An author or speaker website has two customers who want completely different things. The reader wants to know whether the book is for them and where to buy it. The event planner wants to know whether you can hold a room for forty-five minutes, what you charge, and whether there is a headshot they can download before the deadline in an hour.
Most author sites serve neither. They open with a book cover, a quote from a review, and a “Buy Now” button that goes to one retailer. The speaking page, if it exists, says “available for keynotes and workshops” and offers a contact form.
This is the checklist we use. It applies whether you have one book or nine, whether you speak twice a year or twice a week.
1. Decide who the home page is for
You cannot lead with both the book and the talk. Choose based on where the revenue is. Most working authors earn more from speaking than royalties, which means the home page should lead with you and your idea, with the book as evidence rather than the product.
State the idea in one sentence a stranger could repeat. If a planner cannot summarize your talk to their committee in fifteen words, they will book someone they can.
2. A speaking page that lets a planner say yes
Event planners are busy, risk-averse, and working against a date. The speaking page should remove every reason to hesitate.
- Three to five named talks, each with a one-paragraph description, the audience it is for, and what people leave with. “Keynotes and workshops” is not a talk.
- Video. Two to three minutes of you on a real stage, not a Zoom recording. If you do not have footage yet, get it at the next event. Nothing else on this page matters as much.
- A fee range or a sentence about how fees work. Planners have budgets; hiding the number wastes everyone’s time.
- Past clients or venues, as logos or a plain list.
- A short form: event name, date, location, audience size, budget range. Not a generic contact form.
- Travel base and virtual availability.
3. A press kit that saves everyone an hour
A journalist, podcaster, or planner should be able to prepare to introduce you without emailing you. One page with downloadable headshots in several crops, a short bio and a long bio in plain text they can copy, book cover images at print resolution, your name pronounced, social handles, and a one-page speaker sheet as PDF.
This page will never be your most visited. It will be the one that determines whether you get mentioned correctly.
4. The mailing list is the asset
Social platforms change their rules. Retailers own the customer relationship. Your email list is the only audience you actually control, and the website’s most important job is to grow it.
For Dr. Debra Shapiro, we built a free e-book from her own blog content and placed signup prompts throughout the site so that the offer was present wherever a reader was already interested. The e-book was a gift, not a trick; it reflected the depth of her work and gave people a reason to stay.
The offer should be specific and immediately useful: a chapter, a worksheet, a reading guide, a list you have been compiling for years. “Subscribe for updates” converts almost nobody.
5. Book pages that link everywhere and sell anywhere
Each book gets a page. On it: the cover, a description written for readers rather than for the publisher’s catalog, two or three short review quotes with sources, a sample chapter or excerpt, and buy links to every major retailer plus your local independent bookstore or Bookshop.org.
If you sell signed copies directly, a simple store with a real checkout, not a PayPal button and a promise. Book-club discussion guides and classroom materials, if they exist, live here as downloads.
6. The podcast plumbing nobody mentions
If you host a podcast, or appear on them often, the site needs a home for it. Episode pages with show notes and a player help search find you and give guests something to share.
We launched Rachel Grant’s podcast from the ground up, designing the cover art and handling the technical submission to Apple Podcasts. It ran for eleven seasons, from 2014 through 2024. The lesson from that decade: podcast infrastructure is not glamorous, and it is the difference between a show that grows and one that stalls in episode six.
7. Writing that proves the thinking
Your ideas are the product. A resource section with a few substantial pieces shows a planner or a publisher how you think before they commit. It also happens to be what search engines reward.
Write the talks down. Write the questions audiences ask afterward. Three real essays beat thirty announcements.
8. Accessibility and the small technical list
Speakers often work with universities, government, and large corporations, all of which are increasingly required to check that vendors’ materials are accessible. Alt text on images, captions on video, tagged PDFs for the speaker sheet, and real contrast on the text. HTTPS, a maintained WordPress install, backups, and a host that stays up on launch day.
9. What to leave out
A rotating carousel of book covers. An events calendar that has been empty since the last tour. Auto-playing video with sound. Twelve social icons in the header. “Bestselling” without saying which list. Each of these signals that the site was built for the author’s ego rather than the visitor’s decision.
Case study: Rachel Grant Coaching
Eleven seasons of podcast artwork, launch, and campaigns for a speaker and author.
Your website is the green room before the talk and the bookstore after it. It should make a planner confident and a reader curious, without either having to work for it.
If yours is not doing that, we can help. We have built for authors, speakers, and podcasters, and we handle the technical parts so you can stay with the writing.
How we help Authors, Speakers & Thought Leaders →
This article is general information, not legal advice. Review and endorsement rules are set by the FTC; confirm your obligations before publishing paid or incentivized testimonials.