Website & SEO

How to Market Your Blog or Website

Best Advertising

Quote

You can have the best blog or website in the world, but without effective marketing, no one will know about it. Just because you have launched your website on the Internet doesn’t mean that everyone will come flocking to it. In fact, nobody will know it exists – if you do not get out there and promote it.  Here are a few essential tips:

 

Write valuable content – Quality over quantity

Link to your other websites – And in turn, receive “inbound” links from other sites

• Signature – Apply the blog name as an email signature, include it on business cards, press releases, videos, etc.

Post on Social Media – Recycle a part of your most interesting content and post it on LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or eZines – always with a link to your blog.

Refer-a-friend Promotion – Provide a reward for users that gets another person to become a visitor, member or sign up for the email list.

Guest Posting – It posting allows you to attract targeted traffic (readers) that are already interested in your niche plus the guest posters’ own audience.

Blog Comments – Participate in the comments section of other blogger’s posts and on social sites, e.g. LinkedIn or Goodreads.  And don’t forget to answer the commenters on your own blog or website!
.

What Else Can You Accomplish With Your Blog’s Content?

Create an eBook – Find a series of articles that have a similar topic and compile them into a marketable format.  Sell it for a low price or give it away for free.

Create a Video Series – Say you have several articles that describe, step by step, how to create (…fill in…), then turn it into videos.

Create an Email List – Don’t wait to start a newsletter email list.  Sign up today with any of the email newsletter services – sometimes for free.  The email newsletter should serve as the voice or spokesperson for your business.  All the exclusive information should be sent via this medium exclusively to your subscription readers.
.

Attention to detail and a “quality over quantity” attitude will be one of the best things you can do for your book business in the long run. Using free online promotion methods is a better idea. Better than expensive ads.

Get a checklist of all the elements you need to optimize in order for you to get found at ‘Book Marketing on a Shoestring’ and ‘111 Tips on How to Market Your Book For Free”.  

.

<><><><><>

.

Books by Doris-Maria Heilmann:

Audiobooks for Success

Valuable guide book for authors, audiobook publishers, narrators, voice-over artists, and audiobook listeners. Learn how to create, produce, publish, and market your audiobooks.

https://books2read.com/u/bPRRyJ

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07W81MN2Z

 

111 Tips to Create Impressive Videos
How to Plan, Create, Upload and Market Videos
https://www.books2read.com/u/3GYnpa

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BYDH41S/

 

111 Tips To Make (More) Money With Writing
The Art of Making a Living Full-time Writing –
An Essential Guide for More Income as Freelancer
https://books2read.com/u/bWZMjz

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1988664187

 

111 Tips on How to Market Your Book for Free
Detailed Plans and Smart Strategies for Your Book’s Success
https://books2read.com/u/bMre1a

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018RA72LY

 

111 Tips to Get Free Book Reviews
Best Strategies for Getting Lots of Great Reviews
plus 1,200+ reviewer contact links
https://books2read.com/u/mZ5nx5

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018RA72LY/

 

111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer
How to Create, Where to Upload and How to Market Your Videos
https://books2read.com/u/mVZkjr

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CHWX6X2/

 

Book Marketing on a Shoestring
How Authors Can Promote their Books

Without Spending a Lot of Money
https://books2read.com/u/mZ5gdp

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1988664225

.

Recipe for Failure – and How YOU Can Do Better

how to use sharing buttons

This weekend I found a huge list of “Upcoming Author Conferences & Events for Authors” at the Selfpublishingadvice.org website, run by The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), an organization which I highly recommend to independent authors.
.

Great Events for Authors.
This list of upcoming international events contained everything from book fairs, festival of literature, publishing conferences, writers weeks in many parts of the world, literature festivals, a self-publishing conference, the Book Expo America (BEA) to the famous 2016 San Francisco Writers Conference and the Paris Book Fair.

.
How to Spread the Word?
As I like to let our clients and readers of our blogs know about all events related to books and writing, I started to post the events for February and March on our timeline at Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook and Pinterest – or so I wanted… However, I got stuck very soon, as almost all of these event organizers did either not have:

  • any sharing buttons at all
  • only sharing buttons for Twitter and Facebook – or only Facebook
  • only one or two buttons to their own social media sites
  • no sharing buttons – but TWICE buttons to their own social media sites
  • only a Facebook like button, but no sharing button
  • IF there were sharing buttons, they often miss Google+
  • and the worst: NO follow buttons and NO sharing buttons!

