Congratulations on taking a gamble and clicking on this blog post. I know search engine optimization or “SEO” isn’t the most riveting topic out there (I did it for years for my day job before switching to writing full-time), but it’s worth learning a little about since it can help bring more visitors to your website and/or blog via the search engines.

For an author, more visitors to ye olde site can translate to more books sold. Yes, I speak from experience. Though I’m just a nobody-special indie fantasy author, not too may days pass without someone buying at least one of my books through my blog.

Selling more books would be good, you say, but you may be wondering…

What is SEO anyway?

Search Engine Optimization is the art of convincing Google and other search engines that your website/blog is particularly useful and important in your niche, thus meaning it should rank more highly in the search engine results than the sites of your competitors. (In other words, if someone types in “fantasy author” or “fantasy novel,” I want Google to list my site before the sites of all those other fantasy-writing peeps.)

When people use search engines, they type in search terms or “keywords” (these can be single words but are usually combinations of words). The search engine attempts to deliver the most relevant results by looking at numerous factors, including:

• How often those keywords are used on a webpage or blog post (ie. you get more points if the keywords are used in the title, text, and the web address).
• The number and quality of links coming in from other sites, especially links that use those keywords in the “anchor text” (the underlined words people can click).
• Overall age, popularity, and “authority” of a site (it’s easier for more established sites to rank well in the search results).

Are your eyes crossing yet? If they are, or if you’re already thinking about lunch, I understand, but I hope you’re getting the gist (it helps once you start reading more about SEO and seeing these funky industry terms over and over again).

Using those keywords…

It’s time to start thinking about what words people may type into the search engine to find you.

For example, if a fantasy fan is looking for new authors to try, he or she might type in things like “best fantasy books,” “free fantasy ebooks,” “epic fantasy authors,” “swords and sorcery stories,” etc. As an author, it might behoove me to write blog posts tailored to those searches (i.e. “Where to Find Free Fantasy Books”).

How do you know which keywords people are using? You can play around with the free Adwords Keyword Tool to get an idea for the popular terms in your niche or genre. You type in a generic term, like fantasy, and it spits out all sorts of related terms people are using, and it gives you an idea of which terms are more popular.

(I promise to do a video of me doing keyword research with this tool someday — that’s right, make some popcorn and prepare to be entertained — even sooner if you leave comments and bug me about it!)

As I said, once you figure out which search phrases are applicable to you, consider using them on your website or blog (just focus on one term per page or post). This alone will put you ahead of lots of other authors!

Setting up your website/blog to be search engine friendly

Now that the term “search engine optimization” is starting to sound a little less alien, and you have some keywords in mind that you want to use, it’s time to tinker with the setup of your site to make it “SEO friendly.”

If you haven’t chosen a domain name (a yourauthorname.com address) yet, you may want to work your main keyword into it, especially if your name is already taken. An example might be jeffsmithmysterynovels.com or janesmithromance.com. Don’t go crazy with the keywords or choose anything too long, as you want fans to be able to remember your web address.

If you need a break from SEO talk, you can head over to GoDaddy (a domain name registrar) to see if the web address you want is available.

Okay, enough about domain names.

You’ll want to use your main keyword in the title of your site as well. Instead of something like, “A random writer’s musings…” your blog might be “John Snark Science Fiction Author.”

On the main page of my site, the title (the text that appears in someone’s browser bar) is “Lindsay Buroker — Fantasy Author,” and, as I write this post, my site appears fourth under a Google Search for “fantasy author.” I hope to make it to the #1 spot some day! (Though these things take time, so you have to be patient.)

Note, I didn’t use my keywords in my domain name (people generally have a tough time spelling my name correctly, so I didn’t want to add anything extra, and since it’s an original name, the .com address wasn’t taken yet). I just point this out so you know the final decision is up to you. Do what you feel makes sense and looks good to you.

Using keywords in individual post titles and urls

While it’s a good idea to work on linking the front page of your site to your main keyword, you can hit lots of less popular (but still searched for) keywords with the other various blog posts and pages on your site.

For example, “fantasy author” and “fantasy novels” may be big keywords that I target, but I have a series of novellas that are classified as “steampunk,” a subset of fantasy. When I typed steampunk into the Adwords Keyword Tool, I found all sorts of search terms related to the one core word. One was “steampunk books,” so I wrote a blog post called Must-Read Steampunk Books.

If you check out that article, you’ll see that my chosen keyword, “steampunk books,” is in the title, the url of the individual post (i.e. http://www.lindsayburoker.com/fantasy-science-fiction/must-read-steampunk-books/) and in the first paragraph of the content. Even though I never worked on getting links to that article (more on that in the next section), it still shows up on the first page of Google results (about 10th) for that term, and I have had people surf into the site after searching for steampunk books. If they buy any of the books I mentioned in the post, I win because those are affiliate links to Amazon so I make a few pennies, and if they happen to notice my steampunk book over in the sidebar of the blog, even better.

With less popular and less competitive keywords, sometimes just using the term in the title, url, and post content is enough to get you some traffic. You can help things along (and maybe I’ll do this one day for that post), by getting links, not just to the front page of your site but to individual blog posts and articles too. Let’s talk about those links…

A huge part of SEO is getting links to your site

While it’s good to have a site that’s SEO friendly, what you do on your site is only part of the battle.

In the early days of the internet, you could fill a page with lots and lots of instances of a keyword in order to rank more highly for it. And that actually worked.

The search engines are much smarter these days. They figure that links to a site count as votes of confidence, so they are factored into how well a site ranks for its keywords. People usually link to things that are useful, so the more links there are pointing to a site, the more likely search engines will consider it an authority (AKA a site worthy of doing well in their results). Also, links from older, more established sites count for more than links from new sites with few visitors of their own.

Try to get people to link to your main page and also some of your individual blog posts. Remember how I said the main page of my site ranks decently for “fantasy author” even though I don’t use that term in my domain name? That’s because I’ve written a few guest posts on other people’s blogs where I’ve linked to my own site with that keyword.

Eventually, if you maintain a useful blog (or you’re a great author!), these links will come naturally, but it’s tough getting noticed in the beginning (as with selling books, huh?). Guest posting is a good way to get links. If you do a book blog tour, you’ll probably be asked to answer some interview questions. Make sure to work a link to your site (with your chosen keyword) into one of the answers.

Also, if you get involved with social media (I like Twitter for spreading links), you can get people to share your links around (you’ll likely share theirs around in exchange). If someone who maintains a blog in your niche sees your link, checks it out and likes it, they might mention your site in a post of their own.

How long does SEO take before you start noticing results?

If you start employing some of the SEO techniques I’ve discussed here, you’ll be way ahead of the game. Most authors don’t know anything about this stuff (not everybody is a geek like me who’s been making a living online for the better part of the last decade).

It does, however, take time for you to start seeing significant traffic from the search engines. Plan to post to your blog regularly and work on getting links to your site (even if you just blog once or twice a week and try to get one link a week, you’ll be doing great) for the next six to twelve months before things really start kicking in.

I know that sounds like a long time, but you’re an author planning to build a whole career out of this, right? The good thing about SEO is that the things you do today (especially link building) will pay off in the future as well. Five years down the road, someone might find your site on Google, thanks to an SEO-friendly article you wrote today.

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