of work to selling anything - books included. Many authors opt out of that venture and instead connect visitors to where they can purchase. This is as simple as copying and pasting a link. Connect them to the location where you will earn the most commission (wink-wink).
Many people, writers or otherwise get hung up on their site outline. This is just a fancy way of saying your website navigation or menu. There’s not necessarily a right or wrong way to do it. However, you really should have a Contact page and an About You section. That is typically why someone goes to your website. What you want to title each one is up to you. There are variations and clever alternatives peppering the web. What’s important is that it looks and sounds like you. In my day job, we call it your “brand voice”.
There is a myriad of online software available now for novices to build a website. I use Square Space. WordPress, domain hosting sites and even Google provide tools to create websites. Do the research before you jump in. What makes sense for you? Is it affordable to maintain? Does it have the flexibility you need? Does it use the latest technology and how good is the tech support for the software? It’s possible you may have a budget to pay a professional. Awesome! That’s good news. Your life just got a lot easier. Remember, though your developer will need to know some of the same answers we’ve already talked about to create the right website for you and your brand.
One other thing I’d like to mention is on the topic of content. First, use original content. From page text to pictures, not only will it better showcase you, but from an SEO standpoint, Google loves to crawl original content on a website. In that vein, your website is never complete. You may start off with a beautiful site you can roll live and get your name out there with, but you should be revisiting to update and refresh content regularly. Why? Google cycles as they crawl and looks for the newest and most relevant search results for their users. You don’t want to have a stagnant site that gets passed by because of stale content.
Good luck!
