A Little Known Fact About Revitalizing Old Blog Posts

As you know, I run Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tours, so this morning I was out in blogland checking out some really good leads for my authors when I came upon a blog called The Blog Herald which gives away some really good blogging tips. But, it was yesterday's post about revitalizing old posts to keep the search engines interested that I found fascinating. In this post, The Blog Herald even gives pointers on what to do to fix that. Something definitely to check out.

Because this blog is all about pumping up your online book promotion, I can't stress more about having a blog in which to pump up your book. While websites are static, blogs are not, and this is the reason blogs are the most search-engine-friendly outlet there is.

I had a phone call from a woman yesterday who was interested in buying my eBook, 101 Internet Radio Talk Shows to Promote Your Books. She wanted to know if the radio shows I list are strictly internet radio shows and I wasn't sure what she meant unless she was talking about radio podcasts which some shows do use, but I had to explain that, no, they were real radio stations.

But, being the inquisitive one, I asked her about her book and if she blogged. She went on to tell me that her book was published traditionally, she had been on several radio shows already, and was looking for more ways to promote her books.

So, I mentioned blogging and I asked her if she had a blog and she said, "No, I haven't gotten into that yet."

Before I knew it, I had spent almost a half hour explaining why they were important and even offered to help her to set one up. I took her name and email address and will definitely follow up.
It's amazing how many authors there are out there who have not tapped into blogging. I don't think they are lazy, but that they just don't realize what a great promotional tool it is.

In this one woman's case, she said something that made me realize why else authors wouldn't blog. She said, "Do I have to update it every day?"

I told her it would help, but as long as she updated at least 2 or 3 times a week, that would really make a difference.

I have an author who is finishing up her tour by the name of Kim Robinson. She balked and balked at having to set up a blog. "I don't know how," she groaned.

"Kim," I told her, "you get a gmail account so that you can log into Blogger.com and I'll put the blog together for you."

This was the only way I could get Kim to blog.

The first thing I told Kim was to name the blog the same name as her book. There was good reason for this. For these virtual book tours to work, the author needs to have her own blog so that she can blog about her tour stops as they occur and what better name to have for her blog than the title of her book.

Today, Kim is a blogging fanatic. She's inviting authors to guest on her blog and when she makes a post, she's sending the link through to her groups so that she'll get more traffic. If you would like to see her blog, go to The Roux in the Gumbo. Kim's a nice lady...leave a comment and tell her her mean, old, tour coordinator sent you.

There are a lot of authors out there like Kim. But, in time, I plan on getting to each and every one of them so they can understand blogs are important tools in pumping up your online book promotion. Don't overlook the possibilities.

But, anyway, go check out The Blog Herald and read about revitalizing your past posts. It's something I had not thought about and maybe you ought to think about, too. ;o)

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Book Promotion, online book promotion, author publicity, book promotion, radio talk shows, virtual book tours

How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books - Pt.III - Starting from Ground Zero - Teach Me Technorati - Q&A

I think I've found a simpler way to explain how to add Technorati's tag code into your blog posts. I've received lots of questions about this, so here's an easier explanation.

Let's say your key search words are "romance writer."

Go to www.technorati.com/tag/romance+writer (keeping in mind you will be changing those search words to reflect your own search words). But, let's just use "romance writer" as an example right now.

Once you have put that in your browser and the page has loaded, look at the bottom of that page in that green box. Above it will say, "See your posts here."

Highlight what's inside that green box and take it over to your blog. I'm going to be using Blogger for an example being as I'm not sure how to go about it with other blog hosts.

Go into your blog post and hit "edit html" at the top. It will turn your whole blog post into an html code. Go to the very bottom of your post and paste in the code. Then, if you want to go back to normal, go back up to the top and hit "compose." Your blog post will look normal, and voila, what's that down there? A tag? Sure, it is....you have done it!

What I do is put Tag: in front of it so that people will know what those words are down there for. If you have more than one set of search words, repeat the process, being careful to add a comma in between so it doesn't all run together.

In the future, instead of going through all those steps, go into a blog post that you have already added tags and copy the code. Take that code over to your new blog post and paste it in, being sure to take out the search words that aren't relevant and adding more if they are.

Hope that helps!

