5 Ways To Make Your Author Website More Searchable And Visible Online | Web Design Relief

Every writer should have an author website; it acts as your online “business card” and information hub. If a literary agent, editor, or reader wants to know more about you and your writing, they’re going to look for you on the Internet—so it’s important that an online search engine like Google quickly brings your author website to their fingertips! At Web Design Relief, our experts know the tips, hacks, and strategies that will make your author website easily searchable and visible online.

How To Make Your Author Website Searchable And Visible Online

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will help your author website show up at the top of search results lists. To start, pick 8-12 keywords that best describe your writing, your themes, and your author brand (don’t forget to include your name). Then, make sure those terms appear as often as possible on your site. Don’t overdo it or force keywords where they don’t make sense—you’ll end up with text that sounds stilted and poorly written. Simply make a point of using your keywords in blog posts, headers, your bio, even in the backend of your website. The terms don’t even have to appear on the page for Google to pick them up: Adding titles to your images can do wonders for your online visibility.

Marketing

One of the most reliable ways to direct traffic to your author website is to simply let people know you’d like them to visit! Choose an easy-to-remember URL and include your website address in your correspondence signature and on promotional materials: bookmarks, posters, postcards, and giveaways. Mentioning your website in your author bio with your published writing is another great way to help readers find their way to your site.

Cross-promotion is also a powerful way to expand your audience. Talking about your writing as a guest on someone else’s blog or podcast exposes potential new readers to your content. And if they want to know more, invite them to visit your author website!

Social Media

If your author website is where readers go to learn more about you and your writing, your social media platforms are where readers go to engage with you in real time. Maintaining an active social media presence lets your followers develop a personal connection to you and your author brand. Your social media accounts can show up in Internet searches for your name, so they serve as another landing point for new readers.

In order to bring your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest followers to your author website, be sure to have a prominent link to your website on your social media platforms (and vice versa) so that followers can connect with just the click of a button.

More Publication Credits

It may seem obvious, but your writing is central to expanding your brand as a writer. What better way to get people interested than to get your writing in front of as many readers as possible? Literary journals and magazines are ideal for this purpose, since they have already spent time building reliable audiences. Each journal that publishes your work introduces you to another new audience, so making carefully targeted submissions to a wide variety of journals is an excellent way to increase interest in your writing and bring more visitors to your author website. And online journals offer the opportunity to link directly to your author website in your author bio.

If you need help researching the best markets for your writing and developing an effective submission strategy, Writer’s Relief can help!

Giveaways

Who doesn’t like free stuff? If you want to build traffic and help your author website rank higher in online searches, consider offering an incentive. Contests and giveaways are easy ways to generate clicks, and the prize or freebie doesn’t have to be expensive. A free copy of your e-book or a subscription to a journal that has published your work won’t break the bank, and they’re the kind of reward that readers can get excited about. You can even tie the contest to your mailing list to keep those new visitors coming back to your site again and again.

With the Internet now the go-to information source for most people, your author website serves as your online identity and reader resource. Use these tips to help your website move higher in search results so that you—and your writing—are more visible and easy to find!