Every author should have a website. A website will allow your target audience, as well as potential new readers, to get to know you and your works. Some important details to this end are as follows:
- Find a hosting site you like, there are many and - depending on how adept you are with HTML and other coding - they go from super simple to extremely complicated.
- Don't worry about purchasing your domain name right away. There are some who say it looks better if you have a www.yourname.com or .net or .org but really, you are just starting out and that isn't a cost you're ready to deal with. Plus, you want to give the site a test run before committing like that and doing it as a freebie is a great way to proceed.
- When you have found a hosting site you think you can work with, play around with the templates and find something that makes you happy. Don't go for splash and glam just because you can. You want it to catch peoples eyes and yet be pleasing, not searing their corneas as they scramble for the mouse to get off your site.
- Visit other author sites to see how they have constructed them. You want to have a good flow that a) makes sense and; b) doesn't piss off your audience. Browse both professionally tended and amateur author sites and see what you like about their sites and what you don't. This way you can implement it on your own.
- Do not go crazy right off the starting blocks. Create a warm and welcoming home page with something that will catch readers eyes. Make sure you have a page dedicated to just you. Put up your picture (only if you are 100% comfortable doing so) and put up a biography of you to tell your readers a bit about you beyond your author's cap (be careful how personal you get). Then ensure you have a page solely dedicated to your books. Or many sub-pages. Or whatever you want. And always, always ensure you have a way for your audience to reach out and contact you - be it a form or a link that opens an email page for them to send you a message.
- Play around with it until you feel comfortable with the flow. The more at ease you are with it, the more likely others will find the same ease of moving around your site. Try a few different pages but only use what you like and what you think will benefit you as a writer. Not everyone needs the same things on their sites.
There are many sites out there that have a month to an indeterminate trial length of time. Find one that you can try out for a good six months without having to commit, at least. Some free sites you can use before going all the way with a "purchased" domain are:
- Wordpress.com
- Blogger.com
- Weebly.com
- Webs.com
- Yola.com
Once you have it set up how you like it get your friends and family to go through it. These are some of your toughest critics right there and they will be honest with you about something like this. Ask them to go through the site, front to back, top to bottom and rate it for ease of use, ease of finding things, readability and of course - that all the potential links actually work. Trust us, we've been there and missed a link or two in our days. Or worse, had it go somewhere it really shouldn't have! The horror of it all.
Depending on the hosting site you've chosen you may never actually have to purchase a domain name. Despite what your publisher may say, it isn't an absolute must have. Yes it looks a lot prettier without the hosting name as part of your web address, but it's free. Free is good. Free is awesome. Free is the best thing ever on the planet. And, considering some of the money you will start shelling out in the near future, free is necessary when and where you can get it.
Stay tuned for more insider info in the days to come. We'll be touching on how to advertise yourself as well as getting that brand new website you just constructed out there for everyone to find and see.
The Moderator
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