Every author today needs a web presence. To make sure you get the results you deserve, there are certain questions to ask before you hire a web team.

We know many authors who have had terrible experiences trying to create an author website. Either the strategy for the site doesn’t align with the results, the content doesn’t match the personality of the brand, the site doesn’t get completed in time for launch, or it doesn’t attract enough of the right leads. It’s expensive, labour intensive, and can be devastating to an author on a budget.

It’s complex. It’s creative.

It’s a complex interplay of concepts: from technical to design, from functionality to behavioural analysis, from image presentation to engaging content, from the first wire frame to platform and page creation. Then there’s the linkages, search engine optimization (SEO), user experience, and the conversion funnel and getting people to buy your book or hire you. And all of this can be executed flawlessly, and your website can still be a flop.

So what do you do? How do you know? Here we’ll declare our bias that the content cannot be treated as an afterthought in your web project. Based on our experience, here are four things to ask before you enter into a contract with a web design team, including a writer.

1. How do you plan to translate my author brand personality into the copy?

You are looking for a writer who wants to read everything you’ve written about your business: your business plan, your marketing strategy, your brand guide, your customer personas. If you haven’t developed these yet, you want a writer who wants to interview you in detail about your market, your customers, your strategy, your differentiators, and not just about your products and services.

2. What’s your view on image selection?

You are looking for responses that indicate the team you’re considering understands the importance and the power of imagery and the role images play in reinforcing your strategy and your message. Picking pretty pictures that don’t mean anything will not engage your visitors and will not help you convert.

3. How will you respect my author brand’s visual identity?

This is more than just logo placement. You’ve probably worked hard picking the right colours and design elements for your brand. You want someone working on your web content who will exactly match your logo colours and respect them in the design throughout the site.

4. Can you fill all the key roles?

It’s natural for authors to try a “piecemeal” approach so you only spend money when you absolutely need to. Hire someone to manage your Google Adwords. Then someone else to do SEO on your site. Someone else to add new pages, change the layout. You get the idea.

Unfortunately, this can cause more problems than it solves. It can lead to finger pointing, important things falling through the cracks, and worse.