.
Unprofessional – but Bragging…

“BookExpo America (BEA) is the leading book and author event for the North American publishing industry”. As they do not even have a single sharing button on their event website, how should journalists and publishing insiders spread the word about the event?  Charging premium prices for membership as well as for the event, one would think they could afford a professional marketing team.
Missing sharing buttons on the San Francisco Writers Conference as well…  They have no sharing buttons whatsoever, only two buttons to follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
I am not listing every event here that offers no possibility to spread the word online as it would go on for pages.  At none of these event websites did I find a pre-worded Twitter “Click-to-Tweet” button (or other social media for that matter).
.

Social Media Sharing Buttons.
At the Amelia Island Book Festival page, visitors can only share via Facebook.  However Facebook restricts very much these kind of posts, and only a few of their followers can see them.  Many people use FB only for their private accounts. It is important to have sharing buttons with Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn.  You never know where people are active, and not every post is suitable for every site.
For example, I personally would not post about a writers conference or book fair on Pinterest, but for sure on LinkedIn, where I am connected with other writers and publishing professionals.
.
Many users on social media sites don’t know what to post every day. And finding an article or a website with publishing / writing news that can be shared is always a welcome post – done in a second.  To spread the word they do not even need to open their own social media page.  Just click and go!
.

Google+ Buttons for Better SEO.
Of all event sites, only the Kairo (Egypt) Book Fair and the Habana (Cuba)… had sharing buttons to Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. These events are organized by IPA, the International Publishers Organization. Their website is professionally set up and their events can be shared all over the internet just by a mouse click.
THE most important reason for Google+ is SEO, the Search Engine Optimization, which means your post / link is immediately available through a Google search.
Try it out: post something on your Google+ timeline, and type the title a minute later into Google search: Your own post will appear on Google’s first page.  90% of the traffic to our blog comes from search engines thanks to Google+.
.

Click-to-Tweet:
Pre-worded tweets are a fantastic way for online visitors to talk about an event.  Implement Pre-Worded Tweets.  An excerpt from our latest how-to-book:
Use a website called Click-to-Tweet which offers this great function for free.  It’s the easiest and fastest way to promote, share and track your content on Twitter.  Invite readers to spread the word is to implement pre-fabricated tweets, where you choose the text to put into designated spots into the manuscript of your website.
.
As you already have a sales page on Amazon, you can add the URL in your tweet form.  Here is an example of the code for our latest book:
<a href=”http://ctt.ec/d2GTd”><img src=”http://clicktotweet.com/img/tweet-graphic-trans.png” alt=”Tweet: 111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer” /></a>

Click to tweet is not only handy to spread the word about your next book within your book; it should also be implemented in your blog or website.  More about this feature: @clicktotweet.

BlogTyrant writes: “All you do is enter the quote in the box on the right and then click “generate link”. You then use the URL that they give you as the destination for your anchor text.  You can add these at any part of your post, it doesn’t have to be a block quote. It could just be a cool little phrase you use to sum up a paragraph or article. Make sure you make the quote short enough to allow people to retweet it within Twitter and make sure you include a tiny URL of the post where the quote came from.”

.
Why not use this Free Promotion Buttons?
Event organizers pay thousands for their websites, for their advertisement, to find corporate sponsors, to write press releases, and many more marketing activities.  But why do they not use the only free and very efficient method to spread the word?
If you’re going to dedicate all of that time to an event and create a website, you want to get the most out of it, right?  The success of the announcement largely depends on how many people read about it and one important way to increase readership is to include social share buttons on every post.
.
Search engines include the strength of a link in social media as an algorithm ranking factor.  Strength is measured by calculating the number of times that content is shared, tweeted, and posted in social media.  So if your content is getting shared frequently, the search engine ranking for relevant keywords catapults it to the top.  Social share buttons make it so much easier for a reader to pass along your content to their network.  Without sharing buttons you are missing out on a huge opportunity.
If I would be approached to sponsor any of these events, I would not commit before they would have a proper website including sharing buttons.

.
Authors can Share More Professionally.
Authors have lots of events to share with their readers and followers, such as book launches, new print or audio-book versions, book signings, book price campaigns and so forth.  Sharing buttons and Click-to-Tweet buttons are available for free, they just need to be added to your website (or to your ebook).
Readers and followers don’t have time to copy and paste text and links and then visit one by one their social media sites to post your event.  Sharing content increases overall traffic.  Instead of making it hard for people to share, make it easy by including sharing buttons to announce your event with one single mouse click!

