3 Top Reasons to Be on Google’s Page 1

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Search Engine Optimization, short SEO,  is not about tricks or manipulating algorithms. It’s about understanding the online landscape and evolving to meet your customers where they are. It is essential to establish and/or increase your web presence as a writer.
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Why it is so Important to Be on Google’s Page 1:

• 60% of clicks go to the Top 3 of the search results
• 75% of all users never scroll past the first page of search results
• 42% of all users click on the top-ranked result and only 23% on ads

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Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.
Source: http://www.y2m.ae/blog/the-importance-of-seo-an-infographic/

Sources:
http://www.hubspot.com
http://www.resolutionmedia.comragan.com
http://www.ragan.com
http://www.y2m.ae

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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 $ 159 for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/ Once you are on this website, click on Seminar to register.
Or visit http://www.e-Book-PR.com/book-promo to advertise your new book, specials or KDP Select Free Days.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 880+ 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+

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How to Make the Most Out of Photos

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First of All: Where to Find Inexpensive or even Free Photos?
You might be an avid photographer, just like me, taking often several hundred images a month. However, from time to time the need for a certain motive arises, and the question is, where to turn to for inexpensive images for a blog or a web site? A lot of research brought up a handful of online offers that I like to share with you.

How to Use Photos on Your Online Articles
Improve SEO through your photos: There is more to it, than just placing attractive photos on your blog or website. Here are some tips how you can optimize your photos to improve SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and to get more traffic to your website or blog.

Post LARGER Photos!
Use LARGER photos on Google+, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. (Facebook shows them prominently in the Newsfeed). People love to share photos and you can now use #hashtags on Google+ and on Facebook. See also 11 Tips How to Create Web Content Without Writing
Getting more visual in your book marketing pays!

Find websites in these articles that provide good deals on royalty-free photographs or even free ones. If you don’t know the difference between royalty-free and free photos, take the time to read these articles below thoroughly.
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by Imgembed.
Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.
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Where to find free photos and illustrations?

Part II of Free Image Sources

Part III of Free Image Sources

Part IV Free – Inexpensive Photo Sources

Why Steal When You Can Get it for Free ?

5 Laws Writers Should Know to Avoid Getting Sued

10 Rules of USA Copyright Infringement

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Our largest visitor stream we ever got on any blog was via Google Image Search. People were looking for a certain image on Google and found our website. The photo had the right size, motive and it was named with the right keywords. Images are an important part of the web presence!

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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 $ 159 for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/ Once you are on this website, click on Seminar to register.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 880+ 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+

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Part 3: Custom-designed Websites

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Website Planing and Designing

 

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Part 3 is the last in a series about website creation through a variety of platforms. Read these first Part 1: Choices of Websites and Part 2: Benefits of a WordPress.org Website

Custom-designed websites
Website design is split in three parts: the technical, programming and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) part:

1. programmers who make websites run
2. web designers who make websites pretty
3. and SEO specialists who make websites popular –
   the art and science of getting a website to the top of Google or Bing.

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Planing 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 yield a great website.
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Question you should 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
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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
• Programming 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:
https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/12/18/why-sell-your-books-from-your-own-website/
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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:
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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, 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

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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

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And 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.

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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/ Once you are on this website, click on Seminar to register.

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+

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Benefits of a WordPress.org Website

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Moving to a New Website / Blog

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Part 1 of the website series explained the possibilities of setting up a website and the pros and cons of free URL’s. In Part 2 you will learn about the differences between free WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress.org websites / blogs and the benefits of having your OWN  website. WordPress started out as a blogging tool, focused on creating an easy user experience with nice design. It has since grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging platform in the world.
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Difference between WordPress.com – WordPress.org
A frequent point of confusion — what’s the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?
Just some of the many: In a WordPress.org website you can install payment systems, you can sell your print books from your own website and earn more, all plug-ins are allowed. You get rid of the annoying ads that appeared on your WordPress.com site. If you want you can sell your own ads and monetize even on affiliate programs – which is all not possible on free WordPress.com blogs / websites.

The WordPress.org interface is clean and user-friendly. WordPress also offers a rich content editor, allowing immediate changes on the live website. Users can easily extend functionality with the use of plug-ins, adding features such as a shopping cart, contact form, gallery, or social media tools. WordPress is intuitively search engine-friendly. Built-in features and functions as well as a host of plug-ins aid a quick and easy search engine indexing of WordPress websites.

