Archive for May, 2011

We continue our Author Success Story series by featuring William Yenner, author of American Guru. His website, AmericanGuru.net, receives over 5,000 visitors per month. Here’s how he did it…

Who built your website? How was the experience?
Built by Smart Author Sites, I was happy with the result. Especially liked the way the overall design worked out, the top banner and the buttons to all the important sections.

Which social networking sites do you regularly participate in?
I am on Facebook. I used my book cover instead of my photo. However, FB has not been an important part of my online presence.

How many online followers do you have? How many pageviews have you gotten on your website?
According to stats from my web hosting, my monthly visitor totals has been in the range of 5,000 to 8,000 per month since the site began in Fall of 2009.

How has your online presence increased your visibility/book sales?
This is hard to measure exactly, but I think most of my readers were first introduced to my book via something on the internet, most likely my book site: http://americanguru.net and the book is also listed on Amazon.

What is your “secret” to achieving this success? Were there any tricks or creative ideas (i.e. a contest) that you used?
The key to the interest in my book, I feel, is both the general interest in the subject matter, and the quality of reporting and analysis provided by the book. The book is about a very controversial spiritual teacher and his organization, and reveals, in a lot of detail, many examples of physical, emotional and financial abuse. Some strongly disagree with my thesis, and that “heat” adds to the general interest in the book.

Is there anything you would do differently if you were starting over again?
I spent quite a bit on a legal vetting of the manuscript, which in hindsight was a waste of money. Here’s all I needed to know about the legal angle: scrupulously tell the truth, be very careful to double and triple check facts, and in that there is the best protection from liability. No lawyer can do that for you.

What is the greatest lesson you’ve learned in the process of building your online presence as an author?
Just staying with it, following up any opportunities for conversation, welcome disagreements, be “out there” without being a pest, carry on calmly, send appreciations to anyone who contributes to the conversation. My website contains a “News and Reviews” section to which I frequently add new articles, so there is something to attract people back over and over again.

How and where do you promote your website? Is the URL on business cards? Your email signature?
The URL is on the book, and it’s on a few other sites which cover this topic, and the book has also been mentioned in a few media stories. All of these are also posted and mentioned on my site. I’ve also generated a list of about 800 names of people interested in the topic and every few months I send out a newsletter. I have a business card with the book cover on it, along with the URL, which makes a great hand out whenever I mention the book to someone. I have also given away a number of free copies to people in a field of work that is related.

Final words of wisdom for any new authors wondering how to get started….
Write about something you believe in, give all the effort needed to turn out a good manuscript, stand behind what you’ve written and carry on with following up.

I came across this great conversation on Amazon about things that drive readers crazy on author websites. Authors beware: These small things can actually make the difference between someone buying your book and telling their friends about it and … well … not.

Here’s a synopsis of the author website pet-peeves that readers made in the conversation:

1. Not including a synopsis and excerpt from every book. “I hate when I get to an author’s web site and all I get is a synopsis of their latest book or an upcoming book and a #$%^ “printable booklist” for the rest. This is especially miffing with older works.”
2. Looking outdated. “So many [authors] appear to be content with a site of the quality that hasn’t been acceptable since the mid-1990s.”
3. Not taking advantage of the unlimited space and available technology. “Some authors have amazing websites, with long excerpts, ‘making ofs’ , pictures and information about the locations their books are set in, and sometimes even wallpapers and forums.”
4. Not keeping your site current. “While it might not be fair, if i go to an authors website and it’s not up to date, or doesn’t contain a lot of info, or if they don’t even have one (like some authors don’t), then while their book won’t go on my DNR, it will move down the list on the TBR…why should I care about an author who can’t keep a website up to date etc…specially with how easy it is now a days”
5. Too much technology. “It may be slow to open for people who have slower connections. And some people may be put off by the sounds of nature it has.”

Take a look at your website. Are you guilty of any of these? It just may be costing you readers.

Ready to talk with us about developing or upgrading your author website? Contact us today for a free consultation.

It’s a rare breed of author who has thousands of names on their email list and just as many followers on Facebook and Twitter. Most authors have either built a website and are just getting into social networking, or have been active on social networking sites and are just now creating a website and building an email list.

Either way, you may be wondering how you can have the best of both worlds and get people to sign up on every type of platform. An article in Internet and Marketing Report cites three different companies and the creative ways they migrated groups from email to social networking and vice versa. Don’t be afraid to steal these ideas!

