Stewart
Active Member
In response to my post on Author Websites I recently answered a question on a Writers' Forum when the author was wanting to know how why his site wasn't showing up well in Google . I've tidied up my response and will post it here. This advice is primarily for those who have or intend to have a website to showcase their writing, to offer information about themselves, and/or to offer an outlet for their books.
Domain
Get your own domain name. Using some other site (Freewebs, for example) to host seems unprofessional and you have no control over your site as these companies can tend to enforce their withdraw account and content clause at any time.
To pick the best domain name then use your own name. Also, should someone search for you, your domain name acta as one of the best keywords for finding your place on the web. Who in their right mind when looking for info on you is going to type in http://freeboards.com/yourname into Google while www.your-name.com would be perfect. Remember to hyphenate your name as this will create two keywords (i.e. Stephen and King and not Stephenking. For authors who collaborate it may be best to purchase a domain for both of you and then redirect the URL to another domain (or one of the domains) or give yourselves a "collective" name with which you'll name the site.
Keywords
Give your page a good title but not too many keywords. ie.. The Official Site of Your Name
If you want a title graphic then make sure you give it's alt tag (HTML) the same as the page. This adds a good keyword to the image as Google can't read the text in a graphic.
On the home page, put a heading using <h1> tags i.e. Make it reinforce the page's title. The Official Site of Your Name. This is because, after the Page Title, Google looks favourably upon header tags - the larger the better. You can set the size of the tags via a CSS (see later) should you think they are too big for your page.
Now, put a subheading about yourself. Maybe use an <h2> or <h3> tag as Google looks at these before it looks at your normal text. This should give a little bit of info about you. Your Name is the author of blah blah blah. Possibly even a dilution of your author info.
With links, ensure that they are also descriptive. ie.
Subscribe to our Newsletter
and not:
To subscribe to our newsletter, click here
Content
Since it is a home page about you, try to include a good (and recent) photograph. Ensure its alt tag is your name.
Provide links either along the top or as a menu down the left hand side of the page. If these are going to be graphical links then use an alt tag to describe what it is for. People who turn off graphics in browsers can then, therefore, also determine where a link will lead.
Along the bottom put a list of the site's links again, in a smaller font and horizontally. Include a Site Map here which allows Google to get to every page of your site from the home page.
Make the copyright info small and centre it at the very bottom.
Try and provide some interesting options for your readerbase: news, about you, FAQs, upcoming appointments, about your books, a blog (if you deel it would add to the site), an opportunity to buy your book(s), and links. Link to other authors. Google likes links and it is how it finds other sites. The more popular/important sites you can get to link to you will help with your ranking. Helping other sites will help with your ranking. Linking to sites of similar content will help with your ranking.
Don't join a webring - they look unprofessional and you don't have control over the graphical content. They will clash with your site's style.
Try not to have anything that will slow down the loading of your web page: Flash animations, animated graphics, or - as is popular with authors who do their own sites - free site tools: counters, polls, newlsetter managers.
If you can, create a forum (phpBB is the best for a new community as Google can index it and the more posts it gets the more Google will like it. And with a community you can, at the start, talk to your fans until - should it happen - you become well known and your fans just start talking to each other.
Style
Ensure your site has a CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) rather than hard coded style into the HTML as this means you can change the look of your site within an instant (over each page) rather than working and reworking each page.
Only include JavaScript if necessary - it's slow.
Updating
Update your website regularly. There's nothing worse than finding the last update was last year. If you have events that you visit then give feedback to your fans - how was the event/the signing, etc?
Archive everything you ever upload. If it goes out of data then still display it but move it to a new place. There's always some nut who wants to know what you were up to regarding a book signing or some such activity back in 1994.
Another thing to consider is to buy a domain with the same title as your book and direct that also to your author site.
Domain
Get your own domain name. Using some other site (Freewebs, for example) to host seems unprofessional and you have no control over your site as these companies can tend to enforce their withdraw account and content clause at any time.
To pick the best domain name then use your own name. Also, should someone search for you, your domain name acta as one of the best keywords for finding your place on the web. Who in their right mind when looking for info on you is going to type in http://freeboards.com/yourname into Google while www.your-name.com would be perfect. Remember to hyphenate your name as this will create two keywords (i.e. Stephen and King and not Stephenking. For authors who collaborate it may be best to purchase a domain for both of you and then redirect the URL to another domain (or one of the domains) or give yourselves a "collective" name with which you'll name the site.
Keywords
Give your page a good title but not too many keywords. ie.. The Official Site of Your Name
If you want a title graphic then make sure you give it's alt tag (HTML) the same as the page. This adds a good keyword to the image as Google can't read the text in a graphic.
On the home page, put a heading using <h1> tags i.e. Make it reinforce the page's title. The Official Site of Your Name. This is because, after the Page Title, Google looks favourably upon header tags - the larger the better. You can set the size of the tags via a CSS (see later) should you think they are too big for your page.
Now, put a subheading about yourself. Maybe use an <h2> or <h3> tag as Google looks at these before it looks at your normal text. This should give a little bit of info about you. Your Name is the author of blah blah blah. Possibly even a dilution of your author info.
With links, ensure that they are also descriptive. ie.
Subscribe to our Newsletter
and not:
To subscribe to our newsletter, click here
Content
Since it is a home page about you, try to include a good (and recent) photograph. Ensure its alt tag is your name.
Provide links either along the top or as a menu down the left hand side of the page. If these are going to be graphical links then use an alt tag to describe what it is for. People who turn off graphics in browsers can then, therefore, also determine where a link will lead.
Along the bottom put a list of the site's links again, in a smaller font and horizontally. Include a Site Map here which allows Google to get to every page of your site from the home page.
Make the copyright info small and centre it at the very bottom.
Try and provide some interesting options for your readerbase: news, about you, FAQs, upcoming appointments, about your books, a blog (if you deel it would add to the site), an opportunity to buy your book(s), and links. Link to other authors. Google likes links and it is how it finds other sites. The more popular/important sites you can get to link to you will help with your ranking. Helping other sites will help with your ranking. Linking to sites of similar content will help with your ranking.
Don't join a webring - they look unprofessional and you don't have control over the graphical content. They will clash with your site's style.
Try not to have anything that will slow down the loading of your web page: Flash animations, animated graphics, or - as is popular with authors who do their own sites - free site tools: counters, polls, newlsetter managers.
If you can, create a forum (phpBB is the best for a new community as Google can index it and the more posts it gets the more Google will like it. And with a community you can, at the start, talk to your fans until - should it happen - you become well known and your fans just start talking to each other.
Style
Ensure your site has a CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) rather than hard coded style into the HTML as this means you can change the look of your site within an instant (over each page) rather than working and reworking each page.
Only include JavaScript if necessary - it's slow.
Updating
Update your website regularly. There's nothing worse than finding the last update was last year. If you have events that you visit then give feedback to your fans - how was the event/the signing, etc?
Archive everything you ever upload. If it goes out of data then still display it but move it to a new place. There's always some nut who wants to know what you were up to regarding a book signing or some such activity back in 1994.
Another thing to consider is to buy a domain with the same title as your book and direct that also to your author site.