Benefits of Using Bit.ly for Social Media

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You might know Bit.ly as a tool to shorten lengthy URL’s, such as this posts’ web address from https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/benefits-of-using-bit-ly-for-social-media/  to http://bit.ly/NbQgkw

When someone clicks on the Bit.ly shortened version, they are then redirected to the original long URL.  The good news: when search engines find links to your short URL’s, they will credit those links to the long URL – a great SEO benefit for your web page.  But that’s not all:  Bit.ly provides valuable statistics for each of your shortened URL’s in tweets and other Social Media posts. 
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More Than URL Shorts
Useful statistics (see the screenshot above) – here are examples:

• Number of times your shortened URL was clicked on
• Number of times other Bit.ly shortened versions of the same page were clicked on
• Referring sites / applications from which your shortened URL was clicked
• Country of the users who are clicking on your shortened URL
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Learn From Your Stats
This way you know how successful your tweet or post is, which site brings you the most visitors and from which country they came from.  For example, if you get most referrals from Twitter, just because you tweet the most links there, and you have the most followers on Twitter, you might decide to post a bit more on Google+ and invite more people into your circles on Google+ or you might improve the number of followers on Facebook or LinkedIn.
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Tweet and Post Via Bit.ly
A marvelous reason to use Bit.ly is for me the fact, that I can post to several Twitter and Facebook accounts with ONE click.  For example: I just wrote a blog post with an endless long URL, which I then copy / paste into the small window on top of the Bit.ly site.  Immediately an almost perfect tweet is created in front of my eyes and I can send this tweet / post - to all the previously set-up Social Media accounts – with ONE single click!
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Sure, links can be shortened directly by Twitter, and there are other websites that shorten links, such as http://Hootsuite.com, http://Ow.ly or http://tiny.cc.  But none of them offers Bit.ly’s useful advantages. 

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If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer all this and more for only $179 for three months – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars
Or visit http://www.e-book-pr.com/book-promo/  to advertise your new book, specials, your KDP Select Free Days or the new Kindle Countdown Deals.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 1,000 of them  : )  if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it.  There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:

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Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day

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Well, maybe add a couple more minutes to these 30 minutes Social Media time, and learn about helpful programs, such as Hootsuite, Tweetadder, JustUnfollow, Manageflitter, Tweetdeck etc. to save time in order to win more time for interactions with your followers.

Read the Help Section
To take full advantage of the Social Media sites, study them well, read the “handbook”, helpful info and hints, set up to help users. Just from staring at the site and trying to figure out how it works, or trial and error actions, you will be only frustrated. Ask a fellow writer or your marketing coach to get even more user tips.

How to get more followers
The importance of having more followers (and following more) and how to find those precious friends has been stressed in a former blog post.  Take advantage of the great possibilities of sharing among all these sites. It is almost the same “work” if you are on one site, compared to having a presence on six or eight sites through the help of plug-ins and sharing buttons.  For example: visitors on your Goodreads page click on the Google+ or the Facebook icon and send a message about you and your book to thousands of their followers. Google+ then sends the message automatically to Twitter. To have lots of Twitter followers is beneficial for your Goodreads presence, as you can transfer Twitter followers with one click over to Goodreads!
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Embedded from Pardot

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Your Profile is your “Shop Window”
No matter which sites you join, create an attractive profile, complete with an avatar that shows a favorable and professional portrait and a solid bio. Often people will read your bio before deciding whether to follow you. If you own a company and want to use your brand as your avatar instead of a photograph, this is fine. You have to create your profile only once, and then copy and paste into every new Social Media sites you join.

More followers also means people assume you are someone interesting or an expert. It extends your popularity, influence and more book sales.
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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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Use the Dog Days of Summer to Meet Readers

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Nova Scotia South Shore Beaches

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July and August are not the best months for book sales – at least not compared to November and December. Quite a few authors are feeling the summer slump. Author Marla Madison wrote a great blog post about it and gave seven useful tips, how you can overcome the Dog Days of summer.
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Starting with “Take a break without guilt.” to “Try something new to market your writing.” and five more ideas, how you can improve your writing and develop plans for fall. Read the whole article and all the comments here.
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Today I received an email from a client who worried about dwindling book sales and lower rankings on Amazon. My suggestion: “Don’t stress yourself with rankings and sales – what is needed first, is a wide and strong basis in terms of establishing quality connections with readers and – very important – potential reviewers. It is much easier to receive reviews from someone you “know”, such as “real” people – or through solid Social Media connections.
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Social Networks
Authors need more followers, especially READERS (not fellow writers) on all Social Media sites. I am talking about at least 2,000 on each of these sites! Those who do not follow, even when you re-tweet them, un-follow after one month. Un-following 25 people per days is free. See Just Unfollow.
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On Goodreads for example, it’s even more easy: you can load Facebook, Twitter and Google+ followers over to Goodreads with one click. No matter which campaign you create – Book Giveaways on Goodreads or free KDP days on Amazon – it is crucial to have lots of followers first, who know you and will help you to let your message go viral.
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I just read recently an article by a publicist “Are you ready for publicity?” who does not accept any customer who has not at least 5,000 followers on all Social Media sites.

