SEO for authors isn’t much different than SEO for other products or services. Fledgling writers and veterans of the trade alike face numerous issues when it comes to marketing their own products. You’ve invested your time, created something you want to share with the world, put your expertise to the test, but how are you going to get people to read it? Welcome to the visibility dilemma, where qualified experts in any subject can simply fall off the radar if they don’t make a conscious effort to keep their work in the public eye. How do you expect anybody to find out about you or your novel if you are essentially hiding it under a rock?
If you have a decent awareness of words and how they are perceived by readers, then you’ve got all of the tools you need to get cracking on some solid SEO copywriting. “But I’m an author! I write books!” Why yes, you certainly do, so this should be the easy part. SEO copywriting is a valuable skill for authors to acquire in order to push their product, get seen, and ultimately share their books with the specific target that wants to read them.
SEO, or search engine optimization, is basically a way for copywriters to inject useful keywords into their site content or their blog in order to get better search results from Google. The more natural it seems and the better the phrasing you have, the higher you will appear in Google’s search results for that particular keyword or phrase. With standard tools such as Google Analytics and the Google Adwords Keyword Planner, you can determine exactly which keywords users search for when landing on your site.
SEO copywriting is the art of injecting keywords in such a seamless way that the writer and the reader don’t even realize it was done on purpose. Google’s bots will scan the page, catch the keywords, and bump you up in the search results if it has been well done. The idea is that the higher your content appears in the results (and certainly above the fold!), the more pertinent your site must be to the search results — meaning the user behind the keyboard who is searching for something could very well be looking for you! Once they land on your page, they are considered a qualified lead (a hot prospect), and are more likely to convert, or check out.
To introduce some of the SEO copywriting basics for authors, first off, it’s not about the density of the keywords, but the relevance! Choose the words that fit your product in the best way, rather than trying to cram anything and everything into one paragraph. Like telling a story, it’s best to carefully craft the text so as not to give too much away or put people off.
Next, keep in mind that Google also loves related keywords, grammatical variation, and synonyms. That shouldn’t be a problem for authors! Also be sure to include relevant titles to posts you write, any relevant tags, and snippets (meta descriptions, for example) if you are writing a blog. Blogs are a great way to reinforce your visibility on specific, specialized areas.
Finally, if you want readers to find your work and if you want companies to discover you, there’s no better way than through sharing. Share your site on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+, and encourage your friends, family and followers to do the same!
As you can see, sometimes acronyms (oh no, SEO!) and technical jargon (search engine what?) can make very simple undertakings seem more complicated than they actually are. Hopefully now, you’ll see that you’ve likely already got this optimization thing in the bag.
Happy Writing,
Marquina
The Incredible Importance of #SEO for #Authors On Their Own https://t.co/aQ0V2VxRtI #amwriting #contentmarketing
— Marquina (@Marquina) October 21, 2015
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