Read more about free book and event marketing at: 111 Tips on How to Market Your Book for Free 

<><><><><>

5 Tips How to Choose Your Web Name

Choosing the right domain name for a website or blog is an essential step to success.  Your domain name is the identifier of your blog or site.  Be careful on choosing it. You want readers to find you among millions of other writers, and you want your web site to be on Google’s first page.
.
Art of Choosing a Domain Name

Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.
.

Use Your Author Name
Finding a domain name that’s easy to type, is critical to your online success.  For ambitious writers it is almost a “no-brain-er” to use their first and last name or pen name as a domain.  Exceptions: the fact that there is already an author with the same name or if the name is very common, and there might be another writer, who has already registered it.
.
Don’t use .net or .org
It makes no sense to use .net or .org when .com is already taken. Most people automatically type in .com and would land at someone else’s website.  Having your website confused with a popular site already owned by someone else is nasty for your readers and looks unprofessional.
.
Put Yourself into the Shoes of Your Readers.
The next best possibility would be the genre in which you are writing. Which search terms would you use to find a certain book? For example:  CrimeWriter or RomanceWriter, followed by your name / pen name.
.

Keywords and Phrases.
Have five terms or phrases in mind that best describe the domain you are seeking.  Once you made this list, you can start to add prefixes & suffixes to create domain ideas.  For example, if you are launching your author domain, you might start with words like “author, writer, the genre etc.” then play around until you can find a good match.
.
Plurals, “The”, and “My” Forms of the Domain Name:
If you can’t get the domain name you want, you could use forms like:
  • thewebsite.com
  • mywebsite.com
  • websites.com
    .
More Tips:
  • Make it Easy to Remember
  • Keep the Name as Short as Possible
  • Avoid Hyphens and Numbers
  • Avoid fancy names that do not reflect you or your books

In the modern Internet world, where people automatically turn to the Web for information, it pays to have a domain name that reflects your author site or publishing business.
.

More Resources:

http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/choose-right-website-domain-name-extension-var

http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/domainname.shtml

https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/5-tips-how-to-create-mobile-friendly-blogs-and-websites/

https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2014/07/20/the-magic-of-keywords-for-your-success/

https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2014/04/07/the-key-to-a-successful-author-website/

.
<><><><><>
.

If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer all this and more for only $179 for three months – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting for writers: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars

 

 

 

 


 

Establish a Perfect Web Presence

.
www.

It’s a no-brainer: every author needs a website and a blog to write about the topic of their books. To create an effective author website it needs some key elements. Please see also an article about custom-designed websites with a detailed checklist for you. Essential Elements of Your Author Website:

Your Blog.
Your blog drives traffic to your site – at least if you blog regularly and post these blogs on social media, first of all on Google+. This makes your site, as well as you and – most important – your books, discoverable. While the website part is static, the constant changes on your blog invites the search engine robots to your site.
.

Write “Top List” Articles.
It is common knowledge for marketing professionals: 1% of any audience creates new ideas, 9% talk about the ideas, and the remaining 90% follows the conversation. By reaching the 1%, you can reach the 99%. It’s called “influencer” marketing.

To receive high-quality back links, you need to get the attention not only of your readers, book bloggers, reviewers, but also of influencers in book publishing. Create a blog post similar to the top 20 blogs in your niche. With this kind of article, you are giving a recommendation of blogs to read. It should invite some of the bloggers in your list to blog about it and link back to your article. To ensure that your article will get their attention, you can for example send them an email or mention them in your tweets about your blog post.
.

Write Credible Content.
Don’t miss to mention reliable references or outbound links in order to give your content more credibility. Remember that SEO isn’t only about what you show to the search engines but also what you show and prove to your users.  When you link to high-authority and relevant sites, you are also connecting to those sites, giving search engines a signal that your site is related to them.

.

Website Design.
How do you want to brand yourself? And how do you want to design your web presence? Visitors to your site should know in seconds who you are and what you write.