Do you use Hootsuite.com?  Or any other site to automate part of scheduling tweets, thank you notes, welcome new followers etc.? This frees up time to interact personally with more of your followers.
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Reader Communities / Groups
There are quite a few communities / groups on Google+ and on Goodreads, where you can make connections and later! offer reviews of THEIR books – you might get the favor later reciprocated.

Let’s assume you are the author of children books, you could join these GOOGLE+ Communities:

• Children’s book lovers – Google+ http://bit.ly/17NMxho
• Books for EDUCATIONAL learning – Google+ http://bit.ly/13pUC7w
• Readers Meet Authors And Bloggers – Google+ http://bit.ly/13S37g1

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How to find Goodreads Groups:

Click on the link Groups, on top of the site.
Type into the search function: children or young readers for example, and there are hundreds of pages!!! with groups to join, such as these:

• http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/188-children-s-books
• http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/109753-matching-kids-to-books
• http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/71883-great-middle-grade-reads

Write and then copy/paste a friendly introduction and even include a link to your website or blog. You don’t need to spend so much time on these groups, just a nice introduction and from time to time peaking in, or exchange some thoughts and see what people are talking about.
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To invite more friends on Goodreads:
click on Explore (top right), you will see “People”, click on it, then you will see:

“Meet People”
top users
top readers
top reviewers
most popular reviewers
best reviews
online now
most followed

Invite from these sections people to follow or friend.
You can send out 25 invitations a day according to Goodreads, which means per month 750 invitations! And each one is just a click! If only half of them follow, this means more than 300 new reader friends per month. However, usually 95% become followers/friends on Goodreads, when you invite them.
Once you have more than 1000 followers/friends you can relax and just sit back, as people come to YOU! I get about 20-30 friend-offers from Goodreads every week, sometimes lots more and don’t have to look for new followers anymore. You can just choose and pick : )

Being busy during the slow summer months, working on your author platform gives you an advantage for your higher book sales in fall and winter. That’s happening for sure, when days are getting shorter and people are more at home, reading. and the holidays are rolling in.
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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 feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 815 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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9 Habits of Successful Writers on Twitter

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It’s all about easy ways to optimize your Twitter profile and your Tweets and using Twitter for social networking, marketing your book and your website / blog.
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1. Perfecting your Twitter name
Your bio, along with your name and @name, is searchable on Twitter. This means people can type into Twitter’s search engine and find you, without even having to type the account name. With your @name, try to get the actual name of your small publishing business. Keep it short to give tweeps more space to re-tweet your content or send a DM.
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2. Use 160 characters for your bio wisely
You have only 160 characters for your bio, so make sure your description is clear and concise. Your bio should read like an elevator pitch. The first third of your profile should contain keywords related to your books. Include specific keywords that define your books. Think about what keywords a potential customer or prospect would associate with your books or your publishing company. Which search terms would they use to find your website?
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3. Photo – Icon – Avatar, aka Logo
Your readers (and maybe future publishers) like to see the person behind the book. Invest a couple of dollars or more for a brilliant studio photo which you can use for years on all of your Social Media sites, website, blog, Amazon author page or submit to your publisher to use in your books. Publishing businesses use their logo and stick with it everywhere, to have brand consistency.
Avoid: Party images, pics taken with your phone or computer, landscapes, snapshots from your last vacation, images of your children, wedding photos, art work, dogs or cats, cartoon characters, half-nudes unless you write porno and any dark photos, that don’t reveal your face or photos taken from the side or from behind and show only your hair and no face. Never have a second person on your social media photo. You might be in love with your partner, but it is less than professional to show this off on Twitter.

Your Twitter photo
@DanielSharkov via Jeff Bullas’s Blog, shares 3 tips on your photo:

