A Basic Guide to Increasing Online Visibility for Your Books

Online book marketing boils down to increasing online visibility. Whether you are a self-published or connected with an established publishing house, your priority should be in increasing online visibility for your books. To be noticed is one of the fundamentals of marketing, no where it is true than in online digital marketing.

If I am a book lover and I want to search your book and it is nowhere
within the first page of a search engine, then I’ll presume it’s not worth
reading or no one’s actually heard of it. Simple as that. Google, the largest
search engine has been the standard of online visibility. Others may content
that the social media is the benchmark of popularity. As the saying goes, “If
it’s not on social media, then it’s not popular”. I daresay, if it’s not on
Google, it does not exist. So, how what exactly must authors do in order for
their books to get noticed by Google and other search engines?

Begin with your base

You begin with your platform- social media account, email address, or an author’s website. The author’s website serves as your base of operations. That said, the primary task is to optimize your website. That is the first step in increasing Google page visibility. You site should be filled with appropriate keywords that describes your book’s content as well as the words your target customers will key in when they search your book and other relevant keywords.

Say your book is entitled Carly’s
Cookbook: A Guide to Homemade Cooking. Your site should contain the words
found in your book title but also you would want relevant keywords linked to your site and pages. A number of
relevant keywords comes to mind: culinary book,
easy to prepare meals, guide to homemade dishes, etc. It takes research and
creativity to come up with relevant keywords but anyone can do it. In search
engine optimization (SEO), there is the principle of “Content is King” and in
your website’s case, it means that whatever you put in your pages determines
the interest rate of your customers. Be sure to produce fresh and relevant
article and texts for your author’s website. That is the most essential part of
SEO.

No book is an island

So your site is optimize for Google search engine, what now?

Once your site is optimized, the goal is to now increase whatever
traffic that goes to your site. Simply put, we need to advertise your book,
which is your brand. The author must be able to establish his or her brand and
build his or her reputation based on that. One way to do it is by showcasing
your book to the online public via reputable book sites, say Amazon.

According to Jane
Freidman,

“When you
want your website to rank on Google, you have to think through what keywords
you want to rank for. It’s the same at Amazon. 
There are
approximately one billion eBook titles and three million print books on Amazon,
and, yes, you can still be on page one or claim the number-one title. 
Why? Because most people aren’t aware that
Amazon is its own search engine.

The more searchable your book is, the more often
it’s going to come up in searches, and consequently, the more you’ll sell. Part
of making your book searchable is understanding how to set your categories and
keywords on Amazon (and related metadata), which is accessible to any indie
author who has their book on Amazon.

When optimizing your title on Amazon, you’ll focus
on three areas:

• Metadata:
  Keywords, keywords, keywords—Amazon loves keywords, and applying that knowledge
  skillfully will help you achieve better ranking.
• A good book cover:
  While Amazon may not ding you for a bad-looking cover, your potential readers
  most certainly will.
• Reviews:
  Reviews help with the visibility of your page and your ranking on Amazon—even
  if your book is a few years old.”

Increase your Amazon page visibility by optimizing our books for
amazon keyword search. This is important because while Google is the leading
web search engine, when it comes to book and book titles, Amazon is the leading
search engine. Readers searching for book either search titles on using Google
or they go directly to Amazon.com.

Man the multipliers

As mentioned
above, almost everything is being posted in social media these days. In fact,
even news companies are into social media. So why should an author advertising
his or her book, not take advantage of the social media mileage? Facebook,
Twitter, and other social media platforms are great multipliers. Sharing an
update or a book event in your social media page doubles your increases your
online visibility in just a few clicks. Social media accounts also rank in
Google search engines especially if it’s has a huge following.

Guest
posting and SEP blogging is another effective way to increase not only your
site traffic but also your ranking in Google. The more relevant and optimized
blog articles you published, the more chances that Google will notice and rank
your posts. Just makes sure to always provide link leading to your website and
its pages.

Guest
posting on the other hand means writing blog articles for other site that are
of the same niche. By doing so, you link your site to that particular site and
share its juice. Writing for reputable sites also increase your visibility
online and helps cement your reputation as a serious writer. Readers usually
search book titles but they also search authors.

Overall,
increasing your online visibility does not only mean releasing as many content
as you can. Equally important in gaining a spot in Google search pages is the
quality and relevance of your book, keywords, and other content related to your
brand.

ReadersMagnet offers publishing and book marketing services to authors who want their books to reach the broadest number of target audience. You can contact ReadersMagnet Self-Publishing at their office number: (619) 354 2643 Toll Free Number: (800) 805 0762 Fax Number: (661) 338 1442 or email them at [email protected] for more details.