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Benefits of your own website
I love how relatively easy my new WordPress.org website works. You will need to learn the platform initially – done in minutes – as there is not much difference to a WordPress.com blog. Installing a PayPal button is done in seconds. Once you have done some editing to posts and pages, you will find how much you really have at your fingertips without having to sign-up for the big web maintenance plans of the past or have to wait for days and weeks for a non-responsive developer or coder to change an event date or update an article about your latest book on your site. You will become totally independent!

You can now update your own website in addition to adding fresh news, information, and posts about your books or add your latest blog post! It’s as easy as writing a blog! Google’s Search Engines love frequent updated websites! Good for your Search Engine Ranking (SEO) too! Find more reasons this article “7 Reasons to Convert Your WordPress.com Blog to WordPress.org“.

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Got rid of the dreaded Uploading…
I was always struggling to upload new content of our website to the web hosting, mixing up File-Zilla
panes and screwing up the website. As a “non-techie” it was always kind of trial & error for me, and I had to call more than once the web hosters technical help – including all the waiting times at the call center, having to listen to their annoying music or commercials… Now with the WordPress websites, I just delete the old text, and type in the new one or add/exchange images as easy as it is on my blog.
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Benefits of your own website
With your very own website or blog, you will get all the Search Engine Rankings – CONTRARY to “free” websites, such as Weebly, WordPress.com or Wix, where you are NOT even the owner of the site. You can add your own plug-ins, opt-in email address form for future newsletters, follow-me buttons, affiliate programs etc.
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Moving to WordPress.org using Guided Transfers
How to set up your WordPress.org website is explained in several YouTube videos, created by BlueHost. You find these step-by-step introductions in seven short videos. Being somewhat computer / web-savvy these instructions will help you. And there are also WordPress.org forums where you can find answers to possible questions.

If you move your WordPress.com blog or website to a new domain name, you will find that internal links to pages and references to images are not updated. Instead, these links and references will point to your old domain name. There is a free plug-in available that helps you change old URL’s and links in your website.
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In case you don’t want to do this yourself:
If you want to move your WordPress.com blog to a self-hosted blog using the WordPress.org software, you have the option to purchase a Guided Transfer. All your content will be moved, your domain(s) switched over, and support for your new WordPress.org provided for a two-week period. If you would like to get this help, the WordPress Guided Transfer is available for a one-time fee of $129.00 per blog.

… or for much less, if you find such a great web help as I found online:

Individual help for transfer
Changing existing websites / blog to WordPress.org, I was lucky to find a young British computer specialist over the Internet. He is a WordPress whizz and set-up three websites for us, but also transferred one of our existing websites to WordPress.org and the existing blog to the new address:
for a much more favorable fee. Drop me a line if you want to get his coordinates: 111Publishing a t gmail.com
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What we got: Blog or Website Set-up / Improvements

• download WordPress website (free)
• Email newsletter opt-in
• Share buttons for Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Pinterest etc.
• Follow-Me buttons
• Background colors, font colors, font size change
• contact form or set-up email
• transfer of all images and text

Optional:
– Custom Logo (if you already have one)
– Transfer to Hosting (e.g. your own URL from GoDaddy.com to BlueHost.com)

Conclusion: If you run a professional web site – an author blog, a publishing business, a portfolio – then you are much more likely to need total control over your hosting, advertising, branding, sales and more.

Resources:

http://the247entrepreneur.com/list/wordpress-for-business/
http://mashable.com/2011/02/09/move-blog-wordpress-com-org/
http://diythemes.com/thesis/rtfm/differences-wordpress-com-org/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/moving-a-blog/#moving-to-wordpress-org
http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/self-hosted-wordpress-org-vs-free-
wordpress-com-infograph/

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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 $ 159 for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/ Once you are on this website, click on Seminar to register.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 880+ 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+

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3 Choices of Websites – Which One if For You?

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Website / Blog Considerations in a Three-Blog-Series

Get to know the possibilities you have to create your website or blog – and don’t wait any longer to establish or spruce up your web presence, don’t loose any potential readers / customers.

Find out the pros and cons of free-hosted websites, compared to WordPress.org and custom-designed sites.

I have had enough!
After procrastinating the move to a self-hosted blog for such a long time, I finally took the leap from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. The straw that broke the camels back was when I could not install an email opt-in form in my WordPress blog. With almost 280,000 readers in the last two years, I am sure we lost ten-thousands of interested newsletter readers already … numbers were growing every day. 