Another important point is to design your website / blog mobile-friendly. 74% of North Americans used their smart phone to access the internet in 2013.  According to Forbes, “87% of connected devices sales by 2017 will be tablets and smartphones.” And Google’s search engines ignore websites that are not mobile-friendly. It’s not expensive to have your website optimized for mobile devices: Get it done for a couple of dollars, at http://www.Fiverr.com/Denis555, along with even more improvements to bring more people to your website.
.

About / Author Bio.
If your blog / website visitors know you, like and trust you, they will more likely purchase your books. Write your author bio in the first person and place it on the “About” page of your website.  You could for example explain why you are writing, and why they should want to read your blog and your books.  If you are writing non-fiction explain what makes you an expert in your area.  Don’t forget to mention things that interest you, all in all, telling readers who you are.
.

Social Media Sharing Buttons.
Make it easy for visitors to your site to both follow you on social media sites and to share your blog posts and your books with their followers and communities. Include links to all you social media sites on all your site pages. Add sharing buttons to ALL pages of your blog / website, which makes it easy for readers to share your posts.
.

Follow Social Media Buttons.
WordPress has built-in follow widgets, but you can also code or ask your web designer to do it, or you can get them for free online, for example on shareaholic.com   https://blog.shareaholic.com/introducing-follow-buttons/. Place them to each of your web pages to encourage readers following you on social media.
.

Sidebar.
The area on the right or left of your website can be set up as a “sidebar.” Use the right space for a small search window, to list your blog archive, social media icons, blog categories, sign-up form for your blog / email newsletter (sign up for an email marketing service, such as MailChimp or Aweber.com) and maybe a follower counter. On the left bar place on top your latest bestseller and underneath all your other books, certainly “clickable” so that reader can easily order them.
.

Sales Page for Each of Your Books.
It’s easy to feature your book or books on the home page of your site and provide a link to Amazon. However, a sales page will do a better job of getting people to purchase the book, even if the buy button takes them to Amazon. Create a sales page for each one of your books. This page should feature the book cover, describe the book, list its benefits and features, and provide testimonials, or blurbs. If you also offer other products and services, each one of these needs its own sales page, too.

.
Media page.
Your author site should attract journalists too. Your media page makes should make it easy to get the information they need about you and your books. Radio, TV journalists and podcasters, Google Hangout on Air hosts and book bloggers need also high-resolution images in Tiff and jpeg.
.

Contact Page.
Make it easy for your readers, the media, potential customers and clients to get in touch with you. Create a page that contains a contact form. These contact forms are ready-to-use contact plugins that you can download, for example from SitePoint.com
.

Testimonials.
Include testimonials and review snippets from happy readers or customers or logos from the fabulous blog sites, also show videos from radio and TV shows, or copies from print publications where you and your work have appeared.
.

A Must-Read before planning your website:
Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
, 2nd Edition, by Steve Krug http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000SEGQNS

<><><><><>

If you would like to get a mentor and our support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer for three months all this and more for only $179 – or less than $2 per day!  Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting / Book Marketing for your success: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars

To learn more about professional book marketing and publishing, please read also
“Book Marketing on a Shoestring”
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UAVL3LE

Our email newsletters with free insider tips are sent out once a month. To sign up, just go to the form on the right site of each blog post.

.

 

How to Get More Visitors to Your Website / Blog

.

Visitors

.

On Google alone over 110 billion average searches  are conducted per month. How will potential readers find your blog article, your website or even your books?  To increase traffic to your website, reader loyalty and publishing revenues, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is very important.
I ask clients always how they found us, and from their answers I can determine that the majority found us through “googling”.  With just a couple of small steps, blog and website owners can already do a lot to improve their search engine ranking – without having to pay a specialist – and Google is even helping you with their free webmaster tools.  

.

First Task: Fix Errors
With Google Webmaster Tools you can identify broken links, 404 errors, re-directs, or site-map errors that could affect your search engine rankings.  Let someone go page for page through your website, read and critique it.  It can be an average person, no IT specialist necessary as you want to hear about a user’s experience.

.

Update Your Copyright Year
Some website owners do not automatically update the copyright year – and it shows on every page of your website, search engines might interpret your entire website as out of date.

.

Make Your Site Mobile-friendly.
We wrote a full article  “5 Tips How to Create Mobile-Friendly Blogs and Websites” about this important topic recently.  Search your own website with your mobile phone.  If your website is easy to mobile users, Google will indicate it as mobile-friendly.  According to Forbes, “87% of connected devices sales by 2017 will be tablets and smartphones.”  Whether it’s creating an alternate mobile version of a website or utilizing responsive web design, important is to provide a positive experience to users that are browsing via a mobile device.  Otherwise, you will lose customers to competitors who have adapted to this trend.

