An Author’s Website on Wordpress

An Author’s Website on Wordpress

Barbara A. B. SeidersSeiders House Publishing

SeidersHousePublishing.com

What Do You Want from Your Webpage?• Sell your books• Build relationship with readers• Share news of works in progress, books coming out• Backlist books• Subscribers

• Email• Blog posts

• Advertise events: signings, giveaways, workshops• Advertise services: editing, cover design

“Sell your books” webpage• Deidre Havrelock• www.deidrehavrelock.com

“Build your relationship” webpage• Jenny Lawson• www.thebloggess.com

“Advertise events” webpage• Michelle Hansen• www.michelleahansen.com

“Advertise services” webpage• DeeAnna Galbraith• www.deeannagalbraith.com

Your Author’s Webpage• Decide what you want your webpage to do for you• What types of information you want to post• How you want it to look to reflect your personality• How much energy you want to devote to setting it up• How much energy you want to devote to maintaining it• Whether or not you want to DIY or leave it to a professional

Quick and Dirty Alternative• Don’t plan on posting articles or

news?• Don’t want to mess with

maintaining a webpage?• Just want a simple page where

people can find your email and phone number?• About.me• One page free webpage• Provide bio and contact info• https://about.me/barbaraseiders

Building Your Website• Choose a web services provider; set up an account• Decide on and register your domain name• Install Wordpress on your account for your domain• Pick a Wordpress theme • Start building a basic website by adding pages and posts• Publish it!

Building Your Website• Choose a web services provider; set up an account• Decide on and register your domain name• Install Wordpress on your account for your domain• Pick a Wordpress theme • Start building a basic website by adding pages and posts• Publish it!

Choose a Web Services Provider• Choose a provider to register your domain and host your webpage• Recommended: Bluehost• Also: SquareSpace (podcasts!)• Not recommended: Wix, GoDaddy

• Browse to their website and set up an account• www.bluehost.com

Building Your Website• Choose a web services provider; set up an account• Decide on and register your domain name• Install Wordpress on your account for your domain• Pick a Wordpress theme • Start building a basic website by adding pages and posts• Publish it!

Deciding on and Registering a Domain Name• As an author, a variation on your name is an excellent strategy

• Strongly identified with your books and writing• Often unique• … but not always

• Michelle Hansen michelleahansen.com• Betsy Dickinson www.betsydickinsonbooks.com

• Easy for your followers to remember

• Lots of choices now for TLDs (Top Level Domains)• Not just .com, .net• Now .coffee, .expert, .life, .review, .win, .wtf

• See if your choice is available for you to register

Deciding on and Registering a Domain Name

Deciding on and Registering a Domain Name• Best practices• Don’t make it too long. It should be easy for visitors to remember – and type!

• www.onehundredyearhorizons.com • www.seidershousepublishing.com

Building Your Website• Choose a web services provider; set up an account• Decide on and register your domain name• Install Wordpress on your account for your domain• Pick a Wordpress theme • Start building a basic website by adding pages and posts• Publish it!

Install Wordpress• Wordpress.org

• Sites hosted elsewhere, e.g. Bluehost

• Wordpress.com• Wordpress hosted sites• Free domains have “Wordpress” in

the url• Easy to set up, but limited

• Can only use free themes (fewer features)

• Having domain email is harder• No widgets allowed• No ads allowed

Install Wordpress

Install Wordpress

Install Wordpress• Log in to your Wordpress website at:

www.yourniftydomainname.com/wp-admin• Once you’ve installed Wordpress, you’ll see a notice explaining that

your site isn’t available to the world until you go live - and they provide a handy button to click when you’re ready to publish!• If someone visits your domain before you have your Wordpress site

set up, they’ll see a generic message saying the site is under construction.