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Something had to happen!
During the last year or so, I searched the Internet, looking for easy-to-use blog layouts and secured the URL I even created a website in HTML, which took me weeks. I was happy with the design, but missed the sophisticated functions, I enjoyed on my WordPress blog, such as the immense useful search function, the setting, appearance, tools and other functions, I was used to and had appreciated for years. But my own web design abilities were confined by the lack of CSS knowledge. So finally – with the great help of a very talented, and knowledgeable IT specialist / web designer from the UK (we work via Skype together), four websites including one blog will be online in a couple of days.
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3 ways of creating a website:
Through my former internet research I realized that there are three ways currently to create a website:

• Totally free hosted web sites
• Customized, designed web sites
• WordPress web sites

Gone are the days where you need to pay someone to do it for you. Setting up your own website, you will encounter a huge choice between choosing a free web host or a paid one. However, when it comes to the free website builders, it’s very important to consider the pros and the cons.
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PROS

• A free web site is what it says – free. There are no hidden costs associated with it so you save a couple of dollars per month.
• A free web site or blog is usually easy to set up. You can set up a blog or a website with no knowledge of web servers or website coding.
• You can set up literally hundreds of websites/blogs on a free web host. The blogging platform, Blogger, for instance, is used by many people to host dozens of blogs.

CONS

• You can’t use your own domain – With a free web host, you end up building your site on a sub domain (e.g. http://waldensworldhistory.weebly.com/ or http://retrohair.weebly.com/ or savvybookwriters.wordpress.com ) rather than your own domain name. Thus, there is zero customization.
• No control – You can’t control the software and programs you want to install on the web host. You have no control whatsoever on the back end, which, although it may appeal to the novice, can be a serious hindrance for the experienced webmaster.
• Advertisements – Most free web hosts usually force you to display advertising in order to generate revenue. While this advertising is generally non-intrusive, it can be an eyesore and detract from your site/blog’s experience.
• Low Space, Bandwidth and Uptime – A free web host is fine for personal homepages that will be visited only by friends and relatives. However, when your site/blog contains high-resolution images and starts becoming more popular, the free web host will not be able to keep up with the heavy traffic. Moreover, a free web host has much lower disk space as compared to a paid host, which means you will not be able to store as many files as you could with paid web hosting.

Online Up-time
This is the amount of time the web host is online, displaying your website. Most good paid hosts, such as  BlueHost, Hostmonster or Hostgator have an up-time of 99%, which means that your site is always online and being displayed. Free web hosts have up-times that usually range from 90% to 99%. While this may seem trivial, an up-time of 90% means that in the worst case 10% of the time (say, 2.4 hours in a 24 hour period), your website will not be displayed. This way, you could even lose customers.
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Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog: Benefits of a WordPress.org site

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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 $ 159 for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/ Once you are on this website, click on Seminar to register.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 880+ 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+

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7 Top Tips to Boost Your Success on Amazon

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Join the Amazon Associates program to earn an additional 4% on each of your book sales you drive. An author, with more than 10 books under his belt, gives the following tips to maximize the success of his work through Amazon’s affiliate program, called “Amazon Associates”, which can be found at the bottom of the page under “Make money with us.”
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First: have a website / blog
As more visitors / subscribers you have as better are the possibilities to earn money with Amazon.
What you cannot use for an affiliate program, are websites that you do not own, such as the free Weebly.com or WordPress.com. When applying for an affiliate program you will be asked to list your websites / blogs.
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Sign up for the Affiliate Program
The author explains: “First of all, I signed up for the affiliate program on Amazon to be able to earn an additional 6,5% on my own books. Every link in every book I write should be an affiliate link. This way I can earn 6.5% or more of everything someone buys on Amazon after they use my link, and I make an extra $5 or $10 a day.”
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Choose as many categories as possible
“When I upload a book to Amazon, I can choose 2 categories to put it in. If I write five books, I have a total of 10 categories. Every successive e-book I write, references to the first book via an html link inside and in the description. Each book after the first one should ONLY reference this first book, and all the successive books should go into new categories. All my books point to one, my first. So, when Amazon customers find my first one and order it., it goes up in the rankings. Because it’s up in the rankings, people buy more of the follow-up books. You need 7 books in total before you really see the first book hit.”
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More Tips from Amazon Associates:
“Use Amazon’s Associates program to create custom links from your website or blog to your book and interactive widgets, presenting your book in a professional light. When customers click those links and purchase your book, you can earn an additional 4% on each sale. Other Amazon programs offer even more: Earn up to 15% advertising fees from Qualifying Purchases, not just the products you advertised. Make elegant slideshow widgets out of images chosen from products across the entire Amazon catalog – Kindle e-books, CD cover art, DVD’s, print books… anything!”
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Slide Show
“Showcase a hand-picked list of products with the widgets.  Start by selecting a display format that best suits your website. You’ll then be able to add products and customize your widget and we’ll provide the HTML for you to use on your website.”
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Comment on Books
“Use this widget tool to recommend your and other authors books. Tell your customers in your own words why you like a certain book and how they can benefit from reading it. Recommend, and comment on books and products from Amazon. Let everyone know how you feel and what you like!”
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Deals Widget
“Display the hottest deals from Amazon on your web page; The Deals Widget lets you select the best “Gold Box” deals which you would like to showcase on your web site. You can even narrow your selection by choosing a specific product category and show discounted items and ongoing promotions from that category.”

