My Most Popular Author Website Resources of 2023
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Once again, I’m sharing the resources and content about author websites that has been most popular with my audience this year.
Most popular blog articles - published in 2023
Hew are the top three how-to guides that I added this year:
How to remove blog dates in Squarespace - lots of my clients assume that “blogging” means a regular commitment, and they think if they start, they have to write an article every week, or every month. Instead, as long as your content is “evergreen”, I’m a fan of hiding your blog dates and calling the page something like Articles or Resources. This means your best thought leadership can live happily on your website, and help to drive SEO, without feeling like a regular burden. Overall, I don’t feel blogging is the best use of time for fiction authors. But if nonfiction is your genre and you’re tempted to blog infrequently, give this article a look.
Substack for authors: pros and cons - there is still masses of interest in Substack in the author community, and I can certainly see the attraction. To my eyes, there are positives and negatives, and as with so many things, it really depends what your goals are and what kind of author business you’re trying to build.
How to integrate Squarespace with Amazon (using the Amazon block) - Squarespace now makes it easy to add your Amazon book listings to your website. Again, I have mixed feelings! This post digs into not just the how, but the places where I suggest you do use this new feature, and where I recommend you take more time to build a detailed book page.
Most popular blog article - overall
The three blog posts listed above are receiving strong traffic and are performing well for me with SEO. However, none of them come close to the overall most visited page on my site, which dates from 2022:
How to embed a Substack form in your website
I’m not entirely sure why this one is putting all my other content in the shade. Probably, I got lucky and wrote a guide that many people were searching for, where there were few alternate sources. And I also made a video version. As you may have noticed, relevant, helpful videos perform especially well in search results.
Newsletters with the highest open rates
I have an email list of around 1,000 subscribers. I “clean” it pretty regularly, both to boost deliverability, and also because I hate causing unwanted clutter in someone’s inbox. I’m not especially regular with my communications. And although I’ve tried sending a short message weekly (with a single Call to Action each time), I keep returning to a frequency of every two or three weeks, with a “digest” format.
Here are the subject lines that resulted in the highest open rates this year:
Website advice from people like you - 55.5%
One thing that niggles me about AI - 53.9% (accompanying resource: what to include on your author website)
Photo, or it didn't happen - 53.2% (accompanying resource: checklist of photos you need on your website)
Most popular client question - how easy is Squarespace to work with, really?
A few of my clients don’t want to touch their finished website, and prefer me to make updates for them.
However, the vast majority want to be able to make simple website edits and/or add new blog posts.
I fully support them in this goal, and love to empower them to feel confident with their new website. Once our project is finished, they don’t pay any monthly retainer to me. Unlike WordPress (where your site needs to be backed up, updated, and have security patches applied), with Squarespace this is all done for you as part of your hosting subscription.
Here are short clips from two of this year’s clients describing how they’re getting on with using Squarespace:
And, depending on the options you choose when we work together, I will often make short, personalized training videos, so that you have something to refer to when it’s time to update your website, even if this is several weeks (or longer!) after we finish our project:
Most popular on Instagram
Last year, pretty pictures of England got far more reaction than anything “businesslike” that I posted on Instagram, and I was perfectly prepared to find the same result this year!
So it was nice to see a mix in the top three positions:
A summer’s evening amble through central London neighborhoods
If your website isn’t live yet, you haven’t failed!
New author website launch for my client Garry Cole
Ready to get started with your Squarespace author website?
I love sharing website resources and inspiration, but if you want to get your website done, it’s time to take action. This is especially relevant if you have a book coming in 2024!
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