5 Tips for a Perfect Author Website

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In a survey, commissioned by the Romance Writers of America  41 per cent of all readers visited authors’ websites and 20 per cent more planned to do it.  This means almost two third of readers visit author websites eventually – while only 18 per cent ever visited authors’ Facebook pages.
It shows the importance of a visitor-friendly and regularly updated site.  Website visitors often decide in 5 seconds or less, if they will scan your content or if they click away from your site.
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Before you or your web designer start creating your website make a plan that should cover at least these points:

• Easy to Read
• Easy to Navigate the Website
• Easy to Use Links to Other Sites
• Contact Form for Visitors
• Sales Page e-Commerce for Your Books
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Writing for the Web
Web design consideration: In what pattern do people scan (not read!) your website?  Your first two sentences of each web page must convince the visitor to stay on your page.
Learn how to write for the web: from most important on top to less further on.  Keep your text short, use lots of paragraphs, sub titles, bullet lists and to make your web page appealing, add lots of images and graphics.  Here are some samples of author websites: http://www.thewritingplatform.com/2013/02/ten-author-websites-that-really-do-the-business/.  Check out these websites from famous writers too:

• http://www.stephenking.com/press.php
• http://www.jamespatterson.com/about_biography.php
• http://www.thisisliteracy.ca/teenagers/resources/365

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Easy to Navigate
One thing, with many websites have in common, is lots of clutter which hide the key messages. It’s almost as if some people want to put everything on one tiny page. Removing some of the clutter, particularly from the main page or what visitors can see, without scrolling down, can help to deliver the key messages. Ask yourself: Is my site easy to navigate, and does it have some empty space to make it easy to read?
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Links to Other Sites
If you have links to other sites: what happens when the visitor to your site clicks them? If they are taken
directly to another site in the same window, and they find something more interesting, you have lost them.  All your external links should be set to open in a new window, leaving your site still on view.
SEO: To move up to the top of the search list, you need to have lots of links from other web sites to your page; submit your web pages to various sites that deal with your topic and encourage them to link their readers to you in return of the favor. Get lots of tips how to get more inbound-links. 
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Contact Form
Set up a comments box on your site for visitors to communicate directly with you through email.
Ensure your visitors, that their email addresses are only used to respond to messages, and not being
sold or used for any other purposes.  Don’t place your email address on your site, to avoid getting junk emails.
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Maximize Your Web Traffic and Sell Online
Improve your visibility on search engines by using clear and accurate keywords in your web site title, description and body text. 
If you are selling your books directly from your site:  is it fully secure, from the buyers perspective? Any web pages which require sensitive customer details, need to be fully encrypted. If your web page has no https in the address bar, it shows that it is not secure.  Read also how to get lots of visitors and book lovers to your website.
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Usability as Common Courtesy – Why People Really Leave Web Sites:
Want to learn more about a professional author website: this is the most important and useful book, you should read before anything else:  Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability  2nd Edition, by Steve Krug  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000SEGQNS

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Web Design and Best Practices Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C50yf24lRfQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOMFy3LcQG4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR04bFzUiyg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51Xt3a-Ce9Q

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How to Get Lots of Visitors to Your Author Website?

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44 Tips to Get Relevant Web Links

Building an author website is one step, getting lots of traffic (website visitors) is another task. An important step is to add links, inbound and outbound links, in order to get lots of visitors. Currently, the major engines typically interpret importance as popularity – the more popular a web site, page or document, the more valuable the information contained therein must be. Links are still the most important tool in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on the Web.  But how can you build relevant links?
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Content is king

1. Build a “101 list”. These often become “authority documents”. People can’t resist linking to these .

2. Create 10 easy tips to help you with … articles.

3. Create extensive resource lists for a specific topic.

4. Create a list of the top 10 myths for a specific category.

5. Create a list of experts. If you impress the people listed well enough, or find a way to make your project look somewhat official, the experts may end up linking to your site or saying thanks.
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Developing Authority & Being Easy to Link At

6. Make your content easy to understand so many people can relay to and spread your message.

7. Put some effort in to minimize grammatical or spelling errors, especially if you need authoritative people like librarians to link to your site.

8. Have an easily accessible privacy policy and about section so your site seems more trustworthy. Including a picture of yourself may also help build your authority.