1. Go viral. A company named Dingo offered its customers a $20 coupon if they signed up for the e-mail newsletter and “Liked” their Facebook page. But there was a catch: In order for the promotion to kick in, the company’s Facebook page needed to get its total number of fans from 300 up to 5,000.  And it worked. Within three days of sending out the note, they reached their goal.

2. Offer a reward. Timbuk2 wanted to get its newsletter subscribers to be Facebook fans, too. So they sent out an email blast informing everyone that those who became a Facebook fan in the next however-many hours would be entered to win a bike, helmet, or messenger bag. No surprise … it worked.

3. Keep exclusive content private. Crocs had tons of followers on Facebook and Twitter, but not too many email subscribers. So they posted on their wall and started tweeting about special deals and offers that are only available through their email newsletter. To make it even easier, they included a sign-up app on their Facebook page. We don’t know just how successful this effort was, but the Crocs execs describe it as a “giant leap” in subscribers.

Hope these ideas help you, too!

I encourage all authors who are developing a website to have a newsletter sign-up area where they can start collecting names and email addresses. This list can be invaluable, because it’s comprised of people who have already expressed interest in your writing and want to hear from you. You couldn’t BUY a list like this. Next time your book is going to be featured on TV (don’t we all wish that were the case) or when your next book is close to being released, you can notify everyone via email newsletter. Rather than waiting for them to come to you, you can come to them.

But getting people to sign up for a newsletter (and be satisfied with it) isn’t as easy as you would think. There are some simple, common mistakes that you can make in the process that can turn people off. Almost all of them fall into the same category: lack of information. Here are the common newsletter no-nos that you should make sure to avoid.

1. Not offering anything for signing up. You’re far more likely to get people to sign up for your newsletter if you offer them a reward for doing so. Maybe a downloadable PDF with some fun facts or free entry in a raffle. Get creative with your ideas.

2. Not letting people know what they’re getting. When you’re signing up for a newsletter, you want to know what kind of information you’ll be getting and how often it will arrive. So do your readers! Give them a general idea of how often they should expect to hear from you (weekly? monthly? quarterly?) and what your newsletters will include. Will they be news? Special offers? Contests? Ads? Tell them right off the bat.

3. Not guaranteeing privacy of information. Everyone is wary — and rightly so, nowadays — about giving out their email address. Too many websites have collected addresses and then sold them to vendors who are looking to advertise to a specific type of audience. Hence, all the SPAM messages we get. Make it a point to assure your readers that you won’t share their email addresses with anyone.

Add these three crucial pieces of information to the newsletter sign-up process and we guarantee that your numbers will increase. And when it does, share your story with us!

It’s amazing how quickly technology changes — especially social networking. I mean, who knew when Facebook was switching from “friending” to “liking” and what the change meant?

Anyway, I was reading the most recent issue of my trusted Internet and Marketing Report yesterday and came across a few key pieces of information having to do with social networking that I think will be helpful to authors.

Facebook
Did you create a personal profile page and then wish you’d created a fan page instead? Good news. Facebook has created a new tool that allows you to migrate your personal page to a business page. The upside is that it brings all your “friends” over as “fans” (which saves you the trouble of asking everyone to “like” your new profile). The downside is that all of your wall posts and photos will be deleted (they apparently don’t migrate). But this new tool is something to keep in mind if you’ve been meaning to make the switch.

Twitter
I bet you never thought about keywords when you were tweeting. Well, it’s time to start keyword-loading your tweets. Twitter’s updated search platform actually searches the body of your tweets instead of just your name. So, if someone is searching for “Romance Author,” the results be made up of the twitter users who most frequently use the term “Romance Author” in their tweets. So pick a few keywords and try to use them in your tweets as much as possible.

Google
You never thought of Google as a social networking tool before. But they’re getting into the business now. They’ve created a new “+1″ button, which will rival Facebook’s “Like” button. Even search results will include the total number of people who have “+1″ed the site. This tool isn’t widespread yet, but it will be soon. So keep your eyes open for it.

Postling
This new tool is a great asset for authors who are having trouble keeping up with all the social networking sites out there. Go to Postlng.com and you can manage your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Flickr accounts in one place. All your comments will be there, and you can even opt to post something on more than one social networking site at a time. Talk about a time-saver!

We continue our series on successful author websites by featuring Allie Phillips, author and animal rights advocate. Her website, www.AlliePhillips.com, aims to teach people how they can make a difference in the lives of animals (and sell her book, of course!). It gets close to 1,000 hits each month. So how did she do it? Here are her words of wisdom…

Who built your website? How was the experience?
You did! The experience was great because you handle all of the difficult work and taught me how to make updates to the website

Which social networking sites do you regularly participate in? Facebook? Twitter? GoodReads? LinkedIn? Any others?
Facebook and LinkedIn right now. I also blog through my website.

