When your author website homepage loads, you have mere seconds—maybe even a fraction of a second—to grab and hold your visitors’ attention. To accomplish this, your website needs to be well designed, and your message needs to be clear and intriguing. Think about your first impression when you visit a new website: What do the colors, font, and style say to you? Are you captivated or disappointed? At Web Design Relief, our expert designers know what works for your audience—and what doesn’t. Here’s what your author website reveals at first glance.

What An Author Website Should Reveal At First Glance

Safe, Tech-Savvy Design: Website visitors prefer web pages that are speedy and secure. Monitor your website’s loading speeds to make sure each page is up and running within three seconds. You’ll also want an HTTPS domain and security tools like CAPTCHA-protection and firewalls to ensure your website is fully secure.

Efficient, Easy-To-Use Elements: It’s obvious from the first few moments on a website whether it is easy to use—or not. Your menu bar should be featured prominently on your homepage and lead where visitors want to go (and where you want them to go!). Keep in mind, website visitors won’t want to click through a navigation maze just to find your publications list. There should be a clear call to action on your homepage as well, whether it’s directing visitors to learn more about you, read your blog, send you an email, or buy your latest book.

Updated Aesthetics: Your author website should look like it was designed recently, rather than decades ago. Leave the bowling alley carpet patterns in the past! Instead, focus on clean, modern design choices so readers will know you’re an active, contemporary writer.

The Right Genre: Your author website design should be genre-specific. The color choices, fonts, and design elements should suit the genre you write in so readers know they’ve come to the right place. For example: Visitors will be confused if you write dark horror but your author website features pastel pinks and yellows with daisies and dainty scripts. When in doubt, stick with a minimalistic, neutral design.

A Positive Experience: Visitors should be glad they’ve stopped by your website and be eager to return. Avoid being too pushy with any marketing attempts or your site will seem like nothing more than a glorified sales pitch—and not like somewhere your readers will want to hang around. Having the right content on your author website makes it more likely readers will explore your site, check out your books, and sign up for your newsletter or mailing list.

Quality and Professionalism: Check, double-check, and triple-check for any typos, grammar errors, or other glaring mistakes on your website. This is especially important for writers! Readers expect an author’s website to be proofread and well-written.

Ask your friends, family, and writing group for feedback on how your author website looks and functions. Do they feel the design and content reflect well on you and offer a professional design experience from the very first glance?

When seconds count, it’s important that your author website draws your visitors in, makes them feel comfortable with the experience, and invites them to explore. The design experts at Web Design Relief can help you create an author website that your readers will come back to again and again—sign up for a free, no-obligation consultation today!

Question: Which is your favorite author website to visit, and why?