Search Engine Optimization means boosting natural visibility. The aim is to lift your website, blog, etc. as high as possible in the keyword search result which describes your product. Web traffic is driven by the major commercial search engines, Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Reasons why you must work with SEO:

• Most consumers never visit the second page of search engine results. You must get to the first page.
• The majority of users utilize search engines before they buy a product
• Direct relevant traffic to your website: people who want to read your genre and who will love your blurb.
• Yes, I know IT isn’t your top priority. SEO demands patience, but the results benefit you in the long run.

The door to the world of search engine optimization doesn’t open quickly. If it did, optimization wouldn’t be big business.  You can find top companies who will do the job for you–for money. In this article, I explain a few key concepts. Applying optimization means sitting on your butt to untangle a difficult dilemma. But you’ve already overcome the most significant obstacle by writing a book! Use the same iron determination to make your creation visible to the world. Make a habit of looking into your SEO performance now and then.

Keywords

“Your SEO keywords are the essential words and phrases in your web content that make it possible for people to find your site via search engines. A website that is well optimized for search engines “speaks the same language” as its potential visitor base with keywords for SEO that help connect searchers to your site.”

Source: https://www.wordstream.com/seo-keyword

Writing a list of keywords is the decisive step in your search engine optimization initiative. The best keyword research tool is just a spreadsheet. I’m sure you use “book” among your keywords, but that doesn’t set you apart from the competition. Self-publishing has revolutionized the volume of new books.

“Here’s the problem with self-publishing: no one cares about your book. That’s it in a nutshell. There are somewhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 books published every year in the US alone, depending on which stats you believe. Many of those – perhaps as many as half or even more – are self-published. On average, they sell less than 250 copies each. Your book won’t stand out. Hilary Clinton’s will. Yours won’t.”

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorgan/2013/01/08/thinking-of-self-publishing-your-book-in-2013-heres-what-you-need-to-know/#2304f25d14bb

But that won’t stop you from trying? It sure as hell won’t stop me. That’s why finding you from the sea of other writers is a necessity.

Remember to include your keyword in the title, in the first 300 words and topmost headlines. In the body of the text, use variations of your keyword. The point is to think about keywords when you write a blog post, create a new page on your WordPress or other hosting sites. You use hashtags when you post on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. If you didn’t, start doing it now. Watching which content comes up under each hashtag will open a new world for you. It’s the same thing with keywords. And remember to spy on your competitors!

Find out more about SEO:

9 Secrets of Professional SEO Article Writers: https://www.contentfac.com/7-secrets-of-professional-seo-writers/

Sources for Newbies: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

What Attracts People to You

Remember to follow up and modify your actions accordingly. See which of your posts get most likes and forwardings. Produce more content which “sells.” I’ve done this on a small scale and my smiley face—yes, good old me—produces most likes when I do something I love: fiddle my guns, run with my dogs, photograph the Finnish nature. A person behind the pen name can be the most exciting thing to your readers. Sometimes, my Huskies get more likes than I do. So what? They belong to the same brand.

The Google keywords heroine post-apocalypse arctic produces one of my author pages as a search result. My work on this was minimal. Yet I ended up on the first result page. The point being that those ordinary words describe The Unholy Warrior, my novel in the making. That’s why I wrote the words into the body of my page’s text.

“When it comes to web pages, Metadata and meta tags refer to the title and description of a web page that are encoded into the page but not actually displayed on the screen with the page. The real consumer of this invisible data and HTML code are the search engines, as this data provides important information to search engines about the content and purpose of the web page.”

Source: https://www.webpresencesolutions.net/metadata-meta-tags-web-page-titles-page-descriptions-explained/

Do study, what attracts people to you. Writers similar to you: what are they doing better? Please don’t compare yourself to Lee Child or David Baldacci. Just Googling thriller writers produces their broad smiles along with Stephen King. These people are insanely famous, and they have otherworldly resources to take care of their SEO. Look into people a bit above your own level, writers who are easy to find. And don’t procrastinate optimization until you’ve published. You’ll waste most of the punch in a book launch. But it’s never too late to start.

Site Tools

WordPress, especially if you paid for the business version, offers you different plugins for free. The pro versions cost but provide a wide range of functions.

Yoast and other top SEO plugins for WordPress: https://neilpatel.com/blog/10-wordpress-plugins-to-turn-your-site-into-an-seo-powerhouse/

Use the plugin of your choice and let the wizard guide you into applying for a Google search engine authentication code (which is just Google’s way of making sure you own the site). https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35179?hl=en

Just by doing this with Yoast, I surpassed a few ladies bearing the same name. Plus I attacked multiple fronts: social media ranks high in search results.

Searching Google with my full name is just an example. A name is specific. More common search terms produce more competition, but as a writer, you need to be known by your pen name or Christian name. Search yourself from time to time!

Internal Content Linking

Internal links are any links that connect your webpages to one another. You must offer content which serves the customer. He must find what he wants easy and quick.

“Search engines put emphasis on rewarding positive user experiences as they care about their end customer – the searcher. When the searcher uses Google or Bing and finds what they are looking for at the top of the search results, the site is giving their user value.”

That means your site needs to be easy to navigate and the content well written. Don’t think what you want to say, but what your reader needs to hear! And please don’t push.

Five essential best practices for internal linking structure:

• Put the user first
• Manage internal link value and flow
• Structure around content topics
• Utilize unique content and canonicals
• Indexing and prioritization

Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-internal-links-best-practices/214886/

External Content Linking

“In fact, an external or hyperlink is any link that was posted on another website but points to your web resource. Same way, when you insert a link to another resource on your site – it is called an external or outbound link.”

Source: https://sitechecker.pro/external-links/

Use external linking to direct traffic onto your author site. Use social media with references to relevant content on your blog. Don’t spam. The material must be exciting and allow your followers to spread it out of their free will, and their followers to do the same.

You remember when you learned to engage the reader’s emotions with your writing? Do the same with web content!

Everyone who forwards what you want is your helper in SEO. The more links lead to your page, the higher the ranking it deserves in search engines. That’s why blogging is so useful for a writer. Feature guest writers on your blog. Appear on someone else’s author page and spread the link around.

Final Reminder

I’m just a stupid person who writes as a hobby. If I could get the hang of basic SEO to scratch the surface, so can you.  With $69 per month, a team of experts can do it for you. Where’s the fun in that? Besides, they don’t know your book the way an author knows his child. They won’t be passionate about the product! You spent every free moment for the past months/years writing your story. You know what your readers want to hear!

Remember to use paid advertising in social media to promote your published book and to encourage people to write reviews. Start experimenting (in good time before going live) with Facebook ads, for example. Use small money and measure your results. Refine your actions accordingly. Every system offers great statistics tools nowadays. Take a peek where your fans come from and how they ended up on your site.

Happy search engine optimization!

PS: If you intend to publish traditionally, don’t think the publishing company will do this for you because they won’t.