While I am not an expert on marketing, I do know enough to get by. I know that a website that doesn’t change grows stagnant. I know that Google is going to drop you down if you don’t add new content every once in a while. And I know that a website takes work, a lot of work and it will never be over.
Q. How do I market my author web site so others will come to it and buy my books?
A. This is a question absolutely every small, fairly unknown author asks and honestly, there is no easy answer. Every business owner on the planet is asking that question. Every inventor, entrepreneur, realtor, service technician – everyone is asking that question.
The old adage of “If you build it, they will come” does NOT apply to websites. People HAVE to KNOW your book exists. They HAVE to know either your name or the title of your book if they are going to find it in a search. I can do a search for my name or my book and be found on almost all of the listings in the first 3-5 pages of the search results because I have played the raffle game. I have so many websites, so many social media pages, blog posts, book stores and poetry website postings, that I’ve got enough tickets in the pot to possibly win the raffle. Unfortunately though, if someone hasn’t heard of me, they aren’t going to get those search results because they aren’t going to type MY name into their search. The raffle ticket puller is not searching for my specific ticket. They’re reaching in for ANY ticket (book of X genre) and the first few that pull up are the ones they are going to look at.
You may have the best romance book on the market, but if the market doesn’t know about it specifically, that keyword “romance” gets put in the shuffle of the other 100,000+ romance books. Marketing, Advertising and Publicity take time and money. How much are you willing to do for your book?
In next weeks blog I focus on keywords and this definitely connects to this article. Stay tuned or sign up to be notified when it comes out.