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THE SECRET TO DISCOVERABILITY
DISCOVERABILTY in a cyber-verse
filled with cries of BUY ME!
From a half million to a million ebooks are published yearly.
Quite a crowd, right?
There's more daunting news:
Books don't go out of print anymore!
They now remain available as eBooks virtually forever.
The total catalogue of books available for download may have already reached the ten or twenty MILLION mark!
Exact figures are hard to come by.
AWARENESS leads to INTEREST leads to DESIRE leads to ACTION in the old sales formula.
But if people are searching for your book on Google, they already are aware of you!
We hope we pop up when people search for a catergory we write, but you must be in the top FIVE results to be seen in this attention-deficit society.
O.K.
WHAT DO WE DO?
INVISIBLE vs the VISIBLE
Search Engines send out automated programs called "spiders" to examine every web page, and index them in their search data bases.
They apply secret algorithms to give each page a rank against those search terms.
Say you are writing about THE SEX LIFE OF CLAMS in your post and new book.
The temptation is to be cute in the title of your post.
WRONG.
The invisible magnets for those cyber-spiders is hidden in the HTML code that makes up your page.
If your page contains "the sex life of clams" it might pop up on Google when someone is searching for the sex life of clams.
It will pop up much higher if that phrase appears in a "Headline 1" tag.
That's a Style Tag you apply in the HTML code to make the letters BIGGER and BOLDER on the page ...
and in the code behind the scene -- written as < h1 >
Its prominence means it's reasonable for a search engine, just like a human visitor, to take this as a clue that this post talks a lot about sex and clams!
WHEN OTHERS TOOT YOUR HORN, THE SOUND CARRIES FARTHER!
The more places that link to you, and the more important those sites are, the higher your site and book are likely to rank.
So those of you highlighted on Alex Cavanaugh's blog ... say THANK YOU!
LURE THE SPIDERS' EYES
Use www.googlekeywordtool.com to decide what keywords to use in your posts and book titles.
It will help you put your blog and book in the TOP FIVE RESULTS in many searches.
You will be surprised how your own common sense will help you pick those same keywords.
BE FREQUENT, BE UNIQUE
Teachers do not like students that copy. In like manner, cyber spiders do not like us to duplicate others' posts or even our own!
Search engines like new content: the more frequent the better.
And if, unknown to you, you attract the attention of an agent, you do not want her to see that your last post was weeks ago!!
END OF DAYS:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0082ZJD08
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,925 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
END OF DAYS:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0082ZJD08
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,925 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
- #2 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Horror > United States
Good tip about the headline tag. That's why it pays to know html.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's why I highlight others. I know it helps and reaches further.
Alex:
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to thank you for highlighting others and to show all your past linked authors what a great thing you did for them.
I don't ask for my books since your posts are already long with links. I can't do much for you, but I can at least not add another distraction from your posts. :-)
Alex:
ReplyDeleteOops. I wanted to say since I don't ask for my books and you do it anyway -- it means a lot. Thanks!
Good advice, Roland. Do agents look at our blogs? A few of the ones I've queried have, but only after I've queried them. Posting new content consistently is key. As a reader, I want to see my favorite writers active.
ReplyDeleteMilo:
ReplyDeleteOdd fact:
I once wrote a post on how to query and ended it with a sample query of my own.
An agent I had never queried read my post and requested the first 3 chapters ... and the rest is infamy. She declined!
Such is life. :-)
Yep, others touting the quality of a novel or story carries farther than an author or even a publisher doing the same.
ReplyDeleteTerry:
ReplyDeletePraising your own book is sort of like laughing at your own joke, right?
I didn't know about the Google key word tool so I'm checking it out. Thank you for the advice and links -- I need all the help I can get.
ReplyDeleteHelena:
ReplyDeleteWe ALL need as much help as we can get in today's publishing world! :-)
Helena:
ReplyDeleteWe ALL need as much help as we can get in today's publishing world! :-)
Love the tips, Roland! I really appreciate this post. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteSusan:
ReplyDeleteYou made my weary evening so much better with your appreciation! :-)