Website Help for Authors

Is your author website working for you?

Many authors start a website because, well, that’s what you’re supposed to do, right?

Right!

But after throwing up a home page, a contact page, a list of your incredible books, maybe a blog if you’re feeling adventurous, that’s often where it ends.

Things get left alone.

No one visits, no one buys your books, no one seems to care.

You may nod to yourself, thinking, “I was right all along, it was a waste of time and effort.”

Right?

Wrong!

Starting your author website is just the first step.

Making it work for you is the next!

Ask yourself this… What do you want your website to do for you?

Do you want to

• Introduce new readers to your existing books and your upcoming offerings?
• Show potential readers what you’re all about, to see if they are a good fit for your books?
• Keep existing readers coming back for more?
• Sell more books? (no brainer!)

The answer to all the above questions should  be a resounding YES!

If your website is not doing all the above for you, you may think it’s pointless having it.

But it’s not, I promise.

The reason your website is ‘not working’ can only be for two reasons:

1. You’re not getting visitors to your site
2. You’re not incentivising those who do visit to stay and take action (and ultimately, to buy books)

That’s it!

And neither of these are a problem if you’re willing to do something about them.

What can be done to fix these problems?

Getting people to visit your site can be difficult, I won’t lie. But here are a few strategies…

1. Write blog articles that attract the types of people that are likely to be interested in your books.
2. Employ good SEO strategies so that people are more likely to discover you organically through the search engines.
3. Use social media to share new content, relevant articles, book news, character insights, quotes and author updates. You can even setup your site for automatic sharing of new and old content.

Converting visitors into readers is also a bit of an artform, but here’s what you can do to increase the chance of people sticking around…

1. Make sure people know they’re in the right place. Show who you are and what you do right off the bat.
2. Use persuasive copy (wording). The messages you give off through your copy will subliminally affect the behaviour of your website visitors, and small tweaks here and there can improve stickaround-ness (yes, my word).
3. Give away a free book or short story in return for an email address, and make sure to follow up with more emails about your other books.

1. Number 3 can be very effective; starting an email list is free and you can totally hide behind your computer the whole time (us author types can be a bit introverted sometimes!).

None of the above ideas are rocket science but they require a certain amount of know-how and a little time to put in place.

And that’s where I come in.

With 15+ years in web design, 5 years in online marketing and an eye for design, websites are what I do best.

And author websites…of course they’re my favourite because I’m an author too and I know how hard it is to put yourself out there and shout ‘read my brilliant book!’ when all you want to do is just sit back and hope for the miracle of being discovered as the next big thing. It doesn’t often happen that way, unfortunately.

What can I do for you?

My main aim is always to help you design a more attractive website that functions well from a visitor point of view and has the specific goal of getting you more readers over time.

I’ve designed a simple solution for you…

The Author Website Report

This is for anyone with an existing website (of any type) that wants to know the good, the bad, and the ugly. What’s working, what’s not? What could be improved, why and by what means? Once you have the report, you’ll be able to take my notes and advice and implement the changes you feel are right for you.

For the Author Website Report, I will take a look at your website from a visitor point of view and of course from design and marketing points of view, and will let you know what you could add, remove or improve upon. I’ll also let you know what’s working well to give you confidence in what you already have.

The aim of all my recommendations is to give your website a better chance of attracting more visitors who then go on to at least look at if not buy your books (I can’t twist their arms at the Amazon checkout unfortunately – that’s up to you to have a compelling book up your sleeve!).

The Author Website Report will give you suggestions on:

• Look and feel – how it could be improved to be more attractive or more pertinent to the types of readers you’re looking for
• Copy – if the message you’re giving out is the right one and is shown in the right place – improving the copy can dramatically increase sign-up or read rate.
• Calls to action – if you have sufficient opportunities for readers to learn more about your books, whether those are links to your book sales pages or to your email list.
• Incentives – is there a good reason for someone to hand over their email address to you? What do they get in return? (I’m currently working on a fiction giveaway so readers can try before they buy too!)
• Navigation – can visitors to your site easily find what they’re looking for?
• Social media integration and sharing – can your visitors easily find you on other platforms and share your pages and posts with others?
• Performance – do your pages load quickly or are visitors likely to give up trying?
• Responsive behaviour – is your site tablet- and mobile-friendly or do visitors find it difficult to view on these devices?

When you order your Author Website Report, I will produce a 3-5 page PDF report for your perusal within 7 days of receiving your order. The amount of detail will depend on the extent of your current website and how many comments and recommendations I have for you. The report will also contain practical hints to help you achieve these recommendations.

As a bonus, I will include a copy of my book, Cracking the Website Code: Grow Your Online Business Faster with a Smarter Website and Savvy Marketing in with your Author Website Report. If you’re in mainland UK or US, I will have a hard copy delivered to your home for you to read in your own time. For those pesky postcodes that seem to be excluded from normal shipping rates, I will supply a PDF or Kindle version of the book instead 🙂

GUARANTEE

If I feel your website is so good that I can’t recommend any changes or solutions to you, I will give you a full refund. And you can still have a complimentary PDF of Cracking the Website Code if you wish 🙂

Ready to get started with your Authort Website Report?

Order your Author Website Report below, it’s just £119. And don’t forget that for a limited time, this also includes a copy of my book, Cracking the Website Code, which retails at £12.99.

You may be wondering, ‘What if I’m not confident enough to implement the recommendations?’

You have a couple of choices here.

If you already have someone looking after your website, you should be able to hand them my report and ask them to implement the options you think are right for you.

Alternatively, if you set up the website yourself or your web designer handed it over and left you to it, I may be able to help you…

If your website is built on WordPress.org (NOT a free blog on WordPress.com), then I may be able to help you take your website to the next level by implementing the suggestions from your report for you.

If you set me up as an administrator on your website, I’ll be able to go in and assess firstly, whether I’ll be able to implement the changes (WordPress has a few interesting add-ons and frameworks and I haven’t used every single one so will hold my hands up if it’s not for me), and secondly, how long this may take.

I’ll also look at your site security, backup solution, performance and use of plugins, and will let you know if anything needs looking at in that area too.

Once I’ve assessed the likely timescale, I’ll be able to give you a more accurate quote on how much the changes are likely to cost.

What you’ll end up with at the end of my time spent on your site is a fully-functional website that is attractive to readers in your genre, has links to all your books, is up to date and backed up regularly, is safe and secure from hackers (or as best it can be, nothing can ever be 100% guaranteed!) and allows readers to subscribe to your email list.

Obviously the price for this will depend on things specific to your website, so once I’ve done your Author Website Report and you’ve thought about what you can and can’t do yourself, if you’d like to consider the upgrade to this done-for-you solution, I’ll give you all the details then.

As a ballpark, you can probably expect to add £200-£400 to the cost of your initial report.

To be clear, I can only look at WordPress websites as these are my area of expertise.

Contact me if you already have your report and would like me to take a look behind the scenes of your site and give you a quote, or let me know if you have any questions about this service. 

Get started with your Authort Website Report below

Order your Author Website Report below, it’s just £119. And don’t forget that for a limited time, this also includes a copy of Cracking the Website Code.

Don’t have a website at all yet?

Visit crackingthewebsitecode.com/work-with-janice