Author Website Best Practices: What Every Page Should Include

Most author websites fail for the same reason: they are built for authors, not readers. The author spent hours getting the color palette right and the bio photo cropped perfectly, but the visitor who arrives from a Google search or a social media click has one question: "What has this person written, and should I care?"

If the answer to that question is not immediately visible — within five seconds, above the fold — the visitor leaves. Not because your website is bad, but because it did not answer the question fast enough.

This guide is about building an author website that works for readers, not just for your sense of having a professional online home. The pages covered here are the ones that make a material difference to whether visitors become readers and readers become fans.

The Homepage

The homepage is the most visited page on your site and the one most likely to be a visitor's first impression. Get it wrong and nothing else on the site matters.

Above the fold — the visible area before any scrolling — must communicate three things simultaneously: who you are, what you write, and why the visitor should stay. This is not subtle. It is a banner, a tagline, and a call to action, in that order.

Your most recent or most prominent book should be featured prominently with its cover image, a single-sentence description, and a buy link. Readers who already know your name and came specifically to find a book should be able to locate it in under three seconds.

The homepage should also include your email signup. Not buried at the bottom — either in the above-the-fold section or immediately below it. Your email list is more valuable than your website traffic, because the list is yours. Social media accounts can be deplatformed. Website traffic fluctuates. An email list of 2,000 engaged readers is a durable asset.

What should not be on your homepage: a blog post that is six months old, a "welcome" message that starts with your name and a paragraph about how excited you are that someone found your site, a long biography, or a cluttered list of every book you have ever written with no hierarchy. Hierarchy matters. One book should be the featured book. Other books should be accessible but secondary.

Think of your homepage as a lobby. Its job is to get people to the right room quickly. It is not the room itself.

The Books Page

The books page is the functional core of your website. This is where readers go to find out what you have written and decide what to buy.

You have two layout options: individual pages per book (which allows more detail and better SEO for each title) or a grid view that shows all books on a single page. For authors with three or fewer books, individual pages are usually not necessary. For authors with a backlist, individual pages with full descriptions, buy links, and reviews are worth the setup.

Each book listing — whether on a grid or an individual page — needs at minimum:

Cover image. High resolution, properly sized. The cover is doing the work here.

Series name and number (if applicable). Readers browsing series need to know instantly what order books come in. "Book 1 of the Harrowfield Chronicles" should be more prominent than the subtitle.

Description. The same copy you use on Amazon. Hook, stakes, genre, tone. Not a plot summary. A sales argument.

Buy links for multiple retailers. Amazon is the dominant retailer for most authors, but Kobo readers, Apple Books users, and library borrowers want links too. If you are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, note that the ebook is KU-eligible — it is a selling point for subscribers.

Any awards or accolades that are relevant to readers. "Winner of the 2025 [Award Name]" is useful. Your five-star review from a friend's blog is not.

If you have reviews from credible sources — book blogs, professional review outlets, comparable authors — a short pull quote on each book page adds credibility at the moment of purchase consideration.

The About Page

The about page is where most author websites go wrong. Authors write their about page the way they would write a resume or a grant application: in chronological order, starting with where they were born, listing credentials, ending with pets. This is the wrong structure.

Readers come to the about page for one reason: they want to understand the person behind the books they either have read or are considering reading. They want a connection, not a career history.

The effective about page structure:

Lead with your work. What do you write? What kind of reader is your ideal audience? What themes recur in your books? This orients the reader immediately.

Connect the work to the person. Why do you write what you write? This is where personal history becomes useful — not as biography for its own sake, but as context for the work. An author who writes dark psychological thrillers because they spent a decade as a crisis negotiator has a story that justifies the credentials and makes the work more interesting.

Personality and humanity. A few lines about your life outside of books — where you live, a family detail, a genuine interest — makes you a person rather than a profile. But this should be brief. Two sentences. Not two paragraphs.

A recent photo. Readers want to see who they are talking to. Update the photo when it becomes more than three years old.

Write in the first or third person based on what feels natural for your voice. Third person is traditional for formal bios (back cover, Amazon Author Central). First person is warmer and often more effective for the website about page, especially for genre fiction authors whose readers have a parasocial relationship with the author.