How many online followers do you have? How many pageviews have you gotten on your website?
I have 1,169 on Facebook for a page that is specific to my animal work and books. My LinkedIn page is just for me and only minimally relates to my books, but I have 139 connections there. I’m getting over 600 hits on my website each month. I am not sure how many people follow my blog (I don’t have the service to determine that) but do not get many people posting comments. I feel that I get more comments when I repost the blog on my Facebook page.

How has your online presence (be it through a website or social networking profiles) increased your visibility/book sales?
That is difficult to tell.  I’ve only had one person purchase my book from me through my website. I’m not sure how many purchased online (through Amazon, etc.) as a result of the website or Facebook. I think having an online presence may help with book signing events and simply raising awareness regarding the plight of pets. I just don’t have a good sense of how it is helping to sell the book.

What is your “secret” to achieving this success? Were there any tricks or creative ideas (i.e. a contest) that you used?
This has been my first real effort to have an online presence, so it’s been an adventure making my way through the process.

Is there anything you would do differently if you were starting over again?
I should consider Twitter, but I feel like Facebook is a better fit for me. ’m having trouble keeping up with Facebook, website updates and blogging. If I had more time, I would try Twitter. I would also find a way to hire a PR person to help me market online. I know that a PR person would benefit me, but the costs right now outweigh the benefits.

What is the greatest lesson you’ve learned in the process of building your online presence as an author?
That I never knew I would have to market my own book (my agent did not tell me until a month before my book was published because she knew I would freak out and likely not write the book). I’ve followed the ideas in your blog but feel like I’m having trouble engaging people online. The topic of my books should get people discussing the issues but I find that is not happening at the rate that I thought it would. My greatest lesson is not to give up and keep trying new things to reach people.

How and where do you promote your website? Is the URL on business cards? Your email signature?
I put my URL in my signature line and on business cards. I even include it on PowerPoint slides when I give presentations.

Final words of wisdom for any new authors wondering how to get started….
Be flexible, take in as much information and advice as you can, and be willing to   try anything. Most people have no idea that they will have to market their own books so connecting with web designers (like Smart Author Sites) and PR people who are specialists for authors is very important.

I was reading an issue of Internet and Marketing Report recently. There were two separate articles I came across that were seemingly unrelated. And yet, I think they’re VERY related … and relevant to author websites.

The first article talks about one of the most common mistakes that people make when designing a website: having too much competing information on it. Especially on the homepage. When a visitor arrives on your site, they’re often bombarded with things: a link to buy the book, to read about your other works, to follow your blog, to sign up for your newsletter, to visit your Facebook page, etc…

There’s nothing wrong with giving people lots of options. But the problem comes in when people feel overwhelmed by all the options. They don’t know which way to go. In essence, there’s no “yellow brick road” to follow.

There is a way to overcome this. Set goals for your website, and prioritize them. If, for instance, your first priority is to sell the book and your second is to get people to sign up for your newsletter, then make the book and a link to buy it the most prominent thing on your homepage, with the newsletter sign-up as a less prominent option.

If “connecting” with readers is more important to you, then have links to your newsletter, blog and Facebook page as the primary links that you feature. Make it clear to people exactly what your website is about and what you want them to do with it.

Now onto the second article …

This one talked about giving your website visitors a reason to do something. For example, if you simply say “Sign up for my newsletter,” you’re far less likely to get people to do it than if you tell them what they would get out of it. So instead of “Sign up for my newsletter,” consider saying “Sign up for my newsletter for exclusive information about the book.”

Same thing with a “Buy the book” link. Instead of just “Buy the book,” have the link read “Buy the book that will change your life forever.” Not surprisingly, research shows that these types of links get better results.

See the connection here? Make it clear to your readers what you want them to do when they arrive at your website, and tell them why they should do it and/or what they will get out of it.

No matter what your goals are, you’re more likely to achieve them with this type of strategy.

By some strange coincidence, I had three different clients (ones whose websites were built and launched in 2010) contact me this week asking if I had any recommendations for how we could improve their search engine placement (i.e. get them to show up near the top of Google search results for the subject matter of their book).

With that in mind, I thought I would write this blog post to discuss what we do (and all web development companies should do) as we build your site, and what you can do to help improve your site’s performance.