.

Choose the Right Keywords
Use whole sentences instead of only words and include a location and your target readers.  For example:  Instead of “how to publish a book” you could write:  “how to publish a book and find UK readers who like non-fiction e-books from Amazon”.  Don’t stick only to titles and meta descriptions that match the exact keywords, use more engaging ones. Be ensured Google will find them!  Their algorithms have the ability to recognize different words or search terms with the same meaning.

You can also work with SimilarSiteSearch, a mixture of keyword based searches and directory listings. Type in a URL, topic keyword or modifiers such as “in the UK” or “for business”.  The results are filtered by country, language, or tagged topic.  Understanding their website’s SEO strength/weaknesses, quality of content etc.  Learn about keywords, back links, rankings, and even domain/page authority via alexa.com.

.

Advance Search
Before writing a book, article or a blog post, search first its title or headline on Google’s search engine to learn about similar blog posts or content that were already indexed. Read them to assess their quality. Create a blog post that is superior to all the texts that are currently indexed by Google.  Research your competition, always check out other writers, publishers, and their website, not only before you write an article or while you market your book.  Google helps you a lot to do this.

For example, if you are planning to write an article titled “7 Marketing Tips for Non-Fiction Writers”, search it first on Google to check previously published articles with the same topic. If you find an article,  titled “15 Marketing Tips for Non-Fiction Writers”, then write “25 Top Effective Digital Marketing Tips for Non-Fiction Writers”.  You want to be on top and to deliver to readers and the search engines richer, fresher, and better content than everyone else.

.

Use Attractive Images.
To increase your search engine visibility, improve your visibility in the search engine’s image results. Use relevant images with the right title tags, alt-texts, and meta descriptions on your pages or blog posts.  Attractive images on book covers or posts are more interesting to view, read, and share and increase credibility.

.

Use Book Trailers / Video Marketing.
Increase your search engine ranking by improving your visibility on search engine video results pages. An effective tactic is to produce useful videos and upload them to YouTube (the 800 pound Gorilla and owned by Google) but as well on other video sharing sites.  Don’t forget to mention in the description your website. Create slide shows from your video and post it on your Slideshare.net and Scribd.com accounts.

.

Write Guest Blogs
This way you cannot only increase the numbers of your followers, but also link back to your own website or blog and thus increase your visibility in search engine news results. Reach out to news publications and websites to write about your book. If you’re blogging about the latest news and trends in your publishing or writing, submit your blog to Google News and Yahoo News.

.

Be on Google+ and Verify Your Social Media Accounts.
Get your social media accounts verified to increase customers’ trust and distinguish it from fake accounts. Furthermore, verify your website that is linked to your social media accounts, so that search engines will know that your website is the official site associated with those accounts.

Google+ is the only Social Media site where your posts, comments and likes are directly transferred to their search engines. That’s not the only reason Google+ is the number one networking site, writers and publishers should choose and participate in. Read in this article about another new, great benefit of using Google+ and how it can improve your online visibility and credibility and maybe let your posts go viral.

.
Web Page Speed
The many benefits of improved page speed make it very easy to justify small changes. Take the time to analyze your page speed scores. The faster a web page loads, the more satisfied your visitors will be.  Show your webmaster the results of these (free) tests for your website and let him / her fix it.  Get a better Search Engine ranking and more traffic!  Check out a recent blog “5 Tips to Make Your Website Faster & Get More Visitors”.

.  

Get more tips on how to improve your Search Engine ranking in the next blog post!

Being on the first page on Search Engines not only helps users to associate your brand, but it creates trust, since sites on the first page are generally perceived to be more trustworthy. The more your pages and content rank in high positions in the search engines, the more chances you have for users to see your content and find your books.

.

<><><><><>

If you would like to get a mentor and support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer for three months all this and more for only $179 – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting for writers: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars

Please check out the latest title: “Book Marketing on a Shoestring” chock full of tips for authors – if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? There is also the “SHARE” button for easy sharing at Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.

.

 

Happy Thanksgiving and Why We Moved the Blog

Happy Thanksgiving and Why We Moved the Blog

Happy Thanksgiving and Why We Moved the Blog

.

