In Part I of this three-part series on search engine optimization (SEO) for non-fiction author websites, I explained the importance of understanding how the Google algorithm indexes your website—determining whether your site will appear on the first page of a Google search or the tenth.
Here, Part II features 13 insider tips and strategies that will help you get your author website to show up near the top of Google searches. This translates into more visitors to your site, more publicity for you and your book, and hopefully more book sales, speaking gigs, new client acquisitions, and fresh publishing opportunities.
Some Basic Google Recommendations for Your Book Author Website
For good basic SEO for your website, follow this logical concept. Google has to totally understand what your website is all about, determine the focus of the site as well as what each page is about, and evaluate the content as credible and resourceful information that is appropriate to show people searching for exactly what you are offering. That sounds like a relatively simple thing—but you’d be surprised how many websites do NOT do that!
Here are a dozen tips for your SEO that will help focus your website better:
1. Resist SEO snake oil offers. There’s no magic dust to sprinkle on your site to make Google love it. Ignore any offers, come-ons, or sales calls you might receive from SEO companies that try to convince you differently.
2. Don’t try to fool Google. Don’t do, or let anyone else do, anything designed to trick or manipulate Google to like you better. Though this stuff worked well in the past, Google is wise to it all now, and will penalize you for trying to “game” the system. Your site could disappear from the search results.
3. Tag your images. Google can’t yet totally understand all those wonderful images on your website. There’s a short sentence of text available in the Alt Tag to inform Google what the image is about specifically. Many people leave this blank, missing an opportunity to “talk” to Google. Balance your site with nice, tagged images (but see number 4).
4. Content rules. Images are nice, but the written word is king. For good SEO, EACH page of your site should have approximately 400 words of well-written copy.
5. Write unique pages. The copy on each page of your website should be unique to that particular page, and have a singular focus. In other words, don’t have one page about your recent book, your credentials, and your media hits—those are three different things. Create a separate page for each topic area you want to address.
6. Don’t have “duplicate content.” Google does not like redundancy on the Internet (or on your own website) and this could have a negative effect on how they evaluate your website. So don’t have your bio or any other identical copy on EVERY page!
7. Wow them on the Home Page. Your Home Page should be absolutely incredible! It should have wonderful copy that captures the essence of what you’re all about. If your website is about YOU as an author, then THAT is what the Home Page should be about: YOU! Create passionate, interesting, and exciting copy. (Often a person’s About Page mistakenly contains all the copy and content that really should make up the Home Page.)
8. Make the menu user-friendly. Your menu navigation items should be descriptive with an adjective. If you’re a self-help book writer, your menu item should not just simply be “Books,” it should be “Self-Help Books.” Tell Google exactly what that page is all about—be pinpoint specific.
9. Resist clutter. Don’t clutter up your site with a gazillion things on each page. If you want to include a CTO (call to action), keep it simple per page. You can have a “Click Here to Buy My Book”—but don’t have four different things going on asking people to click on this, that, and the other thing!
10. Streamline contact forms. If you’re prompting visitors to fill out a contact form or mailing list, keep the info requested minimal. Studies show you turn people off by requesting too much.
11. Don’t “over-link.” It’s nice to get websites related to what you do to link to your own website, because it can increase your traffic. It’s NOT a good idea to link out to too many other websites. If you do, you’re just sending your visitors away! Don’t “trade links” with another friend’s website (I’ll put one yours on mine if you put mine on yours). Google is wise to that ‘reciprocal link’ tactic.
12. Make your site mobile friendly. More and more people are viewing websites on mobile devices. Make sure your site looks and works great on mobile. If not, do something about it.
13. Use Google Analytics. Install the free Google Analytics code on every page of your website. Your web developer can most likely do this for you. There are many SEO articles about how to do it. Google Analytics will generate substantial data about the performance of your website—how many visitors, where they are from, what pages they view, for how long, new visitors vs. old ones, demographics, etc. Moreover, Google Analytics will tell you how many visitors came from search, from social media, from referrals (other sites linking to you), and directly (typed in your URL or had you bookmarked). You will also see what percentage of your visitors are viewing you on mobile devices.
Got it? As you can see, there’s a lot YOU can do to optimize your website to turn it into a robust publicity tool for you and your book. In Part III, I’ll offer tips on how to find a good SEO person who can help you, in case you don’t have the time or inclination to do it yourself.