Darren Rowse, who makes on average $30,000+ per year with Amazon Associates (he has hundred thousands of readers on his blog), gives lots of helpful tips in a blog article:

11 Lessons I Learned Earning $119,725.45 from Amazon Associates Program
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More tips to boost your success on Amazon:
https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/5-tips-to-improve-your-amazon-author-page/

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/ Once you are on this website, click on Seminar to register.

Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 810 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+

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Got Already Your Amazon Website?

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Success

Many authors skip this powerful marketing tool – or don’t know about it. Once your book goes live on Amazon you are eligible for an Amazon Author Central Account – and your very own web page on Amazon.  Best of all: There is no advertising on your site, just a (great large) image of your book(s), your reviews and your book’s description.

Not only get your website a very high page rank, Author Central tools are very effective in marketing your books and promoting yourself as a published author. Use your Author Central page to provide more information for your readers: upcoming events, a complete listing of your books, more images and videos, your book trailer and even excerpts from your blog.

 

How to set up your Amazon Author Central Account
Amazon explains: once published, expect to receive an email from Kindle Direct Publishing announcing the news and inviting you to create your Amazon Author Central Account.  Note your book’s ASIN enclosed in the email. You will need this to locate your book later and associate it to you as the author.

You need a separate account, both for the UK and US versions of Amazon; you have to do everything twice, and be aware that the two versions vary slightly.

Amazon Author Central UK: http://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk

Amazon Author Central US: http://authorcentral.amazon.com
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Just sign up for free accounts on both sites, and follow the instructions to set up your page:

• Add a professional author photo (and additional photos)
• Add your books
• Add a biography (make sure to update this accordingly)
• Add a blog RSS feed (a great way to get your blog in front of new people and encourage them to follow you – currently only at the US version)
• List events, such as book readings or book launches
• Add videos (e.g. trailers for your books)
• Add your Twitter address so people can see your latest Tweet and easily follow you
• Set up the “Search Inside/Look Inside” feature
• Add your photo & biography. Be the ‘face’ of your book.
• Link your blog – Import your blog using the RSS or Twitter feed.
• View and edit the list of books you have written  – the Amazon system doesn’t always get it right. If you have written more than one book, it will link your titles together, and allow your readers to find all of your work.
• Edit your product description and about the author section, add any professional reviews you have had.
• Track Your Sales – Find out where your sales are happening using the geographic location function and find out your Amazon ranking.
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One of the biggest advantages as an Amazon Kindle published Author is your eligibility to create an Amazon Author Central Account. This means that you are offered your own web page, complete with a URL, on a powerful Amazon website just for you. Use all the space that is given to you. 

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted, and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/  Once you are on this website, click on Seminar to register.
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Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 790+ 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+

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Why Authors Need Lots of Marketing Skills