Thanks to all 705,000 visitors of this blog, to all subscribers and especially to all of you who helped to make a smooth transition from SavvyBookWriters.Wordpress.com to our “own” website here:

SavvyBookWriters.com/blog were you will find continuesly all the publishing and book marketing news, links and tips that you are used to receive several times a week on the “old” blog.
.

You Might Ask Why a Change of Name?
SavvyBookWriters.com/blog is our own site, we pay a small amount ($3.95) for hosting from BlueHost, we decide the design and we can use our own website however we want to.  The blog name is also shorter, and sounds more professional than the WordPress name.  And readers can sign up for our newsletter, which they could not on our old site.
.

Some of the Reasons for “Moving”:
A WordPress blog  (the one we used before, and which you are just reading) is “pre-fabricated”, free to use, no hosting necessary, but you don’t own it, you cannot make major changes in design and you cannot use your own plug-ins.  Wordpress also places their advertisements – which you cannot control  – in your blog.  You might not see these ads on your own computer, but at any other device e.g. a computer of friends, readers or in a library.  To prevent this, you would have to pay $30/year.  The good part:  They have an automatic spam protection which is pretty thorough!  And readers can certainly find all the previous articles (over 1,130) on this site in the future.  Just type what you are looking for, into the search function of the blog.
.

To receive every article at  SavvyBookWriters.com/blog  please sign up at the pop-up window that appears after 20 seconds.  It says: “To receive the latest blog post, enter your email address”.
.

THANKS, and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

 .

<><><><><>

.


Tagged: Happy Thanksgiving, moved the blog, subscribe to SavvyBookWriters.com/blog, why we moved the blog to our own site, Wordpress.org vs Wordpress.com

Free Checklist for Your New Author Page

.

Cafe

.

Programmer, designer and SEO people can only work with the material you provide them. Planning a website is just as important as creating one. The website must work in concert with your overall marketing plan. It might need a series of one-on-one meetings between you and an experienced designer in order to create a stunning website.

We compiled a checklist for you with the most important steps in planning and creating a website or blog.  Read more on:

https://www.savvybookwriters.com/blog

 

To receive regularly these publishing and book marketing tips, please sign up at the window that opens when you start reading https://www.savvybookwriters.com/blog.  See you there : )

 

.

 


Tagged: https://www.savvybookwriters.com/blog, planning a website, SEO, web desing, Web usability

FREE Checklist: Customized Website or Blog

.

WebsitePlanning
.

Planning is the most important step
Programmer, designer and SEO people can only work with the material you provide them. So, planning a website is just as important as creating one. The website must work in concert with your overall marketing plan. It might need a series of one-on-one meetings between you and an experienced designer in order to create a stunning website.
.

Custom-designed websites
Let’s split in three parts:  the technical, programming and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) part:

  1. Web designers who make websites pretty and easy to navigate for visitors
  2. Programmers who make websites run and perfectly usable
  3. SEO specialists who make websites popular – the art and science of getting a website to the top of Google or Bing.

Question to ask yourself:

  • why should there be certain features on the site
  • what will be the best possible result for visitors (and you)
  • where should the website be promoted
  • who should do what in the web creation process
  • which devices will be used to visit your website
    .

Checklist for Your Author Website:

Before you (or your web designer) start creating your website make a plan that should cover at least these points:

  • Domain Name
  • Web hosting
  • Programing language **
  • Font type*
  • Page layout
  • Website Title and Meta title
  • Meta description and Keywords
  • Text preparation and editing
  • Image preparation for web
  • Customer tracking system
  • Email opt-in buttons
  • Follow Social Media buttons
  • Sharing buttons / plug-ins
  • Event calendar
  • About us
  • Privacy page
  • Payment systems
  • Site map and search function
  • Usability tests
  • Website marketing
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
    .

* Arial or Verdana are available on all computers
** HTML or XHTML & CSS, if you sell your book(s) from your website: shopping cart PHP embedded.
.
There are also very inexpensive shopping systems available that you can use right away from your website. See our former blog post:
http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/12/18/why-sell-your-books-from-your-own-website/
.

