Good Keywords for Author SEO by Kayelle Allen @KayelleAllen #author #tips

Authors need good keywords for blog posts, books, marketing, even writing newsletters. SEO, which means Search Engine Optimization, is all about writing and content searchable by search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. After all, if no one can find you, what good will it do to write material anyway? To be found, authors need good keywords and good SEO.
Included in this post is a shot of the Yoast SEO Wordpress plugin used on my personal site. I use this plugin on each post. This is one I used for a post called How to Leave A Review (which I'll mention again below).

A focus keyword.

For ex, a phrase that includes the genre, book or character name, or a descriptive phrase. On one of my posts, titled "How to Leave a Review" I used "leave a review" and repeated it in the title, url, H2 heading, and the body. By the time I'd finished it was there 13 times total. Anyone searching for info on how to leave one, when to leave one, where to leave one, etc. would be likely to find it.

Slug

The slug is what the words at the end of the url are called. Mine was leave-a-review (after the kayelleallen.com/ ) Making it the same as the focus word strengthens the SEO.

Meta Title / Meta Description

I use Wordpress, and a plugin called Yoast SEO allows me to choose the meta title and description. When you Google something, you know the words in bold that come up and show you a title? That's the meta title. The words beneath it are the meta description. If you can't specify, then Google (and other search engines) pick up the post title and about 150 characters of the first paragraph.

Yoast SEO shows a green line (meaning good) when a title is more than 54 characters but no more than 94 characters. For the meta description, use a minimum 120 characters but no more than 156 characters. Remember, if you don't have a program that will provide this info for search engines, write posts with this type of information right up front.

More SEO for Authors

Title and hashtags

I try to match the focus keyword and then research the best hashtags on https://ritetag.com/

H2 Header

Match your focus keyword somewhere on the page in an H2 heading.

Video

Because it owns YouTube, Google loves videos from there. Use the focus word in the description and/or header of that.

Call to action

Generally, I plan my call to action first, and then write the post to showcase that. I want people to leave a review of my book, so I pulled it in as examples in the entire post about how to leave a review. Then I asked if they had left one no matter who's or where, to share the link. It got a ton of views, but no comments. Typically, I get far more views than comments, so it wasn't a surprise.

Image alt tags

On my personal site, I highlight the title of the post and paste that into the alt tag line of each image in the post.

Featured Image

In Blogger, you usually see the first image when you post a url on Facebook or Twitter. With Wordpress, you can pick the exact image you want, even if it isn't in your actual post. When the meta title and description go up on Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc., that is the image that goes with it.

Other minor things to watch:

Use one category only. This is like the folder in the filing cabinet. It can only go in one at a time. Exception: On RLFblog, I use two categories when the author does an interview. One for the type of interview, and one for the type of book. This lets readers search for both.

Use keywords that are genre specific, book specific, topic oriented. Keep keywords simple so readers can easily click the tag and find everything in the topic. For ex, don't use the word book plus the word books. One or the other.

That's pretty much what I do. It's working very well.

If you use Wordpress, get the Yoast SEO for Wordpress plugin. It will teach you these very things. If you do them, your article is going to be much more findable by search engines. Use the checklist, and write good content that contains information people want to find. It's that simple.

About Kayelle Allen

Kayelle Allen is the founder of Marketing for Romance Writers. She writes Sci Fi with misbehaving robots, mythic heroes, role playing immortal gamers, and warriors who purr. She's a US Navy veteran and has been married so long she's tenured.

https://kayelleallen.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/kayelleallen
Facebook https://facebook.com/kayelleallen.author
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#MFRWauthor-to-author: Benefits of Self Publishing @gemwriter Claire Gem

Why Claire Gem Chose Self Publishing
I began my published author career with not one, not two, but three small publishers. My experience with them taught me many things, the least of which was patience. Which I don't have a lot of.

The first publisher did an awesome job editing, gave me the cover I asked for, and then nothing else.

The second did a crappy editing job but gave me a wonderful cover.

The third did outstanding edits, but forced me to change the title and sprung a cover on me I still have nightmares about.

Which is why I created Erato Publishing, published HEARTS UNLOCHED in eBook, Paperback, and Audiobook, and will never, ever look back. I am a control freak who also happens to be lucky enough to have a sister who is a graphic designer (and loves designing book covers) and a husband who is patient (and smart) enough to stay out of my way when I'm struggling with formatting issues.

My new release, HEARTS UNLOCHED, is a story that came to me, quite literally, already written. My husband grew up in the area of the Catskills in New York where the book is set: Sullivan County. We were visiting the area last fall when he began reiterating the urban legend about Loch Sheldrake—a lake so deep nobody has ever found the bottom.

So deep, it was the perfect place for the mob to dump bodies back in the day.