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Social Media floods the market with content producers, e.g. writers. If you want to make it as a writer, you will have to separate yourself from the crowd so your work can be found and appreciated. Here are some tips for your writing success:
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# 1  is to know the industry
Even after they get a book deal, many authors are surprised to find the majority of the marketing depends on them. Get to know the publishing industry and what kind of writing sells and what can be marketed.  It will save yourself a lot of time and effort in the long run. Keep up with what’s hot by reading Writer’s Market, Goodreads or Script. Knowing the publishing field also means knowing what rights you have as an author.
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Make friends with Google+, Pinterest, Twitter and network
As a good writer, you already have the ability to write concise, interesting, and funny prose. It should be a breeze for you to build a following of people that includes literary agents and book editors that could assist you in getting the word out about your work, or even offer you a deal eventually. Don’t use this as a chance to hit them over the head with your book, yet demonstrate what a good writer you are and they will want to read it on their own. Content Marketing!
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Get to know the E-publishing route
For an unknown author, it might be the best way to get your work in front of people.  E-publishing is one way to get your material into a professional, digital format that can be downloaded. Learn how to converse your book – or hire an e-book formatting company to prepare your work for listing on the Kindle, iPad, Sony Reader etc. – but only after it is carefully edited!
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Create your own website & blog
It shows far more professionalism if you have your blog on your own website, or get a self-hostedWordPress.org page.  Consider making chapters of your writing available for free on your site, and don’t sell ads, it just looks plain cheap.  Learn how to operate a digital store.  Paypal is the industry standard for accepting payments, including the major credit cards. And to protect your customers, learn how to use save webpages and procedures (https).
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Maximize your web traffic and sell online
Maximize your visibility on search engines by using clear and accurate keywords in your site title, description, and body. To move up to the top of the search list, you need to have lots of links from other web sites to your page; submit your web pages to various sites that deal with your topic and encourage them to link their readers to you in return of the favor. Tips how to get more inbound-links.
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Create a media kit 
Microsoft Publisher is all you need to make a professional press kit to send out to newspaper- and magazine editors, radio and TV journalists, or agents. Include in your materials the market research you have done to show how many readers could profit from your new book, and include the best bits of material from your work.
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Create a book trailer*
Rent or buy an inexpensive camcorder or just use your laptop webcam. Shoot an introductory video of yourself for your site and your latest book project, or upload a highlight reel to YouTube of key points in your work. Keep it simple.  Read even more how to create a book trailer in my e-book:
111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer, featuring valuable tips and links to video tutorials, free music downloads and free images, as well as tips how to market your book video.  Available at Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008Y15YYO
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Brand yourself as a writer.
Establishing yourself and your writing as a brand involves knowing what your core strength is. Create your “Elevator Pitch”  to convince readers why they should get your book.  Be available for: an interview for a blog or a neighborhood weekly, a “local authors” day at a small bookstore, or even speaking engagements across the country.  It may not be easy first, as being upbeat and on your game at all times requires work. Traditional media outlets like radio and TV are turning more and more towards the new wave of internet writers and bloggers.
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With the tools described here, and using social media, your book marketing doesn’t require any financial investment.  Depending on your level of involvement, it may demand  quite a bit of time commitment, at least in the beginning.  However, as more you use these marketing tools, as faster you can handle them and as more visitors and buyers you will get.
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More about Search Engine Optimization:

https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/23-questions-google-is-asking-you/

https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/thanks-joel/

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com     Once you are on this website, click on Seminar to register.

Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 785 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+

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Ever Wondered How Google Works?

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Everyone wants to be listed high on Google’s search engine results.  You write a blog post, tweet, update your website or add otherwise content to the web.  Google bots, crawling the web, are coming across your post.  The page is indexed within seconds. Google estimates the domain and pages’ overall authority, based on links.

PageRank depends on a few factors:

• The number of other Web pages that link to the page 
• The frequency and location of keywords within the Web page
• How long the Web page has existed

To read more on the info-graphic, click on this PPC Blog:
http://www.ppcblog.com/how-google-works/

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Infographic by PPCBlog

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Jonathan Strickland wrote in an article: “What began as a project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students in Stanford University’s Ph.D. program, is now one of the most influential companies on the World Wide Web: Google.  At first, the students’ goal was to make an efficient search engine that gave users relevant links in response to search requests.  While that’s still Google’s core purpose today, the company now provides services ranging from e-mail and document storage to productivity software and mobile phone operating systems.  In less than a decade, Google evolved from a two-man enterprise to a multibillion-dollar corporation.”

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help:
http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar

Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 765 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 StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

Twitter:    @111publishing

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

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Did You Use Fiverr Already?

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Big corporations do it – and so can you as a small publisher: out-sourcing tasks to one of th many freelancers. I am sure you have heard or maybe even used Fiverr already.  With several hundred-thousand active listings on the Fiverr site you might find a quick and inexpensive fix for many challenges in self-publishing, website and computer issues and even graphic design jobs. For me, it turned to be a great help for the tiny amount of $5 that I spent on each small gig, ordered at Fiverr. This now 3-year old global online marketplace is offering tasks and services, referred to as ‘gigs’ and micro-jobs, beginning at a cost of $5 per job.