Create a quality website, interesting content, be genuine and give your customers value. The following multimedia elements, will greatly enhance the appeal and usefulness of the website:

  • Images, illustrations – in high-quality
  • Documents (usually PDFs)
  • Audio
  • Video (i.e., embedded from YouTube or Vimeo, or self-hosted)
  • Content feeds (from other websites, or blogs)
  • Twitter stream
  • RSS feeds

How to Write Internet Content
Eye-tracking studies have shown that readers SCAN text (in an F-shaped pattern), rather than READ it. And: website visitors read more slowly on the screen than in print.  Reading on a screen is fatiguing.  A screen, whether a massive 26-inch monitor or a diminutive smartphone, projects tiny points of light at your eyes.  Reading long stretches of text can be very tiring. Users will scan for key points in the text, write short blocks of copy and bulleted or numbered lists to make it easy to scan your text.
Online content is not just about words.  When you write for the Internet, think “presentation”.  Print content is formally written and a passively read. Online content is informally written, interactive and dynamic:
.

Use Bullet Lists, such as this one

  • Create lots of short paragraphs, and give them all a headline
  • Keep sentences short, they should never be longer than one line
  • Use spell-check and a beta reader / software
  • Readers like to interact on the Web, so give them lots of links
  • Illustrate your text, and use lots of images
  • Don’t let your readers scroll on the screen, keep it to one page
  • Except prepositions and the words “and” and “the”, all major words in a headline
  • should be capitalized

.
Webdesign Books on Amazon:

          The Web Designer’s Idea Book, Vol. 2, by Patrick McNeil
          Learning Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide to (X)HTML, CSS, by Jennifer Niederst Robbins
          White Space is Not Your Enemy, by Kim Golombisky
          The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, by Jason Beaird
          Bulletproof Web Design: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS, by Dan Cederholm
          Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML, by E. Freeman and E. Robson
                    Beginning HTML, XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript, by Jon Duckett

.
This is the most important and useful book, you should read before anything else:
Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition, by Steve Krug http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000SEGQNS

Another great resource for planning a website is a comprehensive article: Web Planning Guide by Ben Seigle.

.

<><><><><>

.

If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only $ 179 for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminars

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 1,130+ of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and to StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing
http://on.fb.me/TvqDaK
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+
http://pinterest.com/111publishing/
.

.

Hyper Smash

Pingate

5 Tips How to Create Mobile-Friendly Blogs and Websites

.

Smartphone-Shopping

.
How can you, as an author or small publishing business owner, reach more readers?  Over half of the entire world’s population has a mobile phone!  Almost 190 million people in the United States own a smart phone. And 74% of them used their smart phone to access the internet in 2013.  According to Forbes, “87% of connected devices sales by 2017 will be tablets and smartphones.” Whether it’s creating an alternate mobile version of a website or creating a mobile-friendly web design, it’s important to make it easy for users to find you and your books.

.
Your Competition Will Be Seen and You Won’t
More than one third of internet users worldwide used their mobile devices to research products or services they intended to purchase. Total Internet usage on mobile devices has exceeded that on PCs.  This shift follows a tremendous fall in PC sales.  There’s a skyrocketing trend toward more and more people using their mobile devices to go online. Once they arrive at your website, they should not struggle with a site that is unreadable, unnavigable or complicated. Adapt to these new realities of how people are using the internet to find out about you, what your business has to offer and why they should buy from you.
.

So What Do You Have to Deliver?

  1. Provide Quick Access
    Tablets and smartphones require fast access to content on your website. You need to make it easy for users to load your pages in less than 5 seconds. 60% of users expect a site to appear withing 3 seconds on their phone.
    .
  2. Provide Short Landing Pages
    Reduce, reduce and reduce more… Long pages are not mobile friendly. Mobile users are unlikely to go through a page with a lot of details. Include the most relevant content better on your sales pages. Short headings and a limited number of lists will make it easy for your audience to go through the information.
    .
  3. Provide a “No-Zoom Page”
    If you optimize your website for mobile users, they should be able to see your sales pitch as soon as the page loads. Create a responsive website design, where visitors don’t have to zoom. Most users are used to zooming, but it can get tiresome. Most mobile phones do not support Flash, so it’s not a good idea to include it on your wireless pages, same with “frames” and “tables”.
    .
  4. Provide Value
    If your sales pages do not add value to website users, it will be impossible to convert them into customers. A great service or a great product at a reasonable price, great information and free advice, just to name a few.
    .
  5. Provide Simple Forms
    Shorten and simplify the forms you include on your sales pages. Try to limit them to just a handful of fields.
    .

