So, what do I mean by “sections”?

I mean those page links you see listed across the top of most websites (or maybe down the left side). They can link to static pages or blogs. On my website right now, they look like this:

I’ve seen them called tabs, pages, links, categories, top-level navigation links – I’m going
to call them “sections.”  Okay, onward…

Blog page versus static pages

There are two basic types of webpages:

Blogs are running conversations. A blog helps forge a relationship with your readers, and keeps them up-to-date. Facebook is another way to do this. I think WordPress lets you link your blog posts and your Facebook posts, so you can use both routes without having to post everything twice. More on this later.

Static web pages are better for providing basic information, organized so your readers can find it quickly and easily. It can be hard to find information in a blog if you don’t know the date it was posted. So you might want ordinary static web pages even for information which changes over time – scheduled appearances, release date of your next book, etc.  Just keep those pages up-to-date.

What kind of sections do other authors have?

There was a lot of variation. But all the author websites I visited had multiple static page sections  – the number ranged from 4 to 15, and included all kinds of information.  (Details in the next post.) About half included a blog section.

And a common setup was to have 6 or 7 basic sections, including:

1. Home
2. Books
3. About Me
4. Calendar
5. Contact
6. Blog

If you want to include more information, you can always add static sub-pages with this set-up. Visitors would reach them through these main sections, or through other buttons or links on the page.

This may be all you need or want to know. If so, skip ahead to the post about navigation.

But if you’re a little wonky…

… check the next post for more details on what I found.