1. Make sure it’s a photo of “you”, that really shows the best of you
2. Make sure it’s big enough
3. Make sure your face is recognizable
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4. Start your tweets with an attention grabber
You have 140 characters for a reason – a tweet is supposed to be short and to the point! Start your tweets with something that will get attention. Be subtle about this, though. Don’t use capital letters to show your enthusiasm. Start a tweet with “New” or “Learn” to at least grab the reader’s attention to lead into what you are talking about.
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5. Increase the amount of followers:
Use the search function to find like-minded Tweeps, e.g. type: reading, book lovers, book worm,. avid reader etc.  You will want more readers than other writers as Twitter followers, right?  Type into the search function words with hash tags #amreading or #Goodreads. Check out suggestions: “Who to follow” on your left bar of your Twitter page.  As more followers you have, as more people read your messages, and as more Twitter followers you can invite as Goodreads friends.
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6. Hash Tags increases visibility
Using hash tags # is another way to connect to people with similar interests and to increase the visibility of your tweets. Add hash tags to your tweets and also create tweets based on hash tags that are popular on Twitter at the time (you can see these as “trends” on the left-hand side of your Twitter home page).
Include a hashtag or two in your posts to get better search results as well. To optimize your hashtag usage, search for the most used hashtags in your industry. Try going to search.twitter.com and entering the hashtag you’d like to include in your tweet to see if it’s being widely used. You can also go to hashtags.org to see what’s currently trending. Ask for re-tweets (but not too often) Studies showed that more then half of all Tweeps will re-tweet if you simply ask them to! More tips to tweet:
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• Tweet the latest news
• Pick the right time of day
• Leave room for a retweet
• Use top re-tweetable phrases
• Write a tempting headline
• Don’t make the tweet about you
• Pick the right day of the week, Monday & Friday
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7. Don’t buy followers. Ever!
These artificial followers (not real people, just virtual twitter accounts) will never re-tweet you or buy your book.

If you have anything like these numbers – you are in trouble:
268 TWEETS    2004 FOLLOWING    345 FOLLOWERS
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Un-follow people who haven’t followed you back after a while. This is especially important to avoid “follow limits”. The first limit at Twitter you might hit, is when you have followed 2,000 people. You won’t be able to follow any more until you have 2,000 followers. So remove your non-followers, using Manageflitter.com or Unfollow.com
However, don’t use their really annoying feature that tweets on your timeline: “Got 5 followers and 9 un-followers”. This is not only an absolutely useless tweet, but makes you at the same time a free advertiser for them!

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8. Get enough Twitter followers
Don’t be a Tweep with a pathetic following of less than 100 people. And don’t sign up with only one or two Social Media sites. Take advantage of the great possibilities of sharing among all these sites. It is almost the same “work” if you are on one site, compared to having a presence on six or eight sites through the help of plug-ins and sharing buttons, as outlined in former blog posts. So can visitors on your Goodreads page click on the Google+ or the Facebook icon and send a message about you and your book to thousands of their followers. Google+ then sends the message automatically to Twitter. To have lots of Twitter followers is also beneficial for your Goodreads presence, as you can transfer Twitter followers with one click over to Goodreads!
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9. Easy scheduling
Tweet consistently and tweet at least several times a day. Sign up with the free version of Hootsuite  It really saves a lot of time, helps you planning your tweets over the day (or days) and frees you time to really interact with your followers. It ensures your consistent presence on Twitter when you’re unable to tweet in person. Once you are familiar how it works and you have lots of followers, you might change to the professional version.
Timing of your tweets:  It seems Monday and Friday are the best days of the week, to get re-tweets. Tweet between 12 noon and 2 pm to get a maximum of re-tweets for your Twitter content. If you have a WordPress blog: Did you already install the “Re-tweet” button? Just found a site where they describe it, both, automatically or manually. Happy Tweeting!
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Read also:

How to Become a Star on Twitter

How to Get More Re-Tweets

How to Get More Followers on Your Social Media Sites

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How to Get More Followers on Your Social Media Sites

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Joining Goodreads, Twitter, Google+, Facebook or Pinterest is only the first step in creating a community platform. To make these sites working for you is only possible if you have lots of followers, friends or people in your Google+ circles.

Don’t be a Tweep with a pathetic following of less than 100 people. And don’t sign up with only one or two Social Media sites. Take advantage of the great possibilities of sharing among all these sites. It is almost the same “work” if you are on one site, compared to having a presence on six or eight sites through the help of plug-ins and sharing buttons, as outlined in former blog posts.  So can visitors on your Goodreads page click on the Google+ or the Facebook icon and send a message about you and your book to thousands of their followers. Google+ then sends the message automatically to Twitter. To have lots of Twitter followers is beneficial for your Goodreads presence, as you can transfer Twitter followers with one click over to Goodreads!

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More followers also means people assume you are someone interesting or an expert. It extends your popularity, influence and more book sales.

No matter which sites you join, create an attractive profile, complete with an avatar that shows a favorable and professional portrait and a solid bio. Often people will read your bio before deciding whether to follow you. If you own a company and want to use your brand as your avatar instead of a photograph, this is fine. You have to create your profile only once, and then copy and paste into every new Social Media sites you join.

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Let’s start with TWITTER
Display links to your Twitter account in your email signature, your blog or website, business cards, on other social media sites —everywhere.

Re-tweeting your followers is a non-brain-er. Be generous in linking and re-tweeting others. You do not have to sit all day long on your computer to do this. Check tweets once a day and pack interesting ones into Buffer.com, who will spread them throughout the day.

