by Penny Sansevieri
Spending five minutes to determine your website’s strengths and weaknesses will help you identify areas that need additional time and effort. Here is a guideline for a 10-point check-up:
1. Editing
Your website needs to be edited. That’s it. There’s no further discussion. And don’t self-edit. Hire someone to go through your site page by page and fix typos.
2. Website Statistics
Do you know your site stats? Did you even know how to find them? Site statistics are part of every website design, and you should use them regularly. Know your traffic patterns and learn to read these reports (it’s a lot easier than it sounds). This is key to knowing what your site is doing… and what it isn’t.
3. Media Room
Everyone needs a media room, even if you’ve never had any TV appearances. The media room is a great place to list all of your book-related accomplishments. It’s also the perfect place for your bio, picture (of both you and your book cover), media Q&A, etc.
4. Website Copy
People don’t read. They scan. Make sure your site isn’t so crammed with text that it’s not scannable. Ideally, your homepage should have 200 to 250 words, max. And be sure you have a clear call to action. Make sure your visitors know why they’re on your website (i.e. be clear and precise).
5. Store
Don’t forget to let people buy on your site, even if it means sending them off to Amazon or somewhere else to make their purchase. Most important, don’t make them hunt for it. Make it easy to find your stuff and provide the quickest route to purchase.
6. Design
Never design your own website. Period. End of story. Why? Because much like editing our own books, we’re too close to our message to be able to do it justice. And most of us are writers, not designers. Hire someone; invest the money. Remember that your homepage should do only one thing and do it well. Don’t risk sending visitors away because they can’t figure out what your site is about.
7. Social Content
Always have something social on your site, whether it’s a blog, forum, or even your very own social networking page.
8. Update Often
Search engines like sites that have a lot of fresh content, and staying fresh will improve your ranking in major search engines like Google. If you have a blog, you should update it about once a week.
9. Share and Share Alike
Make sure your content is easy to share. If you don’t have sharing widgets on your site (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.), then get your designer to add them ASAP. Most blogging software comes with sharing functionality.
10. Placement and Remarketing
Your primary message should be on the upper-left quadrant of your site, where readers will look first. The next place people look is the center. Both locations are significant in conversions. I also recommend funneling your visitors into a mailing list. You can do this via a sign-up on your home page and then an “ethical bribe” to encourage people to sign up.
Bonus Check-Up: Understanding Anchor Text
Ask any search-engine-marketing expert and he or she will tell you the importance of anchor text. So what is it? It’s the hyperlinked text that you click to follow a link. Most people overlook this text, using phrases like “Click here,” or other nebulous terms. But if used correctly, anchor text can help with your site ranking. It’s not difficult if you understand a few basic concepts:
- Anchor text should be descriptive, using the link you’re sending people and keywords that reflect the page you’re recommending.
- If you know them, use high-traffic keywords for your market (but only if the keywords relate to the page you’re sending visitors to).
- Knowing where to use anchor text is almost as important as the text itself. All external links should be anchor text, but often web designers forget internal links (i.e. links leading to pages within your site) although they are equally as important. Your home page is also critical for anchor text links. If you have a blog (and you should), make sure that any article, website, or blog you reference has anchor text in the hyperlink.
Creating these hyperlinks is easy, especially if you’re using them in a blog. Most software has built-in one-click anchor-text-creation widgets. Make sure that anything hyperlinked on your site is anchor text. To reiterate, stay away from nebulous terms like “Click here” or “Follow this link,” because these terms won’t get picked up by search engines. Make sure the text is focused and specific. How long can anchor text be? It doesn’t have to be long. If need be, anchor text can include multiple words. Keep in mind that as long as the words are relevant to your topic, the anchor text verbiage is all that matters.
Penny Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc. (AME) and adjunct professor at NYU, is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book-marketing and media-relations expert. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most cutting-edge book-marketing campaigns.