Blogging About Books: Question about Key Search Words

Good morning, everyone! I have a question from Cynthia about using key search words. She asks:

"I've started a blog recently to expand my readership. But I'm not sure what keywords I can use for my blog. I tried Latinos and writers, but that seems too general. Please help. The blog is Chica Latina, and you can find it at http://chica-latina.blogspot.com."

Without going to your blog, Cynthia, have you thought about using the key words "Latina blog"? Sometimes, the answer is right under our nose, even as simple as it sounds. Think of the person doing the search. What is he/she looking for? Is he putting "Latinos" or "writers" in search? Highly unlikely, but he might be be Latina and looking for other bloggers of his nationality. I do this all the time. I'm forever putting "boomer generation blog" in blog searches because I love reading blogs written by those of my age. Any boomers out there? Let me know!

Just for kicks, and before going to your blog, I put "Latina blog" in google blog search just to see what was up there. I was mainly looking for your blog, but I didn't see it on the first page anyway. You can check it out here. If you put "boomer chick" in the same search engine, you'll see my blog coming in at #1 out of 17,800 other websites here.

But, that's not saying your blog might not be coming up with different search words, and that's why it's so important to zero in on your search words before you even begin to put your blog together.

Again just for kicks, I put in "Chica Latina" and there was a blog coming up third that looked like it could be yours, but it led me to a page that didn't have anything related to your blog, so I'm figuring this was an old blog?

But, the thing is, "chica latina" looks like it would work for you, but how many people would be putting that in search?

To answer that question, I took those words and put them in something I have downloaded onto my desktop called "Good Key Words." It's a free program that anyone can download, and everyone should have. I believe the link is www.goodkeywords.com. The results were 351 people put that phrase in this particular search engine (Overture) in the last month. Not real impressive, but it's okay.

And still for more kicks, I put "latina blog" in there, and it showed only 73 people over the last month.

Play around with search words by downloading Good Key Words and see which key words would work better for you. Keep an eye on your sitemeter, if you have one. Which key words are bringing people to your blog? That's a clue to what words you should be using.

Sometimes it's hard coming up with an exact set of key search words or phrases. If it's too difficult narrowing it down, have several. There's no law saying you can't have several key words or phrases that would be good for this. The key is to use them repeatedly, without being obnoxious. The most important places to have them would be in your title, your blog post headings and within the body of your posts, as much as possible.

BTW, I have littered each and every one of these blog posts with key search words. Can you pick them out?

Pumping up your blog with your key search words is the key to succesful online book promotion!
Cynthia, hope this helps!

The next post in this free book promotion workshop, HOW TO PUMP UP YOUR BLOG TO SELL MORE BOOKS will be about finding ways to get the word out about your blog. Meanwhile, if you have any question about what we've covered so far, or even something we haven't, but you're curious or confused about, leave a comment in the comment box. Your question will be delivered to my email box and I will answer it within the next day.

Thanks for being here, everyone, and happy promoting to you!

Tags: Blogging about Books, How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, Key Search Words, chica latina, good key words, online book promotion, free book promotion workshop

Blogging About Books: How to Blog About Two Books Of the Same Genre

I had an interesting question from Celise Downs about how to blog about two different books but with the same theme.

First, to recap, for the fiction author, there are several roads you can take as far as blogging about your book. One, you can have one of your characters host their own blog such as how Sandy Lender does it for her main character, Abigail (Choices Meant for Gods) and you have seen how well Frances Lynn has pulled it off for both her books, Crushed and Frantic (both from Eiworth Publishing).

Both authors should be commended for the extra time they put into this which rates a 10 on my pumping up your blog scale!

While it's a lot of extra work, both authors will find that as long as they keep their blogs pumped up, they are at least doing their part to make sure their marketing campaign never runs out of steam. Highly commendable.

Now, the question from Celise Downs is this.

She says, "In keeping with Frances' theme of setting up separate blogs for her two books, I was thinking about doing the same for my first two books. You said, 'I discovered what I like about author blogs is when the author talks about his/her life in the same theme of their books. I was wondering, how would I go about doing that for my books? There's only so much I could write about--personally--so maybe you might have some suggestions. Thanks."

I love it when people make my job easy. I went to her links and saw both were YA books, so both had the same general theme. You would think this would be a hard one, don't you? But, it's really not.

Years ago, I was writing for an online publication (that didn't pay no less) that published all kinds of articles with no real main theme. I decided to write about relationships, as that was what I was syndicating out at the time. I felt this was just another place to have my work showcased, so I felt what the heck, it can't hurt to have another place with my link in it, and continued to write for them.

After five or six articles on "soul mates," as this is what I write about, the webmaster emailed me and asked if I could write about something else. Truthfully, I didn't have the time and she caught me at one of those exasperating moments, so instead of searching through my files to find something else, I emailed her back and said, "Why?"