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, online book promotion, online marketing

How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books - Pt.III - Starting from Ground Zero - Teach Me Technorati - Q&A

Nell Dixon from the Nell Dixon Romance Writer blog has a question:

"I am so confused. What does technorati do again, exactly? Is it like google? Do people go there and look for stuff, is that why it's good to sign up? Do you
have to do this proceedure everytime you make a blog post? I'm sorry, I'm asking a lot of questions but I'm keen to get my head around it. "

Hi Nell and thanks for your question! Technorati is one of the many blog search engines out there in the blogosphere, but they are a highly ranked search engine in which many people swear by. I'm one of them because of their really neat features. Yes, it's like Google, exactly. They have a ranking system just like Google does, but Technorati is, to me, way easier to get into because it's instant; whereas, it takes a bit of time to get certain search words ranked high in Google. Or, should I say, YOUR certain search words given the fact that there are so many people who have been spending a lot of time and hard work to get their search words in the top position already (I'm one of them).

Because Technorati gives you a code you can put on each individual blog post (yes, it is important to do this with every post and I'll explain in a minute), it gives you a chance for your blog posts to be read. If you are having problems with visitors, this code will increase your visitor intake. Very good, in my book.

Why is it important to do this with every post? Because not every post has the same key search words. You should be adding your main ones, but sometimes your blog post has something different that you want added that wouldn't be relevant to your other blog posts. Look at my Technorati tags below. See your name down there? I added it because those words are relevant to this post. Hopefully, when you put your name in the Technorati's search box, your name will show up first. Why wouldn't your own blog show up first if you've spent months and years on your blog and yet my one little post using your name gets the top position? Because Technorati recognizes tags first thing.

If you are smart and have put your name in Google Alerts, this blog post will show up in your Google Alerts delivered right to your inbox either tonight or tomorrow.

But, one thing I must mention about Technorati. The first listings are fresh. In other words, posts that are days and weeks and months old with these tags aren't going to show up in the first listings, of course. And the first listings is what peolple see when they get there. That's why it's very, very important to put your key search words on each and every new post, adding other search words that are relevant to your particular post, such as I have done with your name below.

Yes, it does take more work on your part, but your efforts will be rewarded.

Hope this helps!

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, online book promotion, online marketing, Nell Dixon

How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books - Pt.III - Starting from Ground Zero - Teach Me Technorati - Q&A

Hi everyone,

Are we all pumping up that book promotion? I hope so!

Meanwhile, Rachel has a question. She writes,

"This is the most frustrating thing I've dealt with ever since I set up my blog.
I'm new to blogging and services like Technorati--I signed up for that, but
don't know if I did everything correctly. I still haven't quite figured out how
to add tags to my blog. There's a place in blogger to type *labels* for each
post, but that's something different altogether.I could really use your
help--the whole process is really confusing. And I had difficulty understanding
the instructions you gave in another entry. "

It can be quite frustrating to someone new to blogging. Don't let it overwhelm you, Rachel. Take baby steps so that you won't get frustrated. Accomplish one thing and move to the next thing. Seriously, the most frustrating time I've had since blogging is when Blogger changed the format. I would hear horror stories of what would happen to your blog if you went with their new version. I pussyfooted around, sticking with the older version, until...I was forced into it. I wanted a new blog and had no idea newbies were given the new version. I was fine, got my blog set up, and when I went into my other blogs, I found that they were automatically converted to the new version. I. Freaked. Out.

But, as it turned out, I was okay.

I think fear is our worse enemy and don't quote me because I didn't make that up. But, I could have made it up because despite what you think, I'm a real weenie when it comes to learning new things. If you think Technorati scares the bejeebies out of you, wait until we get into feeds. There will be lots of horrifying fun moments when we do that.

But, like I said, baby steps, and that's how I want anyone to land on this blog take what I've been telling you. Accomplish one thing at a time and, if you have questions, please ask because if I know the answer, I'll certainly throw it your way.

Okay, on to business...I think the easiest route would be to run through the most important steps:

1. Sign up at www.technorati.com.

2. Claim your blog.

3. Put one of your key search words in their search box at the top of the site.

4. Once the next page loads, look down in the right hand side and you'll see a bit of html code (actually, I think that's where you're having problems).

5. If you have blogger, go into one of your postings that the search word is relevant to and click "edit html" (if you have trouble finding this, let me know).

6. Put the code at the bottom of your post.

7. Click back to compose.

8. You're done.

BTW, the "edit html" is above the eraser-looking thing above your post.

If you still have problems, let me know, but it's a very important thing to know if you want your search words to show up in Technorati's search engine.

Hope that helps!

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, online book promotion, online marketing

How Do You Lure Customers to Your Blog?

