A working website can have a lot of moving parts. Especially if you’re an author who wants to use their website as a marketing platform. So in this blog post, I talk about five tools every author website needs to spice up reader engagement.
(Note: If you’re new to the world of website building and management, you might want to brush up on some basic terminology first.)
Email marketing
Email marketing is an excellent way to build and grow a reader community. Not only does it play to your strengths as an author, it puts you in full control of how and when you communicate with your fanbase.
The first step in email marketing is to build and maintain a mailing list, which is an ongoing process, of course. The next is content creation, at which you’re already the expert. But when it comes to the logistics—formatting your newsletter/emails, scheduling them, handling sign-ups, subscriptions and unsubscriptions, etc.—it can get overwhelming very fast. Fortunately, there is a a way to automate almost everything.
What you need is an email service that, at the very least, gives you the ability to add a sign-up form to your website (with or without a landing page), create email templates, and add automations to schedule mails and handle users.
There are dozens of email services available, each one with its own pros and cons. But if you’re just starting out with email marketing, consider MailerLite. It has a free account that supports up to 1,000 subscribers and a decent feature set. If and when your list grows, its paid tiers are also quite affordable. However, there is an approval process for an account when you sign up, and as the name indicates, they are “lite” on some features.
ConvertKit, Mailchimp and Substack are other well-known email service providers.
SEO
Of course you want readers to find easily on the web. So when they type in your name or one of your works into a search engine, you want your website to feature prominently in the list of search results. Search engine optimization or SEO is what makes this happen.
However, SEO is another of those things that become complicated if you go too deep into it. (Not that that should stop you.) Fortunately, yet again, third-party tools to the rescue.
Keywords are central to good SEO. This means identifying key terms, whether single words or phrases, that readers are likely to use when they search for you or your books. By strategically incorporating these terms into your content, headlines and URLs, you can increase the chances of popping up more prominently in searches.
Because keyword research can be time-consuming, it makes sense to use a specialized plugin or service. One of the best tools for this is The SEO Framework, which promises (and delivers) a free out-of-the-box SEO plan. Paid tiers are available for when your needs grow, but this is good to start out with.
The SEO Framework suggests SEO-friendly headings, checks for duplicate content, and integrates with Google search, among other things.
Other SEO tools worth checking out include: SEOPress, Keywords Explorer, SEO Writing Assistant, RankMath, Squirrly SEO and Yoast.
Social media integration
If you’re using social media to engage with your readers, you might want your website and your socials blended seamlessly together. This way you make it easier for fans to engage with you in different ways.
There are many ways to embed social media in your author website. One way is to do it manually—just add links to your Facebook, X/Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, etc. in the footer or any other prominent location. The drawback is, this only makes visitors click away from your website.
Different kinds of social media plugins do different things. For example, some encourage visitors to share your content on their social media accounts. Like ShareThis, MoreHub and WP Socializer. Others help embed social media content on your website—like Smash Balloon. You might also want to consider adding Twitter Cards.
Analytics
At some point you are going to want to know how effective your website is, what’s working and what isn’t. This information is important to understand where you need to improve, or make changes.
You might want to know, for instance, where visitors come from. Which search terms are the most popular with readers and prospective readers? Which pages are reader favourites? How many people are reading or sharing your blog? Are your keywords working?
This data is collected and analysed by analytics apps, like Google Analytics. This is a free tool from Google, which looks at your website data and compiles reports and insights. It’s also fairly intuitive to set up and use.
Another free option is Microsoft Clarity, which is known for its ability to generate heat maps to show user behaviour. (Incidentally, it integrates with Google Analytics, so you can actually use both together.) If you’re looking for a privacy focused tool, there’s Clicky.
Book manager/portfolio
If you’re an author with a number of books to your name, you’re definitely going to want to make it easier for readers and readers-to-be to find your work easily on your website. For this, you need some way of showcasing your work prominently. You’ll also want to add a blurb, publication information, how to buy, and perhaps a review snippet or two for each book.
The simplest way is to manually create a page for this—or multiple pages if you have many books. But the better way is to use a portfolio plugin to add some oomph to your list.
Mooberry Book Manager is a free book management plugin for WordPress websites. You simply fill out a form with book information, including the cover, buy links, an excerpt, reviews, and so on. The plugin will create a grid of all your books as well as individual book pages. You can also showcase selected books on the home page or sidebar.
Other portfolio options that work well with WordPress are the one included in the admin plugin Jetpack as well as one called, simply, Portfolio.
Summing it up
Every author website is different, and needs a different set of tools to work efficiently. So this is not a comprehensive list, neither are the examples provided the only options.
As a website owner, only you know what’s best for you and your fan base. Talk to your web designer to help them deliver your dream website supercharged with the right marketing tools.