SEO and GEO for Author Websites

Search engine optimization — SEO — is the practice of structuring your website and its content so that Google and other search engines surface it when readers type in relevant queries. Most indie authors think of SEO as something for bloggers and businesses, not for novelists. This is a mistake. Every day, readers type queries like 'best enemies to lovers fantasy romance' or 'dark cozy mystery series complete' or 'indie science fiction like Martha Wells' into Google and other search engines — and the authors whose websites answer those queries are the ones new readers discover.

Alongside traditional SEO, a new discipline has emerged: GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization. As readers increasingly turn to AI tools — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude — to get book recommendations and author information, the question of which authors appear in AI-generated answers has become as important as Google ranking for many types of queries. This guide covers both.

How Search Engines Find and Rank Your Author Website

Search engines like Google use automated programs called crawlers to discover and index websites. When you publish a new page on your author website, Google's crawlers eventually find it, analyze its content, and decide where to rank it in search results for relevant queries.

Google evaluates hundreds of factors when ranking pages. For author websites, the most practically important are:

• Content relevance — does your page contain the words and phrases readers actually search for?

• Content quality — is your content substantive, accurate, and useful to readers who find it?

• Page authority — does your website have incoming links from other credible websites?

• Technical health — does your website load quickly, work on mobile devices, and have no broken pages or errors?

• E-E-A-T signals — does your website demonstrate Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness in your subject matter?

Keyword Strategy for Authors: What Readers Actually Search For

Keyword strategy is the foundation of author website SEO. It means understanding what words and phrases readers use when searching for books like yours, and making sure those phrases appear naturally in your website content.

The Four Types of Author-Relevant Keywords

Author Name Keywords

'[Your Author Name] books,' '[Your Author Name] series,' '[Your Author Name] new release' — searches for you by name are high-intent queries from readers who have already heard of you or found you on another platform. Make sure every page of your author website includes your name in the page title, headings, and body content. Your About page, in particular, should use your name naturally throughout.

Genre and Trope Keywords

'dark fantasy romance series,' 'cozy mystery series with cats,' 'enemies to lovers slow burn,' 'military thriller complete series' — these are the discovery queries that bring new readers to your genre. Identify the specific phrases readers use to find books like yours by browsing Amazon's genre categories and noting the language in category names, in competitor book descriptions, and in reader reviews. These phrases belong in your book descriptions and your blog content.

Comparison Keywords

'books like [Famous Author],' 'authors similar to [Famous Author]' — these comparison searches are very high-value for indie authors. If your dark fantasy romance is often compared to Sarah J. Maas or your thriller is compared to Lee Child, a blog post titled 'If You Love Sarah J. Maas, Here's What to Read Next' — written genuinely, with you as one recommendation alongside others — can capture this traffic.

Series and Book Title Keywords

Every book and series you write should have a dedicated page optimized for its title as a keyword. When readers who heard about your book elsewhere search for it by name, your website page — not just your Amazon listing — should appear in the results.

On-Page SEO: The Basics for Every Author Page

On-page SEO refers to the elements within each web page that you control. These are the fundamentals every author website page should have:

Page Title (Title Tag)

The title tag is the text that appears as the clickable headline in Google search results. Each page on your website should have a unique, descriptive title tag that includes the primary keyword for that page. Format: '[Page Topic] | [Author Name].' Examples:

• Home page: 'Randall Wood | Post-Apocalyptic Fiction Author'

• Book page: 'The Last Gate — Randall Wood | Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Novel'

• About page: 'About Randall Wood | Post-Apocalyptic Fiction Author'

• Series page: 'The Iron Dawn Series | Randall Wood | Dark Fantasy Romance'

Title tags should be 50–60 characters long. Your website platform (WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Shopify) has a field for entering title tags — do not leave it defaulting to whatever the page title happens to be.

Meta Description

The meta description is the two-sentence summary that appears below the title in Google search results. It does not directly affect ranking, but it affects click-through rate — how many searchers choose your result versus a competitor's. Write your meta description as marketing copy: what is this page, and why should the reader click? Keep it under 155 characters.

Headings (H1, H2, H3)

Every page should have one H1 heading — the main page heading, typically matching or closely related to the page title. H2 and H3 headings organize the content into sections. Search engines use headings to understand page structure and content hierarchy. Include your primary keyword in your H1. Use natural, descriptive language for H2s rather than keyword-stuffed phrases.

Image Alt Text

Every image on your website should have descriptive alt text — the text description used by screen readers and indexed by search engines. Book cover alt text: 'The Last Gate paperback cover by Randall Wood — post-apocalyptic thriller.' Author photo alt text: 'Randall Wood, post-apocalyptic fiction author.' Alt text is both an accessibility requirement and an SEO signal.

Internal Links

Link between your own pages throughout your website. Your Home page should link to individual Book pages. Your Book pages should link to your Series page and your Newsletter page. Your Blog posts should link to relevant Book pages. Internal links tell search engines how your pages relate to each other and distribute page authority throughout your site.