As you all may or may not know, I blog a lot. If I'm not making blog posts, I'm reading blog posts. That's about when it dawned on me just exactly why it is I revisit some, and others I don't return.

When I open up a new blog to read, it's for content. If it's too philosophical, or too multi-dimensional to the point I don't know which land I'm in, I tend to keep on trucking.

But, that's just me. I'm sure there are a lot of bloggers that go for that and that's fine.

When you are setting up your blog to promote your book, you know the basic rule is to keep that audience. If the wrong audience lands on your blog, no matter what you do, no matter how many search words or feeds or tags you have, it's not going to make a bit of difference to them because they are there for content. You might have lured them in with your search words or your feeds or your tags, but if it's not the place they want to be, they're going to be history.

But, there will be those who land on your blog and stay there and the reason for it is that you have provided the content they were searching for.

Content, people, content.

If you are an author and you are solely trying to promote yourself, it's quite okay to talk about your life as an author who actually has a life outside of writing. Maybe I want to know what you did last Saturday night after you closed up your laptop. Maybe I want to know about that fantastic trip you took to Naples to celebrate that NY contract. Maybe I find it cool to find out how you struggle with motherhood and writing, too.

Content, people, content.

But, when I happen to land on an author's blog and find that they're talking about political stuff, for example, that is in no way related to their books, I wonder what in the heck they are doing. They are confusing me. I land on their blog to find out about their lives, or their books, and they're going off about things that aren't even closely related. But, then again, that's just me.

But, what you need to think about is, I am your customer. I have landed on your blog for one reason or another and if you do not have the product or the content I'm looking for, I'll find it somewhere else. There are far too many blogs in the blogosphere that I don't have to stop there.
Focus.

Make each blog post count.

Draw in that audience.

I picked up a magazine today that was about a conference for a particular restaurant chain, and inside I found out that the speakers they had scheduled were talking about the very same thing I teach in here. The power of online marketing.

I would like to quote an excerpt out of this magazine which really hit home. The title of this article was "Marketing is Everything and Everything is Marketing."

And here's the first paragraph as that is all that is needed to prove this point:

"Do you know what your business needs to be successful? It isn't location, it isn't hard work, it isn't a great team, and it isn't just an awesome product. The only thing absolutely required to be successful is customers."

Think about it. You can have the most fantastic product (book) in all the land, but if there are no customers (audience), you have a product that is going nowhere.

Audience.

If you want to be successful, you need your customers more than anything.

What I would like to do now is ask you, how do you bring in your customers to your blog? Give us those tried and true secrets as to how YOU lure customers to your blog, and on Monday, I'll highlight some of your answers who truly prove you have PUMPED UP THAT BLOG.

Have a nice week-end everyone and PUMP UP THAT BOOK PROMOTION!

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, online book promotion, online marketing

How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books - Pt III - Starting from Ground Zero - Adding Tags to WordPress Blogs

This just came in from Lillie Ammann for those who have WordPress and didn't realize you could use a neat little plug-in called Simple Tags.

Lillie wrote"...Simple Tags lets you type the tags at the end of the post without having to go into the html at all. It's a free download at www.broobles.com/scripts/simpletags/. "

Thank you, Lillie, and WordPress bloggers thank you, too!

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, online book promotion, WordPress, Lillie Ammann

How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books - Pt.III - Starting from Ground Zero - Teach Me Technorati

Welcome back! I've had requests asking how to add tags onto your blog posts, so I guess I'll begin by telling you about Technorati--what it is, how to add tags and what they are there for.

To begin with, Technorati is a blog search engine. There are lots of blog search engines...did you know that? One of my favorites is www.blogsearchengine.com, but the reason why I like Technorati's search engine is that they give me this little code that I put at the end of my posts such as you see down there. What I like about this is because once I click on any of the search words I put inside the code, it takes me to Technorati and shows me how well they are faring in their search engine. Nine times out of ten, my blog shows up first a few hours after I make a post, so if I continually put certain search words in there, I will constantly be showing up first in most cases. But, that's not all cases. If you don't see your blog showing up first when you click on these words, then someone else is optimizing their blog better than you, and that's when you know you need to make some changes.

Remember, using key search words will help people find your books, and it does work!

So, let's hunker down now and learn how to get this code and how to insert it into your blog.

Let's start with going on over to Technorati at www.technorati.com.