Install Wordpress• Dashboard• Home• Updates• Jetpack• Posts• Media• Links• Pages• Portfolio• Comments• Feedback

• Appearance• Plugins• Users• Tools• Settings

Building Your Website• Choose a web services provider; set up an account• Decide on and register your domain name• Install Wordpress on your account for your domain• Pick a Wordpress theme • Start building a basic website by adding pages and posts• Publish it!

Pick a Wordpress Theme

Themes• Start with something simple.• Eventually, which theme you use guided by what features you want.• Many Wordpress themes are free but may not have features you

want.• Once you set up your page, you can easily try on new themes.

Building Your Website• Choose a web services provider; set up an account• Decide on and register your domain name• Install Wordpress on your account for your domain• Pick a Wordpress theme • Start building a basic website by adding pages and posts• Publish it!

Author WebpagesMost have:• Home page• About• Contact• Books• Blog posts

Install Wordpress• Dashboard• Home• Updates• Jetpack• Posts• Media• Links• Pages• Portfolio• Comments• Feedback

Install Wordpress• Dashboard• Home• Updates• Jetpack• Posts• Media• Links• Pages• Portfolio• Comments• Feedback

Pages and Posts• Pages• Static; not frequently updated• No tags or categories• Common: Home, About, Bio, Contact

• Posts• “News”• Frequent additions or updates• Can add tags and categories• Readers can subscribe to your blog and get email notification of updates• Common: book release; cover reveal; stories and articles

Static First Page or Blog Posts?• Static first page is how Wordpress made it possible to have blogging

websites that can look like non-blogging websites.• If you choose “static first page” when people visit your webpage, they

see something like a welcome page or a home page. Your blog entries will be under a separate page that you link to.• E.g. Deidre Havrelock

• If you select having your home page direct to your blog posts, when someone visits, they are immediately in your blog posts. • E.g. Jenny Lawson

Setting Static First Page

Wordpress Dashboard• Dashboard• Home• Updates• Jetpack• Posts• Media• Links• Pages• Portfolio• Comments• Feedback

Build Your Website• Pages• Home• About• Contact

• Home page• Probably already listed under your

pages, with generic language• Edit it to say what you want to say

to your visitors

Author WebpagesMost have:Home pageAboutContact• Books• Blog posts

Blog Your Books• New blog post for each book• Cover image• Blurb(s)• Review(s)• Add link(s) to facilitate buying the book

Blog Your Books• Once you’ve published blog posts

for each book, need to specify a page for the posts. • Confusing, I know.• Back to the dashboard!• Appearance• Customize

• Static Front Page

• Need to create a page with the title “Blog”

Congratulations!You have:Home pageAboutContactBooksBlog posts

Beyond the Basics…

Navigation• Helping your visitor find the

information they want• Tags• Categories• Menus

• Are widgets • Placement and function can be

modified• Can be built on pages, posts,

categories, tags• Tag cloud

• Is a widget

Features?• Widgets• Tools available with your template,

can be customized• Appearance

• Widgets

• Menus• Blog subscriptions• Goodreads• Social media• Contact Information• Sharing buttons

• Tag cloud• Top posts & pages• Recent posts & comments

Features?• Plugins• Extra capabilities, tools you can add to your webpage• Separate programs that add in to Wordpress• Jetpack

• Lots of helpful bits• Site Stats – helps you track how many visitors, where they came from, where they went

to, most popular posts and pages• Amazon Associates

• If you have a lot of readers who buy from links on your webpage, you can earn a percentage from Amazon

Features?• Getting fancy• Portfolio

• Good way to display multiple books• Slide show or carousel

• Good way to display media• Team

• Contact information for a group of people• Podcasts?

Maintaining the Site• Updates• Do it! Often include fixes for security vulnerabilities• Best practice: back up your site, then update• Look at your site periodically; weird things can happen

• Security• Set up two-factor authentication anywhere and everywhere you can

• When you log in from a new computer, service sends a text with code to confirm• Don’t put your email on your page• Under “Users” make sure “Anyone can register” is *not* checked• Akismet comment spam protection

Questions?