Do the Math:
Its a no-brainer that your blog or business’ website needs to be mobile-friendly, and if your website is mobile-friendly, more people will access it, which will increase click-through and conversion rates for your business.  And it is not expensive to have your website optimized for mobile devices: Get it done for a couple of dollars, at http://www.Fiverr.com/Denis555, along with even more improvements to bring more people to your website.  Nowadays people browse, shop and make reservations via their smart phones. Your website or blog will be seen and not avoided.  70% of Facebook users in the United States now access Social Media via their smart phones – not on a desktop computer. Google also favors mobile-friendly sites, which impacts mobile, smart phone friendly search results.  Do you want to be a part of this trend?
.

More Tips can be found here:
http://webdesign.about.com/od/mobile/a/write-web-pages-for-the-iphone.htm

http://www.imforza.com/blog/how-to-make-a-mobile-friendly-website/

 

.

<><><><><>

.

If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer all this and more for only $179 for three months – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting for writers: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 1,100 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://www.111publishing.com

http://www.e-Book-PR.com/

http://www.international-ebooks.com/

http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

.

Hyper Smash

Pingate


Tagged: avoid Flash and Tables, create web pages for iPhone, Mobile-friendly websites, optimize your blog for smartphones, reading on a tiny screen, Tablets and smartphones require fast access

5 Tips to Gain Readers With Great Headlines

.
Headlines

.
How to Choose a Compelling Headline
Most Popular Words & Phrases in Blog and Website Headlines – or Non-Fiction Books for That Matter: Your blog or website headline is the first, and perhaps only, impression you make on a prospective readers and lure them into your article. A compelling headline must promise some kind of benefit or reward for the online visitor.

.
Most Popular are – in this Sequence:

  1. List Post, for example “Top 33 Websites …” or “99 Top Websites …”
  2. You / Your, for example “How Do You Decide…” “Your Success …”
  3. Free / Giveaway, for example “Free eBooks …” “Goodreads Giveaway for …”
  4. How To, for example “How to Choose a Compelling Headline”
  5. Secret, for example “The Secret to Becoming Successful and Happy”

.
It doesn’t make sense to spend hours in creating high quality content and then put little thought into writing a good headline. If you want to attract more views to your website or your writing, then your headlines should also be optimized for search engines. Use likely search terms and front-load your headlines with the most important keywords.

.
Dress it up With Emotion-stirring Words
Author Kathrin Tschiesche in Bookboon.com: “Frequently, when two headlines are relevant, clear and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly, the headline that gets more clicks is the one that uses emotionally stirring words aimed at capturing readers’ attention. You too, can really ‘dress up’ your headline by adding a few compelling words to it.”
“For example, try to add the adjectives “eye-catching”, “sizzling”, “compelling” or “magnetic” to the word “headlines” and you achieve an appealing and attainable effect. If you are not sure which power words to choose – a variation of “fast”, “simple”, and “easy” are your safest bet.”
.

Mark Thompson Compiled a Great List of 150 Compelling Headlines:
.
# Tips To Simplify ______________
Greatest _________ Tips of All Time
Avoid ______________ Disasters
________________, What It Can Do For You
# Things You Didn’t Know about ______
# Reasons to Hate _________
#Amazing Blogs about ________
# Secrets about __________
How Does ______ Work?
How to be Great at _______
# ____________ Myths Exposed
_________ Myths vs. the Facts
# Deadly _______Mistakes You Might Be Making
# Shocking Facts about _________
# Questions to Ask about _________

Get them all at Stayonsearch.com

.
Last But Not Least:
Keep your headlines short – no more than eight words. Most visitors will scan the first few words before deciding to read further – or to move on. If your headline / tagline combination is short but summarizes your content, visitors will be more likely to read on. Remember: On average, 8 out of 10 people will read your headline, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. That’s why your headlines are so important for your writings’ success and to entice more than 20% of potential readers.

.

<><><><><>

.

If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer all this and more for only $179 for three months – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting for writers: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 1,100 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://www.111publishing.com

http://www.e-Book-PR.com/

http://www.international-ebooks.com/

http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

.

Hyper Smash

Pingate


Tagged: A compelling headline must promise some kind of benefit, Article Marketing, blog headline, compelling headlines, how to get your blog noticed, Most Popular Words in Blog Headlines, Search Engine Optimization, visitors will scan the first few words