When it comes to website design, one of the first things you’ll probably do is surf the web looking for websites you like. This is a great place to start.

As I talk about in How to help a reader pick your book, research is a critical first step in any marketing effort. As you do this research, though, it’s easy to get wowed by what you see on the web and jump into collecting cool photography, installing the latest widgets, and creating a fabulous logo. All of these elements have their place, but if you don’t start your design by thinking about your audience, you’ll end up with a website that looks snazzy but doesn’t give readers the information they actually want and doesn’t encourage them to engage with you. Have you ever sent out an invitation to an event, only to realise you forgot to mention the date, the location or the time? It happens to all of us but you don’t want that on your website!

So, before you design your home page and your menu bar, consider these fundamental questions your readers are itching to ask. You’ll end up with a website which helps readers make an informed decision about you.

1. What sort of stuff do you write?

Just to get technical for a moment here, the top section of a webpage is referred to as ‘above the fold’. The term is borrowed from journalism where it means the upper half of the paper, before it is folded. Newspapers will put their biggest story here, to catch a reader’s attention and hopefully encourage them to keep reading. Your website is no different. Some web designers use the term ‘above the scroll’. To continue with the jargon, this section of your website is ‘prime real estate’. It’s the first thing a reader will see and it’s your chance to entice them to stay. But don’t get tricked into thinking you have to do this by using the best photography, the best offer, or the most cryptic quote. Make sure you cover the basics first.

The first goal of your website is to help potential readers decide whether you are for them or not. They do this by understanding:

• Which shelf they would find you on
• Your genre
• Which other authors you are similar to
• What it is your writing might do for them – what experience it will give them, how it will make them feel
• Why they would want to read your work

Take a good, hard look at the ‘above the fold’ section of your home page and check:

• Is there a clear statement or description of your work?
• Have you stated what kind of a writer you are?
• Is it obvious what genre/category/age group you write?

Some people do this with a tagline – a topic for another blog post on another day. If you have space, this is also a good place to put:

• Reviews/endorsements
• Name(s) or covers of your best-selling book(s)

2. Where can I buy your books?

If a visitor to your site likes your genre and likes the sound of your writing, you want to make it easy for them to buy your work. Consider a menu item called ‘books’ or ‘order’ so that this information is ‘above the fold’ too. If you are self-published and are fulfilling orders yourself, does your ecommerce function well? If you are available through other booksellers, make sure there are links to all of them, either on your home page, your book page, or as a separate menu item.

3. How can I contact you?

You don’t need to put your home address on the header of your site. In fact, unless you have a business address or a P.O. Box, don’t put your home address anywhere on the site. However, you’ll be surprised how many websites make it difficult to find how to contact the business or person. So, make sure it’s a menu item and that the contact page either has an email address or a contact form. If you offer services (e.g. speaking engagements, school visits) in a certain geographical area, put that on the contact page too. You could have an events page if you do a lot of readings, speaking engagements etc.

4. What other cool things can I find out about you?

Your menu bar is a bit of a balancing act. As I harp on about in Why Marketing is spelled E-M-P-A-T-H-Y, the best marketing starts with empathising with your audience and putting them first in your communication. So, if we operate from this principle, then the navigation needs to take the potential reader from what they would be most interested in to least interested, not what you deem to be most or least interesting. However, you also want to guide your reader to the offerings which you feel would be most valuable to them. There are no hard or fast rules about this but don’t just think about pushing books.

Think of it this way: the role of those buttons in the header is to help your reader make a decision. So, begin by asking yourself what they need to know to decide whether you’re the writer for them, and build your menu bar from there.

It’s pretty standard to start with a page for your latest work, a page for the rest of your books, then maybe your blog if you have one, events/speaking opportunities, about, contact.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. However, you’ll be surprised how easy it is to omit foundational information ‘above the fold’. If you do, the chances are you’ll lose your reader because they can’t find the information they need to be able to make a decision. Would you like someone to take a look at your website to help you figure out if it is doing what it needs to be doing? Then maybe you need a Website Audit. Contact me to set one up.