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Fiverr originally started out as a new and very unique concept. There were only these well-known large freelancer sites, such as Elance, Guru and Freelancer in the past.  Fiverr brought in a refreshing change with its flurry of practical micro tasks like CSS micro bugging, social marketing, resume revising and PowerPoint editing help. The site grew to the top 200 in the world since the beginning of 2013.
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Here are some samples of “I will”:

• Will place 40 Delicious, 40 Diigo and 40 StumpleUpon bookmarks for you website/video for $5

• Will write original and effective content up to 500 words for your website for $5

• Will tweet your product, services, or link to my 16,000+ twitter followers for $5

• Will translate any text from 50 to 200 words from English to Spanish and vice versa for $5

• Will draw a cartoon with your messages or sentences for $5

• Will post any message on my Facebook wall of 4,000 friends for $5

• Will convert ANY of your files from one format to another for $5

• Will edit, proofread and provide feedback on any document up to ten pages for $5

• Will audit your website design and usability from a DESIGNERS point of view for $5

• Will make a nice logo design for your business and deliver the LOGO within 3 days for $5

• Will do Performance Testing of your website for $5

• Will teach you how you can Set Up a Database in Excel for $5

• Will edit CSS for you for $5
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http://www.Fiverr.com is really easy to use, give it a try. Snippets from the Wall Street Journal: “Although buyers pay $5, sellers receive less than $4, after PayPal payment-processing and Fiverr fees, which is the primary way the site makes money. PayPal is the payment method and posting or finding a gig is free.  Fiverr.com, is a site that allows you to buy and sell (business) tasks for $5 and the site is a good match for this economy. Buyers are looking for cheap prices and sellers are often unemployed or underemployed, seeking freelance income. There is a bizarre joy to browsing the sometimes hilarious user-created content on the site.”

There are a lot more sites where you can find inexpensive and professional freelancers for all kind of jobs, also not for $5.00. 

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar

Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 760 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 StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

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

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How to Get Lots of Visitors to Your Author Website?

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44 Tips to Get Relevant Web Links

Building an author website is one step, getting lots of traffic (website visitors) is another task. An important step is to add links, inbound and outbound links, in order to get lots of visitors. Currently, the major engines typically interpret importance as popularity – the more popular a web site, page or document, the more valuable the information contained therein must be. Links are still the most important tool in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on the Web.  But how can you build relevant links?
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Content is king

1. Build a “101 list”. These often become “authority documents”. People can’t resist linking to these .

2. Create 10 easy tips to help you with … articles.

3. Create extensive resource lists for a specific topic.

4. Create a list of the top 10 myths for a specific category.

5. Create a list of experts. If you impress the people listed well enough, or find a way to make your project look somewhat official, the experts may end up linking to your site or saying thanks.
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Developing Authority & Being Easy to Link At

6. Make your content easy to understand so many people can relay to and spread your message.

7. Put some effort in to minimize grammatical or spelling errors, especially if you need authoritative people like librarians to link to your site.

8. Have an easily accessible privacy policy and about section so your site seems more trustworthy. Including a picture of yourself may also help build your authority.

9. Buy relevant traffic with a pay per click campaign. Relevant traffic will get your site more visitors and brand exposure. When people come to your site there is a possibility that they will link to you.
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News & Syndication

10. Write  Ezine articles. Their article pages actually rank highly and send highly qualified traffic.

11. Submit an article to industry news site.

12. Send out a press release. Take the time to make a compelling and newsworthy one. Email it to some handpicked journalists and bloggers. Personalize the email message.

13. Track who picks up your articles or press releases. Offer them exclusive news or content.

14. Trade articles with other webmasters.

15. Email a few friends when you have important relevant news asking them for their feedback and link.

16. Write about, and link to, companies with “in the news” pages. They link back to stories and blog posts which cover their developments. Do a Google search (your industry + “in the news”).

17. Perform surveys and studies that make people feel important. If you can make other people feel important they will help do your marketing for you for free.
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Directories & Social Bookmarking

18. Submit your site to DMOZ and other directories that allow free submissions.

19. Submit your site to paid directories. Another oldie. Just remember that quality matters.

20. Create your own topical directory about your field of interest. Obviously link to your own site, deeplinking to important content where possible.

21. Tag related sites on sites like Del.icio.us. If people find the sites you tag to be interesting, emotionally engaging, or timely they may follow the trail back to your site.

22. If you create something that is of great quality make sure you ask a few friends to tag it for you, hundreds more bloggers will see your site and potentially link to it.

