Whether you plan to put your self-published books up for sale on your own website or on a popular book selling platform like Kindle or Kobo, one of the most important things you can do is increase visibility, also known as “discoverability” . of your online books.
While there is no way to optimize your real book for search engines, you can optimize the pages your books are published on and the links pointing to those pages to channel more potential buyers and increase your exposure.
Before going into details, think about this simple truth ...
The way we discover books has changed forever
Imagine going into a bookstore and looking for a book on a specific topic.
Chances are you'll walk to the section of the store that has the type of book you're looking for. For example, a cookbook, a science book, or a literature book.
From there, you will carefully read the book shelf until you find a topic that matches the information you are looking for. It could be a cookbook on baking cakes, a science book on geology, or a space age-based space science literature book.
Also Read: How to Index Backlinks?
For all your time and effort, chances are you're going to end up with a book that meets your needs.
Now come back to reality for a moment and think about how you would use the Internet to do the same type of book search.
Without a real title already in mind, it is often very difficult to find the perfect book that matches the information you want.
On the other hand, if you learn and use the language of the Internet and combine it with the way the average Internet user searches for information, you can place each book you release prominently in front of an audience that is more likely to be Interested in its content.
This language is known as Search Engine Optimization.
What is search engine optimization?
Search engine optimization or SEO is the practice of altering a website or a single web page so that it is naturally more visible in the results of a search engine. These unpaid search engine positions are also known as 'organic' search results.
The goal of every search engine optimization effort should be to get the pages that list your books and your purchase links to appear in search engines as high as possible for certain keywords and phrases.
Do this and the result is a gradual increase in the exposure, interest, and eventual sales of your books.
How to use keywords to optimize book search
If your goal is to optimize your book lists to get noticed on search engine results pages, you better start thinking of keywords like internet currency.
A keyword or keyword phrase is a term that a search engine, or in your case, a potential reader types in the search box to find the information you are looking for.
Suppose you are a self-published author who focuses on creating specialized cookbooks and your latest title is all about creating flourless chocolate cakes and other gluten free desserts.
Someone searching for your book may have no idea who you are or have that cookbook available to buy online. What they do know is what kind of information they are looking for.
If this person uses the Google search bar, they can type any of the following terms:
- Flourless Chocolate Cake Recipe
- Gluten free desserts
- There are no recipes for dessert flour.
- Cake without flour
- Books on gluten-free cooking.
- Flourless Cake Cookbooks
Google then uses these keywords to find related websites, books, and videos before returning web pages that provide the information that most closely matches what the user is looking for.
If you're not sure what kind of keywords to include on your pages, try using a keyword tool like the free one provided by Google or one of the many other options available.
This gives you an idea of the types of words that search engines can enter to find information related to the areas of interest that you cover in your books.
The power of backlinks
In addition to performing on-page optimization with specific keywords and keyword phrases, getting backlinks from relevant and related websites is another key to increasing your book's visibility in search engine results.
This is because Google and other search engines see them as a type of approval from other websites.
That said, it is important to remember that quality is much more important than quantity.
Having a link from a highly reputable and relevant website is worth more than a thousand links from a spam website.
Legitimate ways to get backlinks include:
- Going through blog tours
- Writing articles for websites.
- Sharing social networks
- Blogging to attract new readers.
Simply by creating relevant and valuable content links as it is shared with your followers and collected in various media.
The key is not to force things and create a bunch of artificial backlinks, but to make your content so interesting that the links are natural. Over time, you will see an increase in the search engine rankings of your book page and an increase in sales.
While doing things organically takes time and effort, the lasting results are worth it.
Blogging and search engine optimization
When it comes to SEO, blogging can be one of the most productive activities you can do to increase the amount of natural traffic on search engines that reaches your author website or on the pages that show your blog titles. books.
Earlier, we mentioned how the average Internet user searches for the information they want to find online.
They type a search term or phrase in the search bar and scroll through the results to see if they find a page that seems to reflect the type of content they want to read.
Publishing to your blog on a regular basis is a simple and easy way to keep your website up-to-date and updated with relevant information that your fans and readers want to know, as well as providing search engines with keyword pages that they can use. It can be used to index your pages and direct web search engines to your website and book titles when they indicate an interest in certain topics.
Along with naturally occurring keywords and keyword phrases, blogs tend to attract the attention of interested visitors, leading to social media sharing and increased SEO backlinks when pages are shared with others.
Blogging is also a great way to bridge the gap for a complete stranger who occupies territories on your sales page, but you're not sure whether or not they want to take the leap of faith and buy your book.
By giving them an idea of what you have to offer with snippets of reviews, script excerpts and a generous brushstroke of your true personality through your blog, your prospect can get to know you and your work better, which makes moving your book around your mind from A maybe a must, which is much easier.
The bottom line
Once you have written your manuscripts, you should never allow them to be lost in the vast ocean of the World Wide Web. By harnessing the power of search engine optimization, you can put your book titles and brand prominently on the minds of Internet users, making them highly visible and easy to discover!
