Your site deserves more than a half-baked homepage. Here are the core pages you need as an author.

If you've been anywhere on the internet, you’re probably somewhat familiar with the terms UX and UI: User Experience and User Interface. They’re an important part of the website building process, essentially making sure it’s well designed, from fonts and layout to overall usability.

How easily navigable your site is also plays into the UX/UI, which can contribute to SEO rankings and crawlability by Google and other search engines.

My advice for building the pages within your author website: follow the KISS method.

Keep it simple, stupid.

Overly complicated navigation bars make it harder not only for visitors to use your site, but for search spiders/crawlers.

Even better, it’s easier to maintain when you have a few core pages rather than a huge list of pages (which comprise your sitemap, usually an XML file that lists every page on your website). Before we get into the nitty gritty of what pages to create, let’s talk about how users will navigate to those pages.

The Navigation Bar

This is the navigation bar on my own website, included in the “header” — this is typically edited separately in most drag-and-drop builders. I personally prefer a clean nav that displays the core pages over what’s called a “hamburger menu,” which is just a full-on dropdown menu from three horizontal lines in the corner. I find them to be glitchy and annoying, but they can be useful if you have a lot of pages you want to include in the navigation.

Again, this is subjective.

As far as editing your header, this is usually done separately from your pages, as it’s a separate element. In Wix’s drag-and-drop builder, you can simply click on the header to edit the design, like this:

But to edit the actual menu of pages in Wix, you’ll want to go to “Site Pages and Menu”:

That’s it. You can drag and rearrange the pages depending on how you want them listed in the navigation, and you can create dropdowns and hide other pages from your menu.

You’ll notice not all my built pages are visible in the menu. As of writing this post, I’d been taking a break from blogging on my website for a few months, so I removed the link in the navigation for now. I also have a page for content warnings/triggers, as there is some pretty dark stuff in my books.

Now, onto the bigger point of this article: The core pages I recommend including for your author website.

The basic pages you need to include:

Page #1: Home

Your homepage has the biggest job: hook your site visitors to keep reading, keep clicking, and keep exploring the rest of your site. It should communicate three vital facts about you and your work:

• your name

• your genre or subgenre

• who your books are for

You don’t want site visitors guessing or scrolling endlessly, so don’t overwhelm them by cramming every bit of information about yourself or your books into your homepage. Keep text sections fairly brief. Infuse images into your layout to break up larger chunks of text.

Intrigue them, but leave the smoke and mirrors for another time. If readers are interested, they’ll keep navigating your site or, better yet, go right to wherever your book is available to download or purchase.

A strong author homepage usually includes:

• a clear headline (“Romantasy Author” is better than “Welcome to My World”)

• a featured book or series and WHY they should read your book (great place to use a few well-targeted niche keywords. Think about tropes or any emotional payoffs your books offer.)

• an easy-to-understand call to action (“Buy My Book”, “Read More”, “Sign Up for My Newsletter”, and be sure to link to these pages within your site or to relevant book buying platforms.

Using buttons for more important links instead of anchored text (text that’s underlined and usually a different color to show that it’s a link) can help move readers along your pages. They catch the eye better and can help encourage site visitors to continue exploring.

Think of your homepage as a book cover. It should attract the right reader, not every reader, and this should be easy to understand.

Page #2: Books

Depending on how many books or series you have available, try to minimize how many pages you create for them. If you have multiple series, make a separate page for each series and include it in a dropdown menu item of "adult and child pages". (Adult pages are basically the overarching page that covers the topics of the "child pages.") How many books you want to include per page is subjective, based on what kind of information you’re including for each book.

Don’t overload the page, because that can slow down how quickly the page loads. Again, how much you want to put on each book page is up to you and how you want to design your site. Just ensure it’s easy to navigate to all of them, such as creating a dropdown menu in your navigation bar.

(Site speed is another factor in technical SEO. There is such a thing as “lazy load” that delays page load — instead of loading all the text and images at once, it loads them as the user scrolls down the page. I’m personally not a fan of it, but something to bear in mind if you have an image-heavy page. You can check your site speed with most site audit tools, like Ahrefs and UberSuggest.)

Book pages works best when they:

• list books in reading order (especially for series)

• include short, genre-forward descriptions

• clearly show where to buy or read

Avoid making readers hunt. If someone has to click multiple times to find your books, you’ve already lost momentum.

Simple beats clever, so try not to overthink it.

Page #3: About

How you craft your “About the Author” page is entirely up to you. Many readers who are interested in your books will also be interested in who you are as an author. Make it interesting, and be sure it’s clear why you stand out from the crowd. If you don’t have many, or any, writing credits to your name, think of what makes you uniquely qualified to write your first book.

Readers want to know:

• why you write what you write

• what makes your stories tick

• whether you’re “their kind” of author

A strong About page should:

• reinforce your genre and themes

• sound human and approachable

• invite readers deeper into your world

It can be easy to overshare mundane details. A common “fact” I see authors write about themselves is the generic “I’ve loved writing since I was a kid.” Trust me, I’m guilty of it, too, but it does nothing for your street cred. Try to dig deeper, and think about what keywords you can target rather than “coffee drinker and dog lover.” (I’m guilty of this, too, because I love coffee and dogs.)

Page #4: Blog (Optional)

As mentioned in my post about researching keywords, blogs can be a powerful addition to your SEO toolbox. They’re great for targeting niche keywords, but remember:

Consistency over frequency; quality over quantity.

Remember, any search engines prefers well-written content that’s relevant and trustworthy over content that’s poorly done and rushed for the sake of posting. This has been true since before AI engines were even a thought.

So, if you can only post once a month, don’t fret. If you can churn out two posts per week consistently, awesome. But don’t feel like you absolutely have to include a blog. They were much bigger in the indie author community years ago, and many authors would host “blog tours,” in which their work would be featured on other author’s blogs in a chain of posts.

If you’re interested in blogging, know that a blog can:

• help with search engine visibility

• give readers a reason to return

• answer reader questions (“books like…”, “what to read next”)

Again, you don’t have to post more than once a month if you don’t want to. One solid, well-crafted post a month is enough to:

• expand your keyword reach

• support your other pages

• show that your site is active and relevant

Google loves regularly updated sites, and its spiders will continue to return to those sites. It can also help boost your “authority” in the eyes of the Google gods. (Remember EEAT? Experience. Expertise. Authority. Trustworthiness. These make up Google’s framework for “judging” the relevancy of your site.)

No need to share super personal details on your blog, either. Post about thoughts or insights to your genre, what makes your book unique, or even behind-the-scenes looks into your writing process.

Page #5: Contact

You may not think, as a new author, that a Contact page is necessary. However, I recommend including it, even if it doesn’t get used right away. Contact form builders can be found in most drag-and-drop builders, and this allows readers a way to reach out to you without having to dig.

Another thing ot consider is making a “media kit” available for download on your website. Mine used to be on my homepage, but you can also include it on your Contact page. For a media kit, you can create a .zip file of things like headshots, blurbs about your books, short and long author bios, and varying sizes of image files of book covers.

Don’t worry about adding a media kit if you’re just now building your author platform. Instead, you can include:

• a contact form or email address

• a short blurb about yourself

• links to social media (optional but helpful)

If someone wants to reach you, make sure it’s easy for them to do so.

Why This Structure Works (For Readers and SEO)

This five-page setup works because it aligns with how people expect websites to function.

• It’s familiar, which reduces friction

• It’s easy to crawl for search engines

• It creates navigable pathways between pages

• It keeps readers focused on your books

From an SEO perspective, each page has a purpose. From a reader perspective, nothing feels confusing or overwhelming. You want your site to be easy to use and navigate, and you want visitors to stay on your site. A site that looks more professional will instill more confidence in readers than one that’s poorly created and hard to use.

When someone lands on your website, they’re subconsciously asking three questions:

What kind of author is this?

Are these books for me?

Where do I go next?

Make the answers easy to find, and you’re on your way to a great author platform.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Unclear meta titles and/or vague hero text (“The Journey” instead of “About”)

• Hiding important pages in dropdowns

• Creating too many low-value pages

• Prioritizing design over readability

When you’re just getting started, it can be easy to fall into the trap of making it pretty and flowery. Wrong. Make sure your content is relevant and valuable; don’t include fluff pages. Every page should be easily found — you don’t want people guessing where to go next.

If a reader can land on your site and instantly know what you write, whether it’s for them, and where to start reading, your site is doing its job.