Writer’s Guild: Benefits of An Author’s Website

Original Content | 7/29/2025 | By Laz A. Mataz

[Lazamataz]

When I finished and published my first novel, it became apparent to me that an Author’s Website was important. I set about creating mine.

What are the benefits of an Author’s Website?

• It shows professionalism and dedication to prospective agents, publishers, event coordinators, journalists, and your readers. An agent or a publisher is far more likely to become interested in your novel if you demonstrate that you are dedicated to your craft. A website will confirm your dedication.
• You have full control over your brand and the presentation of your work. Even if social media or retail outlets remove or cancel your work, the website ensures your internet presence will persist.
• It serves as a wonderful place to showcase your work. Short stories, blog posts, and planned releases can be centrally located there, allowing a reader a much more immersive experience that demonstrates your writing style, and can entice new readers.
• It can attract new readers. If you optimize your search engine visibility, people who are searching for your type of literature may come across your website.

The quality of your writing must be your cornerstone, but without effective marketing, even the best work will wither on the vine. An Author’s Website is an important component of that marketing strategy.

I’ve created an Author’s website, and below are images that show how I laid mine out. I’m only going to show the index (first) page:

Note the items I have included:

• A menu bar that allows a user to navigate between the various pages, including the Home page, a page that contains short stories I have written, a biography of myself, a blog page where articles like this will appear, a contact form, and a page for other authors that I know and admire.
• A short entry about myself.
• A place where my current novel is featured. I’ve included links, to the right, to the best reviews. I made sure to place a button there to allow a user to easily get a copy of the novel.
• A gallery of the novels I have written. Only one exists at this time, but I plan a sequel, and that is represented in the gallery.
• A place to sign up for the newsletter that, while not yet launched, will be coming soon.
• A place to see all my latest blog posts. Only one post exists at this time, and the posts will be geared towards new writers.
• The footer contains a menu copy, a copyright notice, and icons (not yet active) for sharing on social media.

There are a few places where I add a little humor. For example, try to submit me a contact without completing the Captcha step. 😂😂😂

I also ensured that this website is ‘responsive’, that is, that it will render both on computers and portable devices (such as an Android phone.

An Author’s website is important. If you intend to be serious about your craft, I highly recommend you invest the time (or the money, if you are not website-design savvy) to create one!

Happy writing!

[nicollo]

“SEO” is a beast — it’s how the search algorithms return non-paid searches. It’s driven by “relevancy” which is measured by how many others websites are linked to the website displayed by the search engine. That’s why wikipedia is the top return for any search terms that have a page on it.

For a non-ad based site, you need to have content connected to other sites, and so it finds yours instead of the major sites that are connected to one another. It’s near impossible to compete with.

That said, what I intend is an online version of a book, freely accessible web searches that sells print/ kindle versions.

Nobody wants to read a 300+ page book w/ footnotes online. But I want it to be searchable, which should drive print/kindle/audio purchases.

[FNU LNU]

Thank you much, Laz

[Lazamataz]

Sure! :)

[NEMDF]

Nice. Is that you in the picture with the coffee cup?

[Lazamataz]

It’s not me, but it’s a close match. I intend to get my photo up there as soon as I get one taken.

[Lazamataz]

I put good analytics on the website, and I got 47 unique visitors (including myself), 69 home-page views, 13 short-story index page views, 69 interactions with US-based people, 1 from Canada, 1 from India, and 1 from..... Estonia?

[nicollo]

If you want I’ll show you how to block that Canadian.

[Lazamataz]

I got one from Russia.

Vladimir Putin wants to read my book.

[nicollo]

Well, then, you're going to have to write it out so Putin can understand. Here, I'll help from the opening of your book "Dimensions":

Ze zummer zun beet down relentlzezly on ze fallow feeld, zlike a babushka's stern gaze, no mercy! Birdz, birdz! Zay fluttered to and fro, looking for szcrapz and inzectz, beezy, beezy, zlike leettle comradez on ze meession. Ze zoft weend wheesetled, gently bending unzattended, deed weet ztalks and ztirring up zee dust zkattereen, just a leettle beet, zlike a zecret whizper. Zere was a schnap, az eef zatic eleztrizity deescharged. Zen anuzzer. Zen many! Finzally, zere was a deep hume, like ze engeeb of a good, ztrong tractor ztarting zup, zery zerious, zery powerfool.

That'll help your SEO, too.

[Lazamataz]

Curiously, I am just learning SEO now. It’s not easy.