Google Search Console: Your SEO Command Center

Google Search Console (search.google.com/search-console) is a free tool that shows you exactly how Google sees your website. Every author with a website should have Search Console set up. It is your direct window into:

• Which search queries are bringing visitors to your website

• How many impressions and clicks your pages receive in Google search results

• Which of your pages Google has indexed and which it hasn't

• Technical errors on your website that affect Google's ability to crawl and index your pages

• Core Web Vitals scores — Google's measurement of your website's speed and user experience

Setting Up Google Search Console

• Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in with a Google account

• Add your website as a property — enter your full domain (yourname.com)

• Verify domain ownership by adding a TXT record to your domain's DNS settings — Search Console provides the exact record value to add

• Submit your sitemap — your website platform generates a sitemap (typically at yourname.com/sitemap.xml) that you submit to Search Console to help Google find all your pages

After setup, Search Console begins collecting data within a few days. The most important report for authors is the Search Performance report, which shows which queries trigger your pages in search results and how often readers click through to your website.

GEO: Getting Found in AI-Generated Answers

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the emerging practice of structuring your content and online presence so that AI tools — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overview, Claude, Grok — include your author information and book recommendations in the answers they generate for readers.

When a reader asks an AI tool 'Who are the best indie authors writing cozy fantasy?' or 'Recommend a post-apocalyptic thriller series,' the AI draws on information it has indexed from websites, reviews, interviews, author pages, and other online content. Authors who appear consistently and authoritatively in high-quality content across the web are more likely to be mentioned. Authors who are absent or inconsistent are not.

What AI Tools Actually Use When Making Author Recommendations

AI tools synthesize information from multiple sources when generating recommendations. The signals that influence whether you appear in AI responses include:

• Your author website — clear genre labeling, book descriptions that use genre-specific language, and consistent author information

• Third-party mentions — reviews on Goodreads, interviews on author blogs, guest posts, podcast appearances, features in genre publications

• Consistency across platforms — your genre, series names, and author identity are described the same way on your website, Amazon Author Central, Goodreads, and everywhere else you appear online

• Structured data markup — technical markup on your website pages that explicitly tells crawlers what the content is (a book, an author, a series)

• Wikipedia and Wikidata presence — for traditionally published authors, a Wikipedia entry is a strong AI signal; for indie authors, comprehensive and consistent platform presence serves a similar function

Practical GEO Steps for Indie Authors

You cannot force AI tools to recommend your books. But you can create the conditions that make it more likely:

• Make your genre and positioning explicit on every page of your author website — not just implied by your content. 'Post-apocalyptic survival fiction with tactical realism' is clearer to AI systems than a plot description that doesn't name the genre.

• Seek and participate in third-party content — interviews, guest posts, reviews, podcast appearances — that mentions your name and books in authoritative contexts. AI systems weight third-party mentions more heavily than self-published content on your own site.

• Add structured data (Schema.org markup) to your book pages — specifically the Book schema type with author, name, genre, and ISBN fields. Most WordPress SEO plugins (Yoast, Rank Math) support this. Squarespace and Wix handle some schema automatically.

• Keep your author information consistent across every platform. Inconsistencies in your name, genre, or series information between your website, Amazon, Goodreads, and social media create noise that reduces AI confidence in including you.

• Write genuinely useful content — blog posts, series guides, genre recommendations — that other readers and websites reference and link to. AI systems favor authors with a web presence that extends beyond self-promotional content.

ScribeCount Website Traffic: Connecting SEO to Sales

The missing link in most author SEO strategies is knowing whether your organic search traffic actually converts to book sales. Google Analytics tells you how many people arrived from search. ScribeCount's Website Traffic tracking goes further — connecting your organic search visitors to the buy-button clicks and purchase conversions that happen on your site, and then correlating those events with your sales data across retail platforms.

When ScribeCount's tracking pixel is installed on your author website, you can see: which search queries brought readers to your site, which pages those readers visited, whether they clicked a ScribeCount universal link to a retail platform, and how that activity correlates with your sales trends. The UTM campaign parameters on your ScribeCount universal links mean that a click from organic Google search is tagged differently from a click from your email list — so you can compare which traffic source actually generates sales, not just visits.

Author Website SEO Checklist

• Unique, keyword-rich title tag on every page (50–60 characters)

• Meta description on every page (under 155 characters, written as marketing copy)

• Author name in H1 headings on Home and About pages

• Book titles and genre keywords in H1 headings on Book and Series pages

• Descriptive alt text on every image

• Internal links connecting related pages throughout the site

• Google Search Console set up and sitemap submitted

• ScribeCount tracking pixel installed on your website

• ScribeCount universal links as primary buy buttons on all book pages

• Schema.org Book markup on individual book pages

• Genre explicitly stated in plain language on Home page and Book pages

Common Author Website SEO Mistakes

• Defaulting page titles to the platform's generic format rather than writing custom titles for each page

• Using only an Amazon buy link on book pages — excluding Kobo, Apple, and other platform readers and losing all attribution intelligence

• No Google Search Console setup — flying blind on which queries drive your traffic

• Not mentioning your genre explicitly on your Home page — relying on readers and AI tools to infer it from context

• Publishing a website and never building any external links to it — authority requires third-party references, not just good on-page content

SEO and GEO are not technical mysteries — they are the discipline of making it clear to search engines and AI tools what you write, who it's for, and where to find it. Get your on-page fundamentals right, set up Search Console to see how you're performing, install ScribeCount's website tracking to connect your traffic to your sales, and build your external presence through the third-party mentions and interviews that tell both algorithms and AI tools that you are worth recommending.

-Randall Wood