I didn't think it was a strange question. I really wanted to know what prompted her to tell me to write something out of my expertise so to speak. Did she not like what I was sending her?

She wrote back, "Because there's just so many things you can say about soul mates."

I've gone on to write hundreds of articles about soul mates and the website I was writing for? I quit writing for them simply because I thought that was the most stupid question anyone could ever ask me.

The point of my little story is that even though you have a certain "theme," there are so many ways you can write about it without it all sounding like the same old thing.

Let's shoot over to Celise's website to see the two books in question and I'll show you how I think she can handle this, keeping my little story in mind.

The first book is titled Secrets and Kisses (Geminimojo Press) and tells the story of Skylar Knight making her way through the final year of high school.

The second book is titled Dance Jam Productions (Geminimojo Press) and is about a local popular teen dance show looking for dancers.

Both are about teens, so it would seem that Celise would have a time trying to come up with two sets of blog posts with the same theme, wouldn't it?

But, really look good at these two books. There are underlying themes if you look close enough.

The first book is about young love, romance and that first kiss. The second book is centered around more of a dancing theme, although I'm sure it has elements of young romance in it.

What she could do with the first book, Secrets and Kisses, is talk about her first love, her first kiss, and all the things that happened to her during high school that kids would really get a kick out of. If they happened to visit her blog, they'd say, "Wow, she's like one of us!," now wouldn't they? They'd make that bond with her that they couldn't have otherwise. The blog will be excellent for that. She could even have one of the characters do a guest spot and have a little advice column if she ever ran out of ideas. Or, since "secrets" is part of the title, reveal some of her own little secrets when she was a teenager. I would love to have that blog; oh, what fun I could have with it!

The second book, Dance Jam Productions, is centered around a popular dance show. Maybe for this one she could talk about her own dance experiences. Or, how about talk about the lastest music videos, even posting a few on her blog from YouTube? How about--not to get too boring being as we're talking teenagers here--talk about different dances that have cropped up over the years? Or, she could do some interviews with dance choreographers or pop stars. She could even reminince about her pop star crushes over the years. The ideas are endless.

So, this is how you can take one theme and find underlying themes to talk about. So many ways you can do this. Just because you have two books of the same genre, you can surely find a way around it.

Hope this helps, Celise!

Tags: Blogging about Books, How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, Celise Downs

Blogging About Books - Pt. II

We were talking about creating character blogs on Saturday, and I received a comment from a wonderful author named Frances Lynn that I'd like to share with you because I want to show you two fine examples of author blogs that really impressed me. They were nothing fancy, no impressive header or graphics, but what it did have was the content I would be looking for in a good author/book blog.

Frances writes, "Hi Dorothy, my two novels, CRUSHED (a YA book) and FRANTIC ('70s' nostalgia) were simultaneously published (by Eiworth Publishing) in October. I'm currently writing a blog for each book. Any tips would be very welcome."

How can you mess with perfection? Granted, both blogs are badly in need of some good optimization tools, but this girl has done a bang-up job promoting her books through these two blogs and I'll tell you why.

I discovered what I like about author blogs is when the author talks about his/her life in the same theme of their books. Let me explain.

Crushed is a YA. In Frances' posts, she talks about things in her past that deal with what someone of that age group would like to hear about. Excellent book promotion, Francis!

For her book, Frantic, she takes it up a beat and focuses on her audience, her market, those who would be interested in buying her book, which would be the boomer generation, more than likely.

Excellent, excellent.

When you blog about your book, keep this in mind. I'm not sure what kind of hits Francis gets, but I'm pretty darn sure about 80% of the visitors who go to each blog are of different age groups, unless it's from visitors who are fans of all ages.

She asked for tips, so this is what I think she should do on both.

For starters, she needs to put up a sitemeter (www.sitemeter.com), if she doesn't already have one and I can't see it. I'll explain in a future lesson how you can use sitemeter to your advantage, but the #1 reason for doing so is so she can keep track of what people are putting in the search engines to find her blog.

The second thing I would suggest is go to www.feedblitz.com and sign up for their feed broadcaster. This is a newsletter of sorts where when people sign up, your posts are delivered right to their email box. More on this promotional tool later, but it is very important to have.

Frances' content is great, but she also wants to keep in mind to use her key search words throughout her blog. Not just in one place, in many places. But, the great thing about her blog is that she has enough content that even words that she didn't think about using will still bring visitors to her blog. But, she needs a sitemeter to determine that.

Another thing she needs or tag words, but I'm getting ahead of myself. That will be discussed shortly.

Overall, I give Frances a big thumbs up!

Tags: Blogging about Books, How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, boomer generation, promote your books, Frances Lynn