SEO is short for search engine optimization.
Most of us have heard of this phrase but not all writers know what it means.
If we writers want readers to find us and find our books then we need to learn.
WHAT IS SEO?
SEO is a way to optimize your work in order to encourage search engines to show your sites and your books to visitors.
By the way, if you are just starting to build your website this article will help.
SERPS
If you type words like horror fiction into Google the pages that turn up are called SERPS PAGES (search engine results pages.)
KEYWORDS
In the above example the words horror fiction form the keywords.
It is these keywords that help search engines show you the right pages when you search.
In other words, search engine optimization is about making your presence known to search engines.
If, for example you write historical fiction then it is a good idea to add the keywords historical fiction to your site title if you can, or else use them in some of your posts.
You can also add other relevant keywords such as horror story, horror books etc.
This way search engines can point the relevant traffic in your direction.
A badly optimized site is not going to be found by the search engines. This means you will have few visitors.
So if are going to have a website then you need to know a little about SEO so that you can get the traffic and readers you need.
Don’t despair if you find that off-putting. If I can learn you can.
I will be the first to admit that I find technology difficult and everything about building my own websites has been challenging.
Learning as I go has meant plenty of mistakes along the way but that’s part of the process.
Besides this site I have also built some other sites including two for my children’s book: www.ballyyahoo.com and www.wildatlanticstories.com
I also built a site about one of my favourite past-times – gardening.
My sites are doing well considering my lack of experience and I am really enjoying the whole process.
However, there are times when I am irritated by the fact that some of the sites that score high in the search results are little more than adverts with no decent content.
ALGORITHMS
The reason for this is algorithms. Search engines trawl sites looking for content specific to searcher’s requests.
So, if for example, you type in the keywords ‘growing vegetables’ search engines will turn up loads of pages about growing vegetables.
However, you might notice that some of these are very thin on content, or basically consist of adverts.
This is because the algorithms have only been searching for specific keywords and not ‘understanding’ the rest of the text on the page.
So, for example, a whole load of gobbledygook with several keywords might turn up quite high in the search engine results page.
There are plenty of people out there trying to game the system with black-hat techniques.
HUMMING BIRD ALGORITHM
With the advent of the new Google humming-bird algorithm, that appears to be set to change.
Apparently the algorithm can ‘understand’ more detailed questions.
It can also understand language better.
In other words, it is capable of more than just zoning in on keywords!
REAL CONTENT
If this is true it should mean that real content can climb the rankings to reach the eyes of readers as easily as manufactured spin.
As a reader and a writer this makes me happy.
CREATIVE WRITING AND SEO
I have a passion for creative writing. To put it more simply – I love to make stuff up! Yet, I do understand the importance of learning more about SEO and Traffic Generation.
After all I would very much like readers to be able to discover my writing – I spent a lot of time writing my novel Piggy Monk Square and I do want people to read it.
But I could easily spend more of my time optimizing my content than I spend actually writing it.
This is not why I wanted a website and it is not what inspires me!
ONE STEP AT A TIME
So, the answer for me has been to take a measured approach – just one step at a time and I make every step an experiment.
The results of my experiments have got nothing to do with the concepts of success and failure, and everything to do with learning.
SHARING YOUR WRITING
One of my first experiments was to link an article about writing a bucket-list to StumbleUpon.
Submitting your work to other sites is a way to get your writing ‘seen’ by more people and I was really pleased with the outcome, my traffic to this site doubled overnight.
Many writers still shy away from the Internet but we are living in a digital age.
But, if you really want your writing to be found then you should make good use of the opportunities the Internet presents.
If you need help getting started with your writing click here.
Good luck with your writing.
Grace
P.S. All the information and help here is FREE of charge for you. All I ask is that you like, comment and share. If you have any questions I am always happy to try to help.
Another thing you could try is creating a featured image for each of your posts with the title included. It makes it easy for people to share on Pinterest and Instagram. And people are more likely to click an image on facebook and Twitter. They are also more likely to engage with your content on facebook and Twitter if you share with some kind of call to action or open ended question. 🙂
Thank you for the post. Not many people have information like this for authors of fiction, mostly just “reality” blogs.
Thanks, Amanda – great ideas.
Best of luck with your work.
Grace
I’d like to add thanks for this post to Amanda’s. Your sincere and helpful voice is a refreshing change from a lot of material on the web. Best of luck with your own work.
You are very welcome thank you.