Authors and book marketing go hand-in-hand. This area of online marketing is like any other and needs to use the same strategies to be effective.
Today, if you are promoting yourself and/or your book, service, business, or product, you need readers to now several things:
• Who you are
• Where you are
• What you have to offer
• Why what you’re offering is what they need
• Why you’re qualified to be offering this product/service
Yes, there are a lot of requirements that need to be met in order to be successful in this ever expanding and competitive internet arena.
One of the basic strategies used to get noticed is writing or providing content – this is considered article marketing. I’m sure you’ve read or heard a hundred times that “content is king.” It is absolutely true. Imagine being a spec in the sky . . . so tiny and far away that you are invisible to the human eye. Well, that’s you in the internet universe.
So, how do you get a flickering light going and build it into a steady strong beam?
Valuable Content and the Keyword Search
The only way to get on the internet radar is to create valuable content, provide it regularly, and make sure it is keyword effective. As I mentioned, content is essential, without it you don’t have a chance. But, even with it, you need to fine tune your ‘must read information’ with a keyword search tool.
Don’t fret though. Finding and using keywords is not difficult to do; the search tools make it easy. Most of it is really common sense, using words you would use to search for your topic. But, a keyword tool affords a much larger pond to fish from and is search engine specific.
For this article I plugged in the word “keywords” at freekeywords.wordtraker.com (a free tool). The number one phrase for this keyword is “keyword research,” number two is “keyword analysis,” and number three is “keyword.” I really didn’t have to do a search to realize the word “keyword” would be there, I didn’t know, however, that “research” would be part of the number one phrase. Knowing the number one keyword phrase provides valuable information; this also means it is a highly competitive keyword.
The Long Tail Keywords
To make your keyword rich content even more effective look for what’s called long tail keywords. These are words that will move you away from the general querying crowd—and the heavy competition.
For example, if your niche is children’s writing your key words would be: writing, children’s writing, and possibly children’s fiction and/or children’s nonfiction.
To elaborate on these keywords - to get more specific and narrow your target audience - you might use: writing for kids, children’s fantasy chapter books, picture books, middle grade fiction books, or kids’ nonfiction magazine articles. You get the idea; you need to focus in on your niche. Instead of aiming at the outer rim of a bull’s eye, go dead center, or at least very close.
To get started in this area of book marketing, try a free keyword search tool from the three listed below:
http://wordstream.com/keywords/
http://keyworddiscovery.com
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
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MORE ON ONLINE MARKETING
Email List - 10 Giveaway Freebies to Get Readers to Opt-in
Guest Blogging – Advantages for the Guest Blogger
Your Author Online Platform and Social Networks – Blog Page Views and Twitter Followers
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Karen Cioffi
Award-Winning Author, Freelance/Ghostwriter
Author-Writer Online Platform Instructor
Create and Build Your Author/Writer Online Platform
6 Week WOW! Women on Writing E-class Starting May 6th
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6 comments:
Keywords are one reason you see so many subtitles getting longer these days! And I advise my clients (and readers) to include a second keyword-laden subtitle on the back cover of the book, too. Aren't keywords wonderful!
Best,
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Excited about how much the new edition of the Frugal Book Promoter (expanded! updated!) can help writers with the tried and true and the new media, too. Now a USA Book News award-winner in its own right (www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo) it the original edition was also a Reader Views winner and an Irwin Award winner.
As always Karen, great advice, particularly about how valuable keywords are. Thanks!
Great tip, Carolyn. Subtitles are another effective tool to get more juice out of titles.
Maggie, Glad you found the post helpful!
Great advice. I think making sure you tell readers why what you are offering is what they need is something often over-looked by authors.
Mary Jo, that's the trick, making the offer known and the WIFM.
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