Sullivan County is littered with abandoned hotels, resorts, and convention centers. Back in the 50s and up until about 1970, the area enjoyed a prolific tourist trade from folks who lived in nearby NYC, only about two hours away. But after plane travel became more affordable, the tourist trade dried up and died. Many of the hotels were taken over by Jewish religious organizations, burned to the ground, or still stand forgotten and rotting.

As we drove around the lake, I began a ""what if"" conversation with myself. What if there was an abandoned hotel on the shores of the ill-rumored lake? What if there was a Jewish interior designer from Manhattan who owned a weekend house on the lake? Who was also psychic?

What if a sexy Italian investor bought a crumbling hotel on the shores of Loch Sheldrake? What if, after bumping into each other and producing some rather impressive sexual sparks, the investor hires the designer to renovate his hotel? But what if there's a ghost—a poltergeist—connected with the property who has a very personal interest in the psychic designer? Kate's aunt disappeared from the place fifty years ago.

Hearts Unloched

Interior designer Kate Bardach loves her single girl’s lifestyle—living in Manhattan and spending weekends at her lake house. She’s passionate about her career, reinventing old buildings. But there are some projects she can’t take on because of the spirits trapped there. Kate is psychic—she sees dead people.

Marco Lareci is one of Wall Street’s most successful investment brokers who’s achieved all of his life’s goals—except for finding his soulmate.  His latest project, an abandoned resort on Loch Sheldrake, needs a savvy designer to transform the crumbling complex into a boutique hotel. When Marco meets Kate, he can’t believe his luck. She’s the perfect match for his business and his heart.
Marco’s body excites Kate even more than does his renovation project. But the haunting there, a bonafide poltergeist, affects her on an intensely personal level. Kate’s aunt disappeared from the place fifty years ago.

Will the spirit doom Kate and Marco’s love, or drive them closer together?

BUY LINK

ABOUT Claire Gem
Claire turns the paranormal romance genre on its ear by combining the elements of gothic horror, mystery/thriller, and romantic suspense—in present-day settings. It’s a genre she calls New Gothic.

She also writes intensely emotional contemporary romance with a touch of humor under the Claire Gem Contemporary line.

website  |  blog  |  facebook  |  pinterest  |  amazon  |  goodreads

#MFRWorg Newbie's World: Does Social Media Help to Sell Books?

And by work, I mean, does it actually sell books?

There are many different theories out there about what actually sells books in terms of social media, but as far as I can determine, there is no direct correlation between numbers of social media followers and book sales.  For instance, even if you spent time to amass 20,000 Twitter followers, how many of those will actually buy your book? Perhaps 1%?

We tend to look at the followings of best-selling authors and think "wow, they have a lot of followers, they must sell a lot of books that way." But really, when do we usually follow other authors? After we have already read (and liked) their books.

There are always exceptions, of course, but pinning our energy (and hopes) onto gaining a large following will probably not get us where we want to be.

There are few who will  stand up and say:  don’t waste your time on social media. And far be it from me, either, to say that it is a waste of time. Social media is a good way to make ourselves available to our fans, to communicate with other authors, and to find like-minded individuals. As a social tool, it is invaluable.

But as a book marketing tool, we would be better off applying ourselves to the tried and true methods of marketing.

Find Your Mavens:

Find influencers to promote your work for you. If you’ve ever read the Tipping Point, or heard about how Stephen King’s tweets sent asldjf onto the best-seller lists, then you know what I mean. Use (in the nicest possible meaning of the word) other people’s networks to promote your work.

How to do it? Well, by being social, of course. The first approach is always email, of course, and should consist of the following:

1.      A reason you are writing – what does this person mean in your world – do they write the same genre, share an affinity for hat-wearing cats or gnomes, let them know whatever it is that connects you.

2.      Brief (incredibly brief) intro of you and your work

3.      Call to Action (what would you like the influencer to do? Review? Tweet about the work?)

If you don’t get anywhere with email, though, try social media. Reach out via Twitter or Facebook and be relevant.

Making your book(s) as awesome as possible:

Of course, the other part of marketing is having a product that people really, really want. Your book, in all of its facets, has to be as awesome as possible (writing, cover, and editing.)

Another thing to consider here is the power of a series, and the power of free. Putting out a series in rapid succession, including a free novella, can be a great way to garner sales.

What do you think? What ways have you used social media to garner sales (or not)? What do you think has helped you to sell the most books?

Erin writes sensuous paranormal romances set in exotic locales. Her latest book is a sexy minotaur shifter story set in Crete.  A regular blogger for Marketing for Romance Writers as well as Heroes and Heartbreakers, Erin lives in Atlanta with her two little paranormal beings and one unruly husband.

Erin also now offers editing services, including help with bios and queries, on her website.  She's giving away a critique of a first chapter with a subscription to her newsletter!