Share only valuable content. Be generous, inspiring, entertaining, provide useful links. Provide content that people are proud to provide to their own followers.

To actively increase the amount of followers:

• Use the search function to find like-minded Tweeps, e.g. type: reader, reading, book lovers
• Type into the search function words with hash tags #amreading or #GoodReads
• Check out suggestions: Who to follow on your left bar of your Twitter page
• See who other Tweeps are following or who is following them

Using hash tags # is another way to connect to people with similar interests and to increase the visibility of your tweets. Add hash tags to your tweets and also create tweets based on hash tags that are popular on Twitter at the time (you can see these as “trends” on the left-hand side of your Twitter home page).

Don’t buy followers.
There are many offers, however, this is contrary to Twitter Rules. These artificial followers who have no affinity for you,  won’t ever re-tweet you or buy your book, mostly they are not even real people

Un-follow people who haven’t followed you back after a while.
This is especially important to avoid “follow limits”. The first limit at Twitter you might hit, is when you have followed 2,000 people. You won’t be able to follow any more until you have 2,000 followers. So remove your non-followers, using Manageflitter.com or Unfollow.com – but don’t use their really annoying feature that tweets on your page: “Got 5 followers and 9 un-followers”. This is not only an absolutely useless tweet, but makes you at the same time a free advertiser for them!
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Paid services, e.g. Tweet Adder or Hootsuite, offer to automate Tweet posts throughout the day (after you have scheduled them), to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Myspace, create unique tweets automatically or send a thank-you messages to your new followers. Once you have reached 2,000 followers, there is no further limit  and you will see an increase in high-volume and more quality follower offers.
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The next post will introduce readers how to find more friends and followers on Goodreads and Google+. Stay tuned! Click on the tiny Follow button on top of this blog page to get notified of new posts.

Read more about this topic:

12 Smart Ways to Boost Social Media Efforts

How to Become a Star on TWITTER

How to Get More Re-Tweets

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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 600 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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Authors: Have You Read This?

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From useful blogs and articles I found on the Internet:

iBookstore now in 17 Latin-American countries
Christian Zibreg wrote in idownloadblog.com:
“Apple has rolled out paid iBookstore content in a slew of new countries. Paid electronic books first surfaced this morning over in the New Zealand iBookstore, but subsequent reports confirmed that paid content is now live – or in the process of going live – in as much as seventeen Latin American markets such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela.”
One more reason to sell your books on Apple’s iPad.
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/10/22/ibookstore-paid-content-new-countires/

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Sad News: Timely.is will shut down on November 16th
Timely.is started as a fun side project back in 2010. Since then it has grown to help tens of thousands of people publish millions of Tweets and Facebook updates. Starting November 16th you will no longer be able to access your Timely.is account.
They explained:
“When we launched Timely almost 2 years ago there were no other tools that would automatically figure out the best time for a Tweet to go out. Thankfully there are some great alternatives today such as Buffer or Hootsuite.”
Well, not as conveniently and easy to use as Timely was… I will miss it.

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Book Blogger Directory
The Book Blogger Directory is a comprehensive listing of Book Blogs, separated by genre and listed alphabetically. The goal of the Book Blogger Directory is to not only to organize book blogs for users to easily find your blog, it is also there to create a link exchange for search engine optimization. Their mission: To cross promote book bloggers, provide listings by genre and increase links to increase page rank. The benefits of listing on the Book Blogger Directory:  As cross promotion occurs from one blog to the next, your Google Page Rank can increase, higher Google Page Rank means higher search engine rankings!  Higher keyword saturation on the Directory can have your listing show up on search engines.

Requirements to be on the Book Blogger Directory:
Your blog is primarily used to talk about books (8 out of 10 posts are book related). The Book Blogger Directory will not search out book blogs, it is up to users to enter their listings
http://bookbloggerdirectory.wordpress.com/

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Google+ (Author) Pages FREE
What more can you wish for? An authors pages that tremendously increases your Search Engine Optimization! A great tool no one should omit, at least not if you want to sell more books…

Google explains: “Differences between Google+ Pages and Google+ Profiles

• Pages are extremely similar to profiles, but they have some key differences:
• Pages can be made for a variety of different entities whereas profiles can only be made for people.
• Pages can have multiple administrators.
• The default privacy setting for elements on your page profile is public.
• Local pages have special fields that help people find the business’ physical location.
• Pages have the +1 button.
• Pages can’t +1 other pages, nor can they +1 stuff on the Web. (But like profiles, they can +1 inside Google+.)
• Pages can’t play games.
• Pages don’t have the option to share to ‘Extended circles’.
• Pages can’t hangout on a mobile device.
• Pages can’t add people to circles until the page is added first or mentioned.”

http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1713824

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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 570 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, 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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