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Making the Most of Your Website By Lars Clausen
Professional websites are essential tools for successful writers and authors. Understanding the benefits that a well-designed website can provide as well as knowing a little about website optimization will help authors maximize their site traffic. Using basic optimization techniques and new technology like RSS and automated syndication with content injection will help you make the most of your website.
The top ten benefits of an effective website:
Almost all of us think “search engine” when we think of optimizing our website traffic. Yes, search engines are important, but so are general promotion strategies. Here are ten steps to getting more visitors to your website.
Your book
Book promotion centers on word of mouth, and the web increases the importance of person-to-person recommendations. Always carry a copy of your book. Print your website address on the cover. Word of mouth will drive the inquisitive to your website.
Everyday announcements
Use your business card: Print your URL on your business cards and send people home with your website address in their pocket.
Your answering machine: Invite people to check your latest updates and tell them your web address.
E-mail: Use your automatic signature on your e-mail; send out every e-mail with your contact information, book description, and a link to your website.
Bumper sticker: Bumper stickers prove we’re still a nation of readers. Get one made for your car and include your website address.
Presentations and book signings
Include your website's URL whenever you give a presentation. Mention additional content that your audience can access when they get home and visit your website.
Excellent content
Content attracts both readers and search engines. Ensure that visitors to your site receive well-organized and valuable information. Provide background material about your book, yourself, and your subject area. Include attention getters like little-known facts, eye-catching statistics, and quotes your readers can use. Use high-quality images to highlight your story. Search the web for resources that will improve your own website.
Update material regularly
Keep adding new resources. Remove out-of-date information. One of the most effective updates is a newsletter. If possible, e-mail this newsletter to your reader list every two to four weeks. Check site statistics after each newsletter-- you should see a traffic peak after each mailing.
If you have a small three-to-five page website, make sure every word receives the same careful attention your books get when you write them-- these few web pages have a lot of promotion to achieve. If you have to pay webmaster fees every time you make an update, figure out what content matters most and invest your money there.
If you don’t yet have a website, or if you’re changing services, choose a provider that allows you to create and update an unlimited number of pages. To maximize your website’s usefulness, you must have control of your content.
Blogs
Don’t have a newsletter? Stuck with a static site? Are webmaster fees so high that you don’t update your site? Search the web for blog providers, and create a newsletter this way. Have your webmaster add a link from your website to the blog. Make sure to link from your blog back to your website. Search engines may find your blog before they find your website. Either way, you win.
Search engine tips
For online marketers of digital cameras, search engine ranking is the only game in town. Authors, on the other hand, have a unique product. Unlike the camera customer choosing from one of hundreds of vendors, your reader is looking for you. Your job is to help them find your website. Here’s how to do it (For more information, start searching at Google’s Information for Webmasters at http://www.google.com/webmasters/faq.html.):
-Link with the like-minded
Are you a member of any associations? Will they provide a link to your website? Links to your site are a natural way to attract readership. Search engines look carefully at who links to your site. The more prominent the organization linking-in, the more value assigned to your website by the search engines. A link from CNN to your author website will be even more valuable to search engines than one from your favorite publishing association. Links from your website to others may help readers, but they don’t increase your search engine ranking.
-Keywords
Each search engine has specific rules for ranking websites. Keywords are words that people will use when searching for your website. You choose your keywords and place them in the header of each web page. This is called a meta-tag. Most search engines have decreased reliance on meta-tag keywords because of abuse by online marketers. Still, fill these out anyway. Include your name, your book, and identifying words about your work. In the description tag, include a brief sentence about your website. When a search engine lists you, they will include this description tag along with your website address.
-Content optimization
With the decreasing importance of keywords, search engines are looking right where an author wants, at the content on web pages. Fill your first sentence, and your first paragraph with the keywords that people will use to search for you. If you have a good site statistics package with your website host, you can monitor what keywords people are using to find you, and you can adapt your text to include these words.
Online store
The number of visitors is an important indication of site success, but the bottom line is sales and profit. Engineer your website to drive readers to the sale. The minimum a website needs is a link to your publisher or to a major online bookseller so readers can purchase your book. For independently published books, consider selling books online directly to readers to maximize your profits. Research options, as prices and service vary widely.
The latest and greatest
RSS
RSS (really simple syndication) feeds are increasingly popular. Search the web for both free and subscription services. If you are creating regular new content on your website, put an RSS link to these pages and let media know that they can add you to their RSS reader. Whenever you post new material, media and readers who are subscribed to your RSS feed receive immediate notification. RSS saves media from searching your website for information.
Content injection (website syndication)
Do you have a weekly print or website column that other websites want to post? Content injection allows you to post articles on subscriber pages automatically. No more cutting and pasting or webmaster dependence. Essentially, by placing a single line of code on recipient websites, content such as newsletters, photos, etc., are automatically injected onto the recipient site whenever a change is made at the home site. To date, the only company I know of that has packaged XML technology this way is Cevado (Cevado.com).
In conclusion, the great author is the one who tells a superb story and figures out how to spread the word. The great website is the same, a combination of outstanding content and effective promotion-- an indispensable tool for every serious author and the publishers who represent him or her.
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Text on this site Copyright © 1998-2007
Absolute Write, all rights reserved.
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Lars Clausen is
the first person to unicycle through all 50 states. His book, One Wheel –
Many Spokes, is a 2005 Benjamin Franklin Award recipient. He operates two
websites for his books (
