As an aspiring author, one of the most important skills you’ll ever have to learn is… Finishing! Not only is writing endings a skill and its own discrete art, it’s impossible to start to promote or market a book that is unfinished. Hit up virtually any author on Twitter and ask them how many would-be authors have contacted them through some platform or another with advice about how to promote their book. Then ask them how many of those authors actually finished the book in question. The number will likely diminish. Still, getting ahead of one’s self before the tome in question is complete is just one part of the wonderful life of an author.
Nonetheless, when that troublesome ending is written, the book has been re-drafted and edited and you’re feeling good about it, promotion can be a thorny issue, especially if you have self-published. Without the clout of a publisher behind you, getting people to invest in your book can be tricky. While it’s advisable to seek the aid of SEO Consultants, this is not always possible for those on a shoestring budget. With this in mind, here are some SEO tips for authors to help you to reach the audience who will love your book…
Always be blogging
Blogging is a powerful string to an author’s bow for a number of reasons. Firstly, blogging is a great whetstone on which to sharpen your writing talents. Secondly, it’s a great way to engage with your readers and let them peek behind the curtain of your writing process. Thirdly, it allows you a great opportunity to expand your reach through SEO. Needless to say, your blog posts don’t always have to be about the book you’re trying to promote. The judicious use of keywords can allow you and your work to get noticed in a wide range of search engine queries. When you use highly relevant keywords which are appropriate to the craft of writing, your chosen genre or literary criticism it exposes your insights and your work to a wider range or prospective readers.
Plus, if you can get them to invest in you as an author and as a person they’ll keep coming back to your work time and again.
Focus on strategy
Your website should be a platform not just to promote your work but to encourage readers to invest in your brand and your voice. If they do this, they’ll not only be more likely to read your work, they’ll also be more likely to review it on Amazon, share your content on social media and help their friends, colleagues and family members to find your work.
In order to do this, however, you need to be strategic in your approach to content creation. Don’t just write content arbitrarily. Keep abreast of trending topics. Write posts that coincide with big releases in your genre. Keep using keywords to keep your content relevant.
Reach out to other authors
Links are an important part of SEO. Internal links are great but backlinks from high authority sites are solid gold. Thus, if you can get another author to link to your content, especially one whose website gets a lot of traffic, it can be highly beneficial for your SEO.
This is why it pays to maintain good relations with fellow authors, especially those within your genre, on social media and be a participatory member of the community.
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