23.  If you write about popular spreading ideas with plenty of original content (and link to some of the original resources), your site may get listed as a source.
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Local & Business Links

24. Join the Better Business Bureau.

25. Get a link from your local chamber of commerce.

26. Submit your link to relevant city and state governmental resources.

27. Get a link from  every supplier you deal with and make it a prerequisite of attending a trade show or convention to get a link from them.

28. See if manufacturers or retailers or other business partners might be willing to link to your site.

29. Develop business relationships with non-competing businesses in the same field. Leverage these relationships online, by recommending each other via links

30. Launch an affiliate program. Most of the links you pick up will not have SEO value, but the added exposure will almost always lead to additional “normal” links.
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Easy Free Links

31. Depending on your category and offer, you will find Craigslist or Kijiji to be a cheap or free classified service, include a link to your website for pennies per month.

32. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Yahoo! Answers and provide links to relevant resources.

33. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Google Groups and provide links to relevant resources.

34. If you run a reputable company, create a page about it in the Wikipedia or in topic specific wikis.

35. It takes not much time to set up a topical Squidoo page, which you can use to look like an industry expert. Link to expert documents and popular useful tools in your fields, and also create a link back to your site.

36. Submit a story to several eZines that links to an article on your site. You can also submit other content and have some of its link authority flow back to your profile page.

37. If you publish an RSS feed and your content is useful and regularly updated, some people will syndicate your RSS content.

38. Most forums allow members to leave signature links or personal profile links. If you make quality contributions some people will follow these links.
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Have a Big Heart for Reviews

39. Most brands are not well established online, so if your site has much authority, your review related content often ranks well.

40. Review relevant products on Amazon.com. We have seen this draw in direct customer enquiries and secondary links.

41. Create product lists on Amazon.com that review top products and also mention your link.

42. Review related sites on Alexa to draw in related traffic streams.

43. Review products and services on shopping search engines like ePinions to help build your authority.

44. If you buy a product or service you really like and are good at leaving testimonials, many of those turn into links.
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LinksManagement.com gives the following tips: 

• Links should come from websites, hosted in the same country
• Links should come from relevant webpages
• Links should come from webpages with Google PageRank1 and higher
• Links should be placed manually, and not automatically using some script
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More tips on how to attract more visitors to your website / blog can be found here:

http://www.bitrebels.com/technology/building-quality-links-guide-infographic/

http://thinktraffic.net/timeless-ideas-for-more-visitors

http://google.about.com/od/searchengineoptimization/a/pagerankexplain.htm

http://google.about.com/od/searchengineoptimization/qt/improverank.htm

http://99u.com/articles/7070/4-creative-ways-to-attract-more-visitors-to-your-website

http://sdas86.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Get-more-than-1000-Visitors-for-Free-and-Make-a-lot-of-Money-Online

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar

Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 750 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 StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

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

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How to Use Photos on the Internet

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Antique Rolleiflex Camera

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My largest visitor stream I ever got on any blog was via Google Image Search. People were looking for a certain image on Google and found my website. The photo had the right size, motive and it was named with the right keywords.
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Improve SEO through your photos
There is more to it, than just placing attractive photos on your blog or website. Here are some tips how you can optimize your photos to improve SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and to get more traffic to your website or blog.
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Reduce the file size of your photos
NOT the dimensions of the image, but the pixel size. When you re-size a photo manually in WordPress (for example) you only change the dimensions, and the amount of pixel stays almost the same. A file size of 1.8 MB can be easily reduced to 300 Kb without compromising the quality for the viewer. Adobe Photoshop or Adobe “Lightroom” software can be used to re-size the photo’s pixels – not the dimension! Important: Make a copy of your original photo BEFORE you re-size. Otherwise it would be lost forever and you would keep only the lower pixel version. There is no way back!
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Name your photos
File593730.jpg or DSC_8405037.jpg is not helpful to you and totally meaningless to search engines. Keywords in the photos name should be separated by hyphens, NOT underscores, and shouldn’t be squeezed into a single word, e.g. Antique-Leica-Camera.jpg.
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Always use ALT tags
Wordpress makes it easy for you when adding photos to your text. The fields for Title, Description, ALT and caption are build-in, so you can fill them out easily. Search engines can’t “see” photos, but “read” keywords, that describes your image. Keywords that you use on your web page should work together with the keywords you use for your images.
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Where to find inexpensive photos?
You might be an avid photographer, just like me, taking often several hundred images a month. However, from time to time the need for a certain motive arises, and the question is, where to turn to for inexpensive images for a blog or a web site? A lot of research brought up a handful of online offers that I like to share with you.
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Find websites in these articles that provide good deals on royalty-free photographs or even free ones. If you don’t know the difference between royalty-free and free photos, take the time to read these articles thoroughly.
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Where to find free photos and illustrations?