9. Buy relevant traffic with a pay per click campaign. Relevant traffic will get your site more visitors and brand exposure. When people come to your site there is a possibility that they will link to you.
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News & Syndication

10. Write  Ezine articles. Their article pages actually rank highly and send highly qualified traffic.

11. Submit an article to industry news site.

12. Send out a press release. Take the time to make a compelling and newsworthy one. Email it to some handpicked journalists and bloggers. Personalize the email message.

13. Track who picks up your articles or press releases. Offer them exclusive news or content.

14. Trade articles with other webmasters.

15. Email a few friends when you have important relevant news asking them for their feedback and link.

16. Write about, and link to, companies with “in the news” pages. They link back to stories and blog posts which cover their developments. Do a Google search (your industry + “in the news”).

17. Perform surveys and studies that make people feel important. If you can make other people feel important they will help do your marketing for you for free.
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Directories & Social Bookmarking

18. Submit your site to DMOZ and other directories that allow free submissions.

19. Submit your site to paid directories. Another oldie. Just remember that quality matters.

20. Create your own topical directory about your field of interest. Obviously link to your own site, deeplinking to important content where possible.

21. Tag related sites on sites like Del.icio.us. If people find the sites you tag to be interesting, emotionally engaging, or timely they may follow the trail back to your site.

22. If you create something that is of great quality make sure you ask a few friends to tag it for you, hundreds more bloggers will see your site and potentially link to it.

23.  If you write about popular spreading ideas with plenty of original content (and link to some of the original resources), your site may get listed as a source.
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Local & Business Links

24. Join the Better Business Bureau.

25. Get a link from your local chamber of commerce.

26. Submit your link to relevant city and state governmental resources.

27. Get a link from  every supplier you deal with and make it a prerequisite of attending a trade show or convention to get a link from them.

28. See if manufacturers or retailers or other business partners might be willing to link to your site.

29. Develop business relationships with non-competing businesses in the same field. Leverage these relationships online, by recommending each other via links

30. Launch an affiliate program. Most of the links you pick up will not have SEO value, but the added exposure will almost always lead to additional “normal” links.
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Easy Free Links

31. Depending on your category and offer, you will find Craigslist or Kijiji to be a cheap or free classified service, include a link to your website for pennies per month.

32. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Yahoo! Answers and provide links to relevant resources.

33. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Google Groups and provide links to relevant resources.

34. If you run a reputable company, create a page about it in the Wikipedia or in topic specific wikis.

35. It takes not much time to set up a topical Squidoo page, which you can use to look like an industry expert. Link to expert documents and popular useful tools in your fields, and also create a link back to your site.

36. Submit a story to several eZines that links to an article on your site. You can also submit other content and have some of its link authority flow back to your profile page.

37. If you publish an RSS feed and your content is useful and regularly updated, some people will syndicate your RSS content.

38. Most forums allow members to leave signature links or personal profile links. If you make quality contributions some people will follow these links.
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Have a Big Heart for Reviews

39. Most brands are not well established online, so if your site has much authority, your review related content often ranks well.

40. Review relevant products on Amazon.com. We have seen this draw in direct customer enquiries and secondary links.

41. Create product lists on Amazon.com that review top products and also mention your link.

42. Review related sites on Alexa to draw in related traffic streams.

43. Review products and services on shopping search engines like ePinions to help build your authority.

44. If you buy a product or service you really like and are good at leaving testimonials, many of those turn into links.
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LinksManagement.com gives the following tips: 

• Links should come from websites, hosted in the same country
• Links should come from relevant webpages
• Links should come from webpages with Google PageRank1 and higher
• Links should be placed manually, and not automatically using some script
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More tips on how to attract more visitors to your website / blog can be found here:

http://www.bitrebels.com/technology/building-quality-links-guide-infographic/

http://thinktraffic.net/timeless-ideas-for-more-visitors

http://google.about.com/od/searchengineoptimization/a/pagerankexplain.htm

http://google.about.com/od/searchengineoptimization/qt/improverank.htm

http://99u.com/articles/7070/4-creative-ways-to-attract-more-visitors-to-your-website

http://sdas86.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Get-more-than-1000-Visitors-for-Free-and-Make-a-lot-of-Money-Online

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