What Your Developer Should Do/What We Do
The easiest thing for a developer to do with an author website is to optimize it for the author’s name and book title(s). There’s not a lot of competition for those keywords, so it should be relatively easy to gain first-page placement on Google, Yahoo, etc… when people search for those terms.

When an author is looking for a more advanced SEO effort, we can do research on other keywords related to the book, target five to ten keywords that seem to get a good number of searches, and then optimize each page of the site separately — targeting the appropriate keywords on the appropriate pages. We put in meta data, descriptions, body text, headers, and alt text for images to reflect these efforts.

Then, when the website, launches, we submit the site to all the major search engines. After that, your greatest gift is time! Your site will not start showing up immediately. Instead, it will take a week or two for it to appear at all, and then it should start rising in the coming months.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do (without setting up pay-per-click advertising) that will get you at the top right away. The longer your site has been around, the higher it will rank. So, as hard as it may be, you need to be patient.

What You Can Do
This is really what you want to know, right? What can you, as an author, do to improve your search engine placement? Here’s my advice to clients…

1. Blog, blog, blog. The more information your website has on the topic, the higher it will rank with Google. The search engines aren’t stupid — they can tell whether your site is offering information or just trying to sell a product. The more you offer to visitors, the higher you will rank. And the best way to do that is by blogging — it keeps your site current and updated, it provides lots of information on the subject matter of your book, and it allows you to get your keywords into your website content regularly. You may decide you don’t want to blog. That’s fine. But be aware that such a decision can hinder your climb up the search engines.

2. Buy your domain name for an extended time. You may be surprised to hear this, but the search engines are aware of when your domain name is expiring. And even if you have no plans to let it run out, Google doesn’t know that. If your domain is expiring in the next six months, Google can interpret that as a sign that your website is not going to be around for the long-term. Just like a site is punished for being newly-launched, it can also be punished for appearing that it’s going to go away soon. So it’s simple: renew your domain name now.

3. Reach out to other websites about cross-linking. Getting links to your website set up from other sites not only drives traffic through those links, it also improves your site’s ranking with the search engines. Again, it’s common sense: the more sites that are linking to you, the more reputable your site appears in the eyes of the search engines. So reach out to sites that talk to the same readers or touch on the same subject matters and propose that you link to one another as a reference or resource.

Take these three steps, and your site should start climbing up the ranks shortly!

This past Saturday, I had the privilege of speaking at the ASJA conference. The workshop I was a presenter in was, of course, about author websites. One of the questions that came up during one of my colleague’s presentations had to do with the use of mobile phones for searching the net.

A poll was taken among the attendees about their use of mobile devices. Almost everyone who was sitting in the room at the time of the workshop had a smart phone of some kind on hand (iPhone, Blackberry, etc…). And a good chunk of them admitted to making a purchase on that phone sometime recently. The truth is that the number of people using their mobile devices (instead of desktops or laptops) is only increasing over time.

So that leads to this question: Should we always design a mobile version of an author website in conjunction with the traditionally designed site? Or should we go to the other end of the spectrum and design a beautiful, breathtaking site that won’t appear properly on a mobile? That’s a question that doesn’t have a definitive answer, but maybe the resolution is somewhere in the middle.

No one knows for sure exactly what direction technology is going in. If someone did, they’d be a billionaire! But for now, we do know one thing about people’s use of their smart phones. People like to browse news the web on their mobile devices. They also tend to use their mobile devices to find information — like where they can find the nearest Mexican restaurant, or what time the next train is.

But neither of those things is really relevant to an author website, is it? I mean, what’s the likelihood that next time you’re sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room, you’ll just happen to wind up on an author’s website. Probably not very high. Which means that most authors probably wouldn’t get the best bang for their buck if they developed a second, mobile-friendly, version of their website.

On the other hand, that doesn’t mean that you should ignore mobile devices altogether when you’re building your site. There will probably be a few people who wind up on your website on their iPhone or Blackberry. And you should make sure that the site is at least viewable to them — even if they can’t use it the same way someone on a desktop could.

So that brings us to “the answer” to this question (at least, the best answer I have come up with). Build your attractive author website. But make sure that it’s not going to be completely unusable on a mobile phone. To do that, you should:

• Avoid using Flash at all costs!
• Create a simple, text-based navigation
• Convey as much information as possible in text, not graphics or photos
• Keep your background light and your text dark so that it’s easy to read
• Avoid having a large header design that mobile users would have to scroll below to get to the content

If you’re working with a good designer, you truly can have the best of both worlds: an attractive website that’s functional on a mobile phone.