Before we begin, look over on the main page there to the far right hand side and you'll see a bunch of words underneath an oblong blue box marked "Top Tags." These are the tags that are the most popular that people are using to "tag" their posts. Click on the first word in that box. At this time, it's American Idol, no doubt because American Idol is in its final episodes right now and draws a pretty big crowd of bloggers talking about it. Just in case the words have changed by the time I send this through, the link is http://technorati.com/tag/american+idol.

Go to that page and look at how many bloggers are blogging about American Idol. At this time, there 24,355 people blogging about that particular set of search words. When we were talking about search engine optimization and using key search words or phrases that we want people to use to get to our book blogs, our goal is to come up on that page you're sitting at right now. With 24,355 bloggers competing for that top spot, what are your odds?

They're stupendous, but don't think that's any reason to walk away. Look very carefully at the first three links there. Which one has "American Idol" in the subject line?

In case this has changed, I'll cut and paste:

American Idol Top 12
in Jeanette’s Celebrity Corner by JeanetteJ
http://jeanettes-celebrity-corner.com

Bookmakers Not Impressed by Sanjaya Malakar
in Sanjaya Malakar
http://sanjaya-malakar.blogspot.com

Trashy Antonella Barba Pictures Right Here!
in Antonella Barba Fan Site
http://antonellabarba.zenblogger.com

Do you see how important it is to use your key search words each and every time you make a post?

Okay, go back to the main page at www.technorati.com.

Look in the left hand sidebar and you'll see "Top Searches." This will tell you which of those key search words people are using the most. As of this moment, "Antonella Barba" is the number one set of search words people are using, according to Technorati search. Let's click on it.

I'm only taking you to this page because I want you to see how many people are putting "Antonella Barba" in search. There are 9,929 places that Antonella Barba is showing up. Quite a popular gal, but we won't get into why that is, lol. This is a clean show, folks!

Alright, now we're prepared and armed and ready to get started learning how to use Technorati on our own blogs so that our own blogs will show up in their search engine.

You know, I find it really funny that it's so easy and that the results happen overnight, whereas, on websites, it takes months sometimes for our key search words to show up. This is a very good reason we should all be blogging.

Okay, go back into Technorati (www.technorati.com) and look in the left hand sidebar for "Claim My Blog." Click "Start Now."

The next page is their sign-up page.

Join, then log in.

You should be on this page --> http://technorati.com/account/blogs/#start_claim.

Put your blog url in the green box and hit "Begin Claim." I know it's a lot to go through but you won't be able to use all the features of Technorati if you don't.

The next page will say "Choose Claim Method." Hit your choice, but I find "Quick Claim" the easiest.

Once you have claimed your blog, you can start adding tags.

To add tags, you need to zero in on your search words and place them within the html code at the end of your post. In other words, I have blogger, so in the post I am in right now, I would hit "edit html" at the top. I'm not sure how WordPress or the others operate, but what you are looking for is a way to add html to a single blog post.

Now, the code. Let's go back to www.technorati.com. See the search box to the top right? Put your key search word or words in that box and do you see the box beside it that says, "in blog posts"? Change that to "tags," then hit search.

The next page that comes up, you'll see who's been blogging using your key search words. But, look to the bottom right hand side and there will be an html code. Copy that.

Go back over to your blog and add it into the html of your blog post, and voila, you're complete.

Well, almost. Now you have to ping it.

The reason for "pinging it" is so that Technorati recognizes you right away. So, publish your blog post, then click on one of your tags. When you get to that page, look all the way to the bottom left and you'll see "ping us."

The next page will say "Ping Us." Find your blog, hit ping, and you are finally done.

One thing I have to mention is that when you have more than one set of search words like I have below, don't forgot to put a comma and a space in between or they'll run together.

And that completes our Technorati lesson for today. Have fun with it, let it teach you more about using search words and if there are any questions, you can leave them in the comment box. Have a wonderful week-end everyone and PUMP UP THAT BLOG!

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, online book promotion, Technorati, blog search engine, key search words, Antonella Barba, blog search engines

How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books - Pt.III - Starting from Ground Zero - Tracking Your Visitors - Q&A

Okay, we're back. I'm having the craziest time trying to upload a trailer onto YouTube. It's an incredible file...I'm talking huge, so I had to go in and take a couple things down and it's still huge. Arg. But, I will win this one!

I'm also taking applicants for May for the Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tours. I'm booked for April, but I do have a spot left in May if anyone needs someone to set one up for them. I will be explaining how you can do this yourself in a future blog post...very soon..but if you're interested in having someone do all the work for you without you lifting a finger, I'm your man...er...woman! Email me at thewriterslife@yahoo.com for more information on that.

