Do I need a website?

The purpose of my website has changed a bit, as has the content, and I’ve recently remodelled and decided to re-curate my work so that it is more focused on specific goals.

As you can imagine, I’ve asked myself the question, “Do I need a website?”, a number of times throughout the years.

Also, I’ve asked all the related questions: “Should I blog?” “Will people want to read my blog?” “Does having a blog matter?” “Why do I need a website?”

Whether you need a website largely depends on what you want to accomplish.

Why you need a website

If you’re an author or an editor, I’m sure you’ve noticed that the whole “website or no website?” question makes its rounds in the various social media writer/editor communities fairly often. There doesn’t seem to be a consensus, and I’d probably wager that if you have a website, you very well might be in the minority.

You need a website to promote your work

Whether you’re a writer or an editor, a website is the most effective way for you to give your readers a glimpse into your work.

*“Writers can also use websites also to create an easily accessible catalogue of details, blog posts, and information for their readers.”*

Websites for writers

For writers, this might mean promoting their books, posting short stories, or leaving links to websites where their work has been posted. Not everyone has published traditionally and not everyone is selling novels, so having a website where you can create an avenue for sales is invaluable.

Writers can also use websites to create an easily accessible catalogue of details, blog posts, and information for their readers. If you’re on a blog-writing tour, this can help you to communicate with your audience as to where they can find your scribbles. A website can also have more direct links to your products. Readers may not necessarily know that if you buy a book through an author’s link instead of from Amazon, that results in a bigger cut of profit for the author (and the book comes from the exact same source).

Support an author and buy from them directly (if possible of course).

Websites for editors

This is a little bit trickier.

Editors have a harder time to “show their wares” so to speak, because their work is a skill and not a product. Still, an editor’s website should be able to give you a solid sense of who they are and what they do. Not all editors will work on all projects. Sometimes an editor may specialize on non-fiction, academic papers, or dissertations, and sometimes they might only work on fantasy novels. It all depends on the editor.

An editor’s website should be able to clearly communicate this to the reader.

An editor, almost definitely, is a “small business” and the question of “do I need a website for my small business?” is often answered with definitely. Aside from promotion, a website allows you to control how you are perceived (to some degree) and they help with credibility and professionalism.

Why social media alone isn’t enough

Don’t get me wrong.

Social media is incredibly valuable, but it is a highly volatile environment—especially in 2023. Without getting into too many details, 2022 and 2023 have been significant years for social media, with several major shifts in user bases. What this means for you as an author or editor is that your client base may have also been shifting around.

If a potential client or reader has moved from Instagram to TikTok or from Twitter to Mastodon, and you don’t have a presence there, they will not be able to find you. You will not be able to engage with them. A website is far more stable than social media, though it is a very different environment to social media.

Using social media and a website

It’s important to be versatile, because you’re going to be looking for readers or clients to achieve your goals. Social media is more dynamic than a website and allows for better engagement. You can actively go looking for people. Websites however are far more stable and don’t have the same potential for drama that social media does. If people are coming to your website it’s theoretically because they’re specifically looking for you.

How to increase traffic to your website can be challenging, but I’ll be covering that in detail in a later article. My goal is to make sure that you are able to achieve your goals with your website, so briefly let’s cover a couple of important things.

Learn about SEO

The question of “Do I need a website” can be a bit overwhelming when you start to actually look into it, but SEO feels even more daunting. It’s a whole other system that you need to learn, right?

Well, yes and no. Let’s go over it really briefly.

SEO, or search engine optimization, in a nutshell, is about getting your website noticed. The best way to do this is to produce content that is relevant to the people you want to find you. If it’s a readership, then you want to produce content related to your writings. Information about your characters, the world, ongoing projects, etc.

If you’re selling a service, writing about that subject can help as well. I’ll be covering SEO soon to help you along your journey.

You need a website

Maybe not all of you, but many of you do. If you’re been nodding your head reading along, you’ve probably already come to the conclusion about the benefit to you personally.

Remember, a website can grant you a greater sense of legitimacy and professionalism, but a website is also hard work. If you’re a freelance editor, you’re probably no strange to hard work, and if you’re an author, ditto. Here are the four main things you can do to get the ball rolling:

Figure out what you need;
Find a website provider;
Create your site using available tools;
Keep your site updated with new content.

Figure out what you need

Without question, this is the most important question. You might not need a website at all, so being able to answer this question matters. For me, the answer looks like this, “I need a stable platform that provides clients with information about services and where I can write articles about editing and writing”. For me, a website was exactly what I needed.

However, if your answer is something like, “I want to chat with other writers”, then a website might not be in your best interests. Think about your answer and then decide if you need a site.

Find a website provider

I’m not here to sell a provider, and I don’t really have any particular preference. Full disclosure, I use Squarespace because I have limited time and the ease of using their tools appeals to me. There are a few things that I don’t like about the system (primarily that they only really give you basic tools to manage your content).

Getting a Wordpress site can also work. They’re a bit more complicated to learn initially, but they have a far more flexible set of tools available.

Do your research and figure out which is best for you.

Create your site using available tools

Depending on what you have selected above, you can now create your site. Starting with a template is always the easiest choice, but as you get better with the platform, you can flex those creative muscles a bit and use other tools (SEO, design, etc.) to help you make your website more useful to your needs.

Keep your site updated with new content

This is the most important thing. All search engines will prioritize content based on factors like relevance and authority. Establish yourself as knowledgeable (this is a bit easier for authors writing about their own works) in a given area and then make sure that your content is optimized so that search engines can find and recommend your site.

For more information, be sure to read my upcoming article about SEO and how to use it to your advantage.

Being consistent matters in terms of your updates. It’s hard to find the time, I understand that. But there is always time, even if you can only put 10 minutes into a blog post a day (10 minutes, once a day, gets you over an hour of time on a post in a week). Make sure that you stay on top of it and you’ll be surprised to see how the results stack up.

Good luck with your website.