Email Signup

Your email signup should appear on every page of your website, not just on a dedicated "newsletter" page. The most effective placements are the homepage (above or just below the fold), the bottom of every blog post, the sidebar on the books page, and the footer that appears sitewide.

The incentive — sometimes called a reader magnet — significantly affects signup rate. "Subscribe to my newsletter" gets low conversion. "Get a free prequel novella" gets high conversion. The reader magnet should be something with genuine value in your genre:

• A free prequel or origin story for a series character
• A deleted chapter or alternate POV scene from a published book
• A short story set in the same world as your books
• For nonfiction: a checklist, workbook, or resource guide that complements the book

The reader magnet does not need to be long. A 5,000-word short story is more valuable as a signup incentive than a promise of "occasional updates." It demonstrates your writing immediately to a new subscriber and gives them a reason to open your next email.

For a complete email list building strategy — including how to grow past the first 100 subscribers — see building an email list as a new author.

The Blog (Or Not)

Most author blogs fail. They start strong — weekly posts for three months — and then trail off to irregular posts and eventually nothing. The half-finished, years-old blog is worse than no blog, because it signals to a new visitor that this author has abandoned their online presence.

Before you decide whether to have a blog, ask yourself honestly: do you have something to say regularly that readers in your genre will find interesting? Not updates about your writing process aimed at other writers. Actual content that your target readers care about.

The use cases where a blog genuinely works for authors:

Nonfiction authors whose books cover a topic they can write about continuously. A financial independence author writing weekly posts on personal finance. A health author covering research updates. The blog becomes a content marketing engine that drives search traffic directly relevant to the book's audience.

Authors who are also publishing industry educators — writing craft posts, industry news, resources for aspiring authors. This is a different audience from your book readers, but it can be a large one.

For most genre fiction authors, a blog is not worth the overhead. Put that writing time into your next book and use a newsletter to stay in touch with your readers instead. If you want a site presence that feels current and active, link to your newsletter archive or embed social media content rather than maintaining a blog.

The Contact Page

The contact page should include a form or an email address. That is its function.

What it should not include: your home address (use a PO box if you want a mailing address on your site), your phone number (no reader needs this), or a wall of instructions about what not to send you.

Add a note about your response time and what kinds of messages you welcome. "I read every email and respond to reader messages within two weeks" sets a realistic expectation. "I am happy to hear from readers, book clubs, and event organizers" tells visitors whether their inquiry is appropriate.

If you receive enough press or media inquiries to warrant it, you can split the contact page into "reader contact" and "press/media contact" — but most self-published authors do not need this distinction until their readership is large enough that the volumes differ meaningfully.

The Events Page

An events page makes sense if you do readings, signings, convention appearances, or online events at any frequency. It should list upcoming events with dates, locations, and registration links where applicable.

The most common events page failure is staleness. An events page with past events and no future ones should either be taken down or updated to show clearly that no events are currently scheduled. A "no upcoming events" message is better than a page full of events from 18 months ago.

For authors who speak frequently, the events page becomes part of a speaker kit — a reason for event organizers who find your site to understand your availability and audience. In that case, add a brief note about the kinds of events you do and how to inquire.

The Press and Media Page

A press or media page is relevant once you have press coverage worth showcasing. Before that, it is unnecessary.

When you do create one, include: book covers in high resolution (for media use), an author photo in high resolution (for event programs and publications), an author bio in multiple lengths (one sentence, short, long), previous press coverage with links, a contact email for press inquiries, and any interview availability or speaking topics.

Journalists and podcast hosts who are writing about a topic in your genre and want to quote an expert often search for media pages. Having one that is easy to use removes friction from their process and increases the likelihood of coverage.

Navigation

Your site navigation should have no more than five items. This is a real constraint, not a preference. Navigation with more than five items forces visitors to work to find what they want, and most of them will not bother.

The hierarchy of navigation items by importance for most author websites:

1. Books
2. About
3. Newsletter (or Email)
4. Contact
5. Blog (only if active)

Everything else — events, press, store, resources — can live under one of these pages as a sub-page or in the footer. The footer is where you put things that need to be accessible but do not need prominence in the main navigation.

