FOR AUTHORS
What Should Authors Post on Social Media Between Releases?
What should authors post between releases? A balanced mix of story, process and reader posts, series reminders, countdowns and a weekly plan.
Author website SEO in plain English: series and book pages, your bio, site speed and links from interviews, so readers searching your name find you.
Author website SEO means making it easy for Google to understand who you are and what you write. Give every series its own page, every book a page with its blurb and buying links, and your bio a page that names your genre. Use descriptive titles and keep the site fast. Earn links from podcasts, interviews and other authors’ sites.
Most readers discover a new author on a retailer or through a recommendation, or on social media. Plenty of them then search your name or your series to find out more, and some search for the kind of book they’re after, like “Lincolnshire crime series”. Your author website should be what turns up.
You don’t have to become an SEO specialist. A few sensible habits, applied to pages you already have, will do most of the work, and this guide walks you through them. For which pages an author site needs in the first place, read our separate guide to what an author website should include.
Readers usually search in one of three ways. Some type your name, normally after hearing about you somewhere. Some type a series or book title, perhaps to check the reading order. Others search a genre or trope because they want something new to read. That last group is by far the hardest to win, so most authors should go after name and series searches first, since those are the ones you can realistically own.
Google’s own SEO Starter Guide says it mostly discovers pages by following links from pages it has already crawled. That’s handy for authors. Your pages get found through a clear structure of internal links on your site, plus links to your site from other places.
On many author sites, the series page is the most useful page there is. Readers love it. So does search. It answers the exact question readers type in: “what order do I read these in?”
A good series page has:
Use the same series name and book titles everywhere: on your site, on your retailer pages and on your social profiles. That consistency helps readers and search engines alike see that they all refer to the same thing.
Every book deserves its own page. Lumping several titles together on one “Books” page throws that away. Each book page needs the full blurb, written for readers. It needs the cover, with descriptive alt text. Add the series name and book number, plus the genre. Make the buying links obvious.
Google’s guide says a good title is unique to the page, clear and concise and describes what’s on the page accurately. For a book page that usually means the book title followed by the series and your name, such as “Dead Water: Harbour Street Book 3 by A. Author”. Put some text on the page beyond the blurb as well. A line about the setting works, or an early reader quote or a sample chapter, so the page offers more than a copy of the retailer description.
Describe your images in their alt text too. The same guide recommends describing the content and context of each image, and doing so also helps readers who use screen readers.
When someone searches your name, your bio is often the page that comes up, so write it for a new reader. A press kit is a different job. Open with who you are and the genre you write, and where you live. Then name your series and link to them. Add a good photo and a few facts that make you stick in the memory.
Use the name you publish under in exactly the same form everywhere. That goes for the site and your social profiles, and for interviews. That consistency helps a reader trying to work out whether the author they heard on a podcast is the one on the cover. A strong author photograph gives the page something visual to hold attention, too.
You might come across advice telling you to add book markup to your site. Be wary. Google’s documentation for book structured data describes Book actions, which let people find books and buy or borrow them from Search, and says the feature is currently limited to book providers with a wide selection of available books. Providers have to submit an interest form, and filling it in doesn’t guarantee they’ll be accepted.
For an individual author with a handful of titles, that means this markup isn’t something you can expect to switch on. We wouldn’t put it high on your list. Spend that time on clear titles and series pages, and on links. Google’s starter guide does recommend those.
It counts for readers first of all. Many of them arrive on a phone, often from a social post, and they’ll leave if a page takes too long to appear. Google recommends it as well, saying it highly recommends that site owners achieve good Core Web Vitals. Those measure loading and responsiveness as well as visual stability, and Google doesn’t present them as a standalone ranking switch.
The commonest speed problem on author sites is oversized images. Cover files and photos get uploaded at full size. Compress them before you upload. Avoid heavy sliders and auto-playing video, and test the site on your own phone over mobile data.
Google finds pages by following links, so a link to your website from another trusted site does two jobs: it gives readers a route in, and it signals that your site is worth a visit. For authors, the obvious sources are podcast show notes and blog interviews, guest posts, reviewers who link to your series page, and fellow authors in your genre.
When you’re interviewed, ask the host to link to your series page or author site instead of only a retailer, and send a short bio with the link ready to paste. Descriptive link text, like the series name, does more good than “click here”. Links earned like this take time to build up, and they’re worth far more than a long list of poor ones.
We build author websites designed to sell books. We set up series pages and book pages for you. Your bio and sign-up forms are built so readers and search engines can follow them easily. Our team started life as the in-house team of the USA Today bestselling author Jack Cartwright, so we build around how authors work. For the wider plan, see how we market self-published authors. We agree a clear brief, scope and fee with you before any work begins.
Yes, because a website gives you something retailers can’t. It’s a page you control that explains your series and collects email sign-ups, and it appears when readers search your name. Retailer pages rank on their own site, not yours. Your website is the one part of your author presence that you own.
Expect months, not days. Name and series searches can improve fairly fast once your pages are clear and linked together. Competitive genre searches take much longer and may never be realistic. Concentrate on pages that answer questions readers already ask, and keep adding to them as new books come out.
Only if it helps readers and you’ll keep it going. Posts about your series and settings, your research or the reading order can bring in searches and give your newsletter something to link to. A neglected blog does more harm than having none at all. One good series page is worth more than ten thin posts.
Stop thinking of marketing as a cost. The moment you do, you cut yourself off from a critical arm of your business and turn it into a negative. The real loss is a site nobody can find, because readers who search your name and find nothing useful go elsewhere. Start with clear series and book pages. Add links and content as your catalogue grows.
Not for most authors. Google’s book structured data is meant for providers who submit an interest form and offer a wide selection of books, and acceptance isn’t guaranteed. Clear page titles and descriptive link text, along with well-organised book and series pages, are a better use of your time.
What should authors post between releases? A balanced mix of story, process and reader posts, series reminders, countdowns and a weekly plan.
Learn how to give every book in a series a consistent look, with colour per book, clear numbering, box set covers and refreshes that help read-through.
Why indie authors sell ebooks, paperbacks and audiobooks from their own site, how delivery works, and what to check on VAT and KDP Select first.
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