If you created your author or illustrator website, and have done nothing to it since, you may have a number of problems.
GENERAL MAINTENANCE
- Outdated software, plugins, and widgets. Some of these make your site insecure. Others are tools that make features on your site work. If these updates aren’t done at all, your site may be working incorrectly, broken, or at risk.
- Broken links. If you post any links to other sites, publishers, etc., do they still work? Not only are broken links annoying to visitors to your site, but they also negatively impact your website’s ranking with major search engines, such as Google.
- Unapproved comments. If you have blog posts set for people to comment, they often need approval. And it’s nice to reply to comments if you don’t have too many.
- No recent backups. Is your site being backed up regularly? If not, you could lose what you have.
CONTENT UPDATES
- Stale content. No changes to your content means there’s nothing to keep visitors coming back. A dated website isn’t as appealing to new visitors. In addition, new and updated content helps search engines find your site.
WHAT TO DO
Updating plugins, etc.
- Major software updates are probably done by your host, but some need approval. Your website dashboard probably alerts you of updates needed. But if you aren’t visiting the behind-the-scenes portions on your website, how will they get done?
- Add a plugin for automatic updating of plugins. This will manage a lot of updates for you. This is especially important for security updates. But it won’t catch all updates needed.
- Visit your dashboard at least once a month and check for updates.
Fixing broken links
- I use a broken link checker plugin, but it doesn’t catch them all. When checking I find some aren’t actually broken and I make the system recheck. Others may go to websites no longer in existence or pages that have moved. I do the research to see which it is. Sometimes I have to remove a dead link as the site or article no longer exists.
- I also use a free online checker: https://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/. I have so many years of blog posts, I don’t try to fix all of the broken links at once when I use it. I decide on a number to fix, fix those, and come back another time.
- Note: when creating links on your site or in a blog posts, they should always be set to “open in new page.” This means your website will still be open for your visitor to return to.
Approving comments – ignore if you have no blog posts or don’t accept comments
- If a visitor has not commented before, you’ll usually need to approve them. I have my widget set to email me when I get a new comment. Someone who gets a lot of comments on each post would probably turn this option off.
Backing up your site
- I strongly recommend an automatic backup system. But if you make a lot of changes to your website, it’s good to do an immediate backup as well.
Updating content
- Keep your content fresh by update existing pages, and adding new blog posts, articles, or links. For example, I have some resources on my page and recently found several articles and a word count survey to add. Not only did I add them, but I realized the appearance of the page would look better with some separators. Doing that made me aware that some listings under certain headings were alphabetized, while others were not. I reordered so they would be consistent.
- Consider adding a new page. Have you always wanted a page about what you’re reading or favorite websites? Now might be the time to add it.
- Think about your Books or Published Works page. Is your most recent work listed? Do you have any new awards or reviews you could add as quotes?
- If you have an Author Visit or School Visit page, is it up to date? Are rates current? If you have info from past visits, do you have images or quotes you can share? Do you have new topics you would like to talk about?
- What about your About You page? Is it current? Have you added a new hobby? Looking at mine I found I needed to update my social media information. When rereading, I also realized I hadn’t mention even the state where I live. I decided to add that and a picture of the view from our house.
- If you have a lot of blog posts, consider a page with a topical or alphabetical list. This would be separate from your blogs internal categories or posts by month. I also decided to do a “flashback to the archives” collection post on a specific topic. When I shared it on social media, I got some “thank you”s from others.
- Rereading old content in general can prompt ideas for change. Remember, you don’t have to revamp the entire website at once. Change one page now. Next month schedule yourself to look at another page for revisions.
A HELPFUL RESOURCE
Homepage Checklist for Children’s Book Authors in 2026 by Charlotte Glaze