Today’s Author Website: Must-Have Elements

Your author website is the first impression many fans, new readers, and publishing industry insiders will have of you and your writing. So it’s important that your website stays relevant and up to date — you don’t want visitors to find broken links, stale design elements, and no signs of upkeep when they click into your site! If you’re wondering whether your author website is on point, we design experts are sharing our best advice on all the must-have elements for today’s author website.

Must-Have Elements For Your Author Website

Mobile optimization: Mobile phones accounted for 59.4% of all web traffic in the first half of 2022. Since the majority of your visitors will access your site via smartphones and tablets, mobile optimization is a crucial step in the web design process.

There are many ways to optimize a website for mobile, but here are some can’t-miss steps:

• Design with mobile devices already in mind by giving your website a vertical scroll direction and easy page navigation.
• Resize your images so they don’t exceed mobile screen sizes.
• Test your website on multiple devices or by using online resources that simulate different screen sizes.

Responsive design: Your author website should feature responsive design to suit various desktop screens and website browsers (Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.). The website should automatically resize to fit various window and page sizes without looking cramped or stretched. Again, the best way to determine if your website is responsive is to test it on as many screen sizes as possible.

Accessibility: A must-have website element for all web platforms in 2022 (and beyond!) is accessibility. Your website should be compatible with assistive software, like screen-readers for users with visual impairments or mouse-free devices for your fans who have mobility issues. Our comprehensive guide can help ensure your author website is accessible for every visitor. You can also visit W3C to learn more about the Web Accessibility Initiative.

Multiple menu options: Modern author websites can (and should) have multiple menu bar styles. Depending on your website’s design, a horizontal menu…