Do not put your name as a navigation item. Your name is already in your logo or site header. It does not need to appear in the nav bar too.

SEO Basics for Author Websites

Your author website has a narrow but real SEO opportunity. The primary keyword is your author name. People who have heard of you, read about you, or seen your book listed somewhere will search your name. Your website should be the first or second result for that search.

Secondary keywords are your book titles. Individual book pages should be titled with the book name and optimized for people searching for that specific title plus variations like "audiobook," "series order," or "how many books."

Genre and theme keywords are a longer-term opportunity. An author who writes "regency romance set in Scotland" can, over time, rank for searches related to those terms. This is more work than simply having a website and requires regular content creation, but for nonfiction authors especially, organic search traffic from topic-relevant content is valuable.

Technical SEO basics that matter most for author sites: your own domain (not authorname.wordpress.com — get authorname.com), a secure HTTPS connection (any modern hosting provider handles this), and a site that loads in under three seconds on a phone.

Technical Foundations

Mobile responsiveness is no longer optional. More than half of web traffic is mobile, and Google uses mobile performance in its ranking algorithm. If your site is built on a modern platform — Squarespace, WordPress with a modern theme, Wix — mobile responsiveness is handled automatically. If your site was built more than five years ago and has never been updated, test it on a phone and consider a redesign.

Page load speed affects both user experience and search ranking. Large uncompressed images are the most common cause of slow author websites. Use compressed images (tools like TinyPNG handle this for free) and avoid using more than one or two web fonts.

Your own domain is important. An authorname.com domain costs around $12–15 per year and gives you a professional address that you own regardless of which platform you build on. The platform can change. The domain stays with you.

SSL certificate (the "https" rather than "http" in your address) is standard on all current hosting platforms and affects both browser trust indicators and search ranking. If your site still shows "http," update your hosting.

Essential Pages Reference

Page	Must-Have Elements	Common Mistakes
Homepage	Featured book, tagline, email signup, navigation	No clear featured book, outdated blog post as hero, no CTA
Books	Cover, series order, description, buy links	Missing buy links, no series numbering, description too short
About	What you write, personal story, photo	Chronological bio, no connection to work, no photo
Email Signup	Reader magnet offer, simple form	"Subscribe to newsletter" with no incentive
Contact	Form or email, response expectations	Home address, phone number, no response time guidance
Events	Upcoming events with dates	Stale past events, no "no upcoming events" message
Press/Media	High-res photo, bio lengths, press contact	Missing downloadable assets, not updated after coverage

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a website if I have social media?

Yes. Social media accounts can be shut down, deplatformed, or algorithmically suppressed. Your website is the one place on the internet you fully control. It is also where Google sends search traffic, which social media cannot replicate. Treat your website as your home base and social media as traffic drivers back to it.

What platform should I use to build my author website?

The most common choices are Squarespace (easiest, visually strong, monthly cost), WordPress with a hosting provider (more flexible, lower cost, more technical), and Wix (easy, reasonably priced). For authors who want no technical overhead, Squarespace is the most defensible recommendation. For authors comfortable with more DIY work, WordPress on a host like SiteGround or Namecheap costs less per year and offers more control.

How often should I update my author website?

The books page should be updated every time a new book is published. The about page should be updated when your bio meaningfully changes — new book, major award, career shift. The events page should be updated whenever events are added or completed. Beyond that, the website does not require frequent updates to be effective. It is a destination, not a publication.

Should I have a separate website for each pen name?

Generally yes, if the pen names are for significantly different genres with different readerships. A romance author who also writes literary fiction under a different name should have two sites, because the readership overlap is minimal and the branding serves different audiences. If pen names are within the same genre or closely related genres, a single site with clear branding can work.

What is the minimum viable author website?

One page. A homepage that includes your name, what you write, your most recent book with a cover image and buy link, and an email signup form. You can build from there as your catalog grows. A clean, functional single-page site is better than a sprawling multi-page site with outdated content.

Your website is the hub that makes every other marketing channel more effective — it is where you send email subscribers, social media followers, and review traffic. For a complete look at the deeper strategy behind it, the author website guide covers platform selection and setup in detail. For the email list that should be at the center of your site, building an email list as a new author covers the full strategy.

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