Part II of Free Image Sources

Part III of Free Image Sources

Part IV Free – Inexpensive Photo Sources

Why Steal When You Can Get it for Free ?

5 Laws Writers Should Know to Avoid Getting Sued

10 Rules of USA Copyright Infringement

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are almost 800 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 StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

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

Don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks

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Which Plug-Ins Are You Using For Your Website or Blog?

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Your website or blog is your online billboard and resume. You want to have it seen by as many readers as possible. There is no easier way to multiply the amount of readers or potential customers than with plug-ins and sharing buttons – up to seven times.
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Installing click-able buttons to offer the idea of sharing front and center to your readers, makes it incredibly simple for them to post your link to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or other social networks and share the news or information with their peers. These little buttons are just too tempting to click on and tell all your peers about the wonderful article you just read or the great website you discovered.
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However, there are not only plug-ins to multiply your audience, there is a variety of well coded security plug-ins such as Bulletproof security, Wordfence, or Better WP security. Also very useful are the ones who help with Search Engine Optimization, for sample Google XML Sitemaps, a plug-in which will generate a special XML sitemap, supporting search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog. With such a sitemap, it’s much easier for the search engine crawlers to see the complete structure of your site and retrieve it more efficiently.
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A quick overview gives an info-graphic by wptemplate.com, including short descriptions and ratings.

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WP Template
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Jeff Bullas wrote a great blog post again, listing the 30 most popular WP plug-ins, and their direct links to detailed information. Get the list of these most popular WP plug-ins here on his website.
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Visitors, who find your blog content valuable, can link to it with one click to their Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, StumpleUpon and Facebook accounts – and even to several hundred smaller social media sites. Give them the chance to spread the word about you and your (book) business. Install your plug-ins now into your website and blog.

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are
almost 700 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 StumpleUpon.

Follow on Twitter: @111publishing

And don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks, Doris

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2 More Reasons to Have a Blog for Book PR

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In one of my recent articles I have written about Content Marketing via your blog and how to write for the web. Another article encouraged writers to “Start a blog today!” as a New Years resolution.

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Jeff Bullas has written a fantastic article (well, blog) about Content Marketing (for authors, I call it blogging) and the benefits (for the author). He says:

Search
“It is vital for optimizing your website and blogs to rank higher in search engines. The better the content and the more it is shared tells Google and other search engines that your website is worth reading. So it is pushed up the search rankings. If it is really good content it may even appear on the first page or even at number one (by the way by obtaining top ranking it receives about 40% of all clicks).”

Social
“Important for driving social media sharing – the better the content the more it is shared. It is as simple as that. Crap content does not get shared. Fullstop!!”

Key Insights
“Content writing (blogging) provides a solid footing for your marketing as 70% of customers prefer getting to know a company through an article rather than an ad. Websites with blogs receive 55% more visitors. 63% of companies said posting content on social media has increased marketing effectiveness.” 

And then he adds a couple of really good info-graphics, so hop over to Jeff Bullas’ blog to see them and to read the whole article! 

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2013 and Beyond: Social Media Future

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Social Media Predictions 

Cheryl Burgess interviewed Social Media leaders and wrote a great post how small businesses, and I will add: including self-publishers, benefit from Social Media and how to use it. Here are some of the expert voices:

“Content will rise to the occasion in the vast sea of social media.”
Which means: don’t bore your readers with follow/un-follow statistics or with the same old
repetitions to buy your book – rather post interesting news or facts for them!

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“…realize that social media is also very important for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Companies will begin to understand that social content, and SEO are linked and more
integrated than ever.”
This is especially true for Google+. Your posts there go directly into Google’s search
engines (ranking).

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“… small businesses will realize they either get on that bus or they’ll be waving goodbye to
the opportunity to be in front of people … and some, if not all, of their business.”
Writers who are asking “why should I be on Social Media?”, could also ask “why should I
promote and sell my book?” See a recent blog post on this this.
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“Small businesses around the globe will learn valuable photo and video-editing skills to help
drive their social media marketing efforts”.
Get “111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer” to prepare for this:  Amazon.com/dp/B008Y15YYO

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“Finally, the coming year will see a greater integration of social media into all marketing
practices so it becomes a part of a small business’ way of doing business.”

Read the whole article about Social Media’s future.

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