I'd like to jump right in with a couple of questions from Celise Downs. We left off at the point where we were talking about pumping up our blogs to sell more books and Celise had a couple of questions I wanted to answer before we go to the next step.

First of all, I have to tell you, Celise, that I'm very impressed with your blog. I understand the designer isn't taking anymore clients, and that's a shame because she has really pumped up your blog in design!

Now, your questions.

First, you ask, "I have a site meter at the bottom as well and wanted to know how you can find the search words being used to find my blog. You mentioned in your post that there was a way to find out. I clicked on the meter and it just gave me numbers. I'm not sure where to look."

Since it's been a few days since you asked this, I don't know if you've figured it out, but just in case, this is what you do. Go into your site meter stats, and look in the left-hand sidebar. Look under "Recent Visitors" and click on "Referrals." This will tell you where your visitors are coming from. In order to find out which search words they are using to find your blog, see if there is anyone coming from a search engine such as Google. If so, click on the link and it will take you to the search engine and show you which word or words they used to land on your blog.
Okay, Celise's next question was..."Also, OT about blogs---have you talked about--or plan to talk about--websites? In particular, separate websites for a series."

Actually, I do plan a workshop soon called Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion Workshop on April 9 - 30, which will include pumping up your website to sell more books, although I'm sure we'll be touching on website optimization in here at some point. If anyone is interested in the workshop, you can find out more about it by going to www.thewriterslife.net/workshop.html. I will most definitely be announcing it two weeks before it starts. This workshop will be a little different in that it will be more one-on-one and I'll be taking each person who participates through each of the steps I used to write "A Complete Guide to Promoting & Selling Your Self-Published eBook," so that ought to be a lot of fun.

Hope this helps, but if there are any questions in particular you'd like answered about websites, leave your comment in the comment box and I'll tackle it in a future post. ;o)

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, online book promotion, Celise Downs, A Complete Guide to Promoting & Selling Your Self-Published eBook, Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion Workshop

How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books - Pt III - Starting from Ground Zero - Tracking Your Visitors

Welcome back!

Today we'll be talking about tracking your visitors. Why should we care where our visitors are coming from?

For one thing, we need to know which search words are bringing them to our blog, and one of the ways you can do this is with a sitemeter (www.sitemeter.com), although there are various other site tracking devices. I choose to use sitemeter to illustrate this point simply because that is what I am familiar with, and have discovered how to use if effectively so that I can pass on the information to you.

Much of this everyone already knows, but for those who would like to be guided through the process, I'll show you how to do this step-by-step.

Log into www.sitemeter.com and you see where it says login? Ignore it. Go all the way down the page and to the left, it will say "sign up for a free meter." Click it.

The next page explains what Sitemeter is. Click "next."

The next page explains Sitemeter's policies. Click "next."

The next page, you will put in your blog url (for example, http://www.pumpupyouronlinebookpromotion.blogspot.com). Then, your site's name which for me would be "Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion." Then, your codename. Put anything related to what your blog is about. For example, I might put "pumpupblog."

Set your current time and hit "next."

The next page is all about you and is self-explanatory. Fill in all the fields and hit "next."

If you don't want enough spam to fill up twenty email boxes, skip the next page by hitting "next."

Check the next page over carefully in case you need to change anything. If so, hit "back." If you're good to go, hit "next."

Even though the next page says your signup is complete, it's really not. Hit "change the style of your site meter" and the next page will give you options as to how you want your site meter to look. Hit one of them, then "select," and then wait for your option to be saved.

Once the page reloads, look into the left hand sidbar and you'll see the words, "html code." Hit it.
The next page will give you directions as to how to apply your site meter onto your particular blog. If you know how to go into your template, you can simply scroll all the way down the page and hit "some help here," although if you have a blogger account such as this one, you can just hit "Adding sitemeter to a Blogger.com account" and follow directions which are pretty simple.

But, if you are still confused, and know how to add code into your template, hit "some help here" at the bottom of the page which I just mentioned.

Scroll all the way to the bottom of the next page and you'll see two html codes. My recommendation is to use the first one. Hit "copy as," then take it over to your template and add the code.

All there is to it.

Now, let me explain what I like about sitemeter and how I use it to track my visitors.

Self-explanatory, but your sitemeter will tell you what search words people are using to get to your blog. What you should do is carefully examine these words because these are those key search words we've been talking about. These are the words you have in the content of your blog, whether you intentionally put them or not. If the set of key search words you had in mind aren't showing up, then you aