Your website’s design is the look and feel of your site. Is your site clean and easy to navigate, or does it feel cluttered and overwhelming? Your site’s design should reflect the quality of your work – so if it’s lackluster, it could be the reason your potential readers are turning away.
Take a Look at Your Website’s Design
Overall Layout and Visual Appearance
You have seconds to catch your reader’s attention. And the “look” of your site should WOW your reader and convince them to stick around.
Each piece of content (graphics, book covers, headlines, sub-headlines, sign up forms, etc.) all have a purpose and you, as the author, has to place each in the visual hierarchy you assign it.
Color Scheme
Your readers will instantly form an opinion of you as soon as they see your site. You can set yourself up for success by setting the ground work paying attention to what colors you choose and where you put them. Take a moment to research colors and how they can help, or hinder you. You won’t be sorry.
Your brand and style is found in the colors and fonts (style and type) that you choose.
Typography
The font, or set of fonts, you choose is just as important as the colors you choose.
There are many author websites that’ve chosen unreadable fonts (and colors) making it difficult to read and understand what’s being said. Having different fonts helps to differentiate between what you’re trying to say. Having too many different types is not good either.
Navigation
Please don’t come up with a creative navigation menu. Not being able to know how to navigate your site is a huge problem that you CAN solve for your readers. Create a simple menu that doesn’t use fancy words, adding it to a spot that’s easy to be seen, is the best course of action.
Mobile friendly
If your site does not have a responsive design, add it NOW!!! Your readers are looking at your site while they are on your phones. And it’s very frustrating to have to navigate your site when it hasn’t adjusted to a phone.
Not to mention, if your site is mobile friendly, then Google is much happier and give your site a higher rank in the search engines.
Content
There are two sides to your content that you need to think about: first, what content are you adding to your site. And second, how that content is added.
Think about these questions: what is the tone of your pages? Do you have shorter sentences with smaller paragraphs on each page? Do you have enough whitespace that allows your readers to scan your content quickly and efficiently? Are your headings and sub-headings directly related to the book page or book series page that it’s on? Does your reader know within seconds exactly what that page is about?
Conclusion
I know that you’re proud of your author website! I would be too. When you have the right elements on your site, your readers will come back again and again.
If you feel like your site is in need of an audit, go here to audit your author website content, yourself.
Then take the time to update and optimize your author website.
What’s Next…
Make sure you have the essential website content pages added to your author website. Go here to get a free donwloadable checklist FREE to download, meaning you don’t need to give me your email address to get it!!
Learn how you can help your author website to stand out from the competition. Offer well-designed and impressive website extras!
Your author booklist is an important piece of content. Learn the benefits of making your author booklist a dedicated page on your author website.
