Check your author website
Broken buy links, a missing email signup, pages Google cannot read, slow loading on phones. See what costs you readers in about a minute, and how to fix each thing.
Free, with no signup. Works with Wix, Squarespace, WordPress, Tertulia, BookBub and any other site.
yourname.com
Losing some readers
- 2 of 11 buy links are broken.
- We found no email signup on the 6 pages we read.
- Slow on phones: speed score 61 of 100.
- Your footer still says © 2019.
- Your site fits phone screens.
What the checker looks at
We read your site the way a reader and Google do: your home page, up to eight more pages, and every buy link, opened in its store. The checks answer four questions.
Can readers buy your books?
- Buy links
- A reader who likes your site is one click from buying. With no link on the page, most of them never go looking in a store.
- Broken buy links
- A dead buy link loses a sale at the last step, from the reader who wanted the book most. Stores change their links when an edition goes away, so this happens even when you change nothing.
- Email signup
- Most visitors leave and never come back. An email list is how you reach them on launch day, and no store or social network can take it away.
- Stores
- Readers who shop at Apple Books, Kobo or Barnes & Noble have no way to buy from a site that only links to Amazon.
Can readers find you?
- Allowed on Google
- A site that tells Google to stay away does not show up when readers search your name, however good it is.
- Readable without JavaScript
- Google can run JavaScript, but slowly. Most AI crawlers that feed ChatGPT and similar tools do not run it at all. A page that is blank without JavaScript is a blank page to them.
- Author and book data
- Structured data tells Google, in its own format, that you are an author and which books are yours. It helps Google show your books next to your name and keeps you apart from people who share your name.
- Share preview
- When a reader shares your site in a message or a post, the preview is your first impression. A picture and your name get clicks. An empty box does not.
- Page title
- The title is the blue line in Google results and the name on a browser tab. “Home” tells a reader nothing. Your name and what you write tells them they found you.
- Search description
- The description is the grey text under your name in Google. Without one, Google picks random words from your page.
- Sitemap
- A sitemap lists every page for search engines, so a new book page is found in days, not weeks.
Does it work on a phone?
- Fits phone screens
- Most visits to author sites come from phones. A page that opens zoomed out makes readers pinch and scroll, and most of them leave.
- Phone speed
- Readers leave slow pages before they see your cover. Google also ranks slow pages lower on phones.
Does it look looked after?
- Secure connection
- Browsers show “Not secure” next to sites without https, and some readers leave when they see it.
- Your own domain
- Your own domain looks professional, is easy to say out loud, and stays yours if you ever move your site.
- Missing pages
- A menu link to a missing page looks careless, and readers stop trusting the rest of the site.
- Footer year
- An old year in the footer tells readers nobody has looked at the site in a long time. They start to wonder if you still write.
- Blog
- A blog that stopped years ago looks abandoned. It is better to have no blog than an old one.
How the score works
Every site starts at 100. Each problem takes points off: as many as it can cost you in readers or sales. No way to buy your books, or a site hidden from Google, takes the most. A missing sitemap takes the least.
A cross takes the full points and a wavy line takes half. A tick takes nothing. Basics that almost every site gets right add nothing either, so they cannot hide a real problem.
When a store or your own site blocks one of our checks, that check takes nothing off. A check we could not run never lowers your score.
Phone speed comes from Google PageSpeed Insights, which loads your site on a simulated mid-range phone. Everything else we check ourselves.
Zenpage makes this checker. The checks and the points are the same for every site, Zenpage sites included.
| Check | Points off |
|---|---|
| Buy links | 30 |
| Allowed on Google | 30 |
| Fits phone screens | 20 |
| Phone speed | 20 |
| Broken buy links | 15 |
| Email signup | 15 |
| Readable without JavaScript | 15 |
| Secure connection | 15 |
| Page title | 8 |
| Missing pages | 8 |
| Your own domain | 8 |
| Author and book data | 6 |
| Share preview | 6 |
| Footer year | 6 |
| Blog | 6 |
| Search description | 5 |
| Sitemap | 4 |
Using the checker
Yes. There is no signup and no email to give. Type your site’s address and the report opens in about a minute.
It works with any public website: Wix, Squarespace, WordPress, WordPress.com, Tertulia, BookBub Author Websites, Carrd, GoDaddy, Weebly, Zenpage or a site you coded yourself. When we can tell which builder you use, the fixes are written for that builder.
A result stays for 24 hours, so a shared link does not start a new check. Ten minutes after a check, the report shows a “Check again” link, so you can see your fixes count.
Yes. Every report has its own address, like zenpage.io/check/janedoe.com, with a share picture that shows your score. The link always opens the newest check of that site.
The results
We only call a link broken when the store answers “page not found” twice, or when the link sends readers to the store’s home page instead of the book. If the link opens the right book for you, check it in a private window. Stores sometimes remember your last visit.
Stores, Amazon most of all, sometimes block automatic visits. A link we could not open does not count against you. We would rather miss a broken link than tell you a working one is broken.
Speed comes from Google PageSpeed Insights, which loads your site on a simulated mid-range phone. The score moves a few points from run to run. A change of 10 points or more is real.
Start at the top of the report. It lists the red crosses first, and the checks that cost you the most readers first. Broken buy links and a missing email signup are usually quick to fix and matter the most.
About the tool
Zenpage, a free website builder for authors. Each report says what Zenpage would do for each check, and it can rebuild your site from your books so you can compare. The checks and the score are the same for every site, Zenpage sites included.
The report for the address you typed: what your site shows the public, and nothing about you. We keep report pages out of Google, and we store a scrambled form of your IP address only to stop abuse.
Rather not fix it all yourself?
Zenpage builds your author site from your books, with buy links, an email signup and fast pages already done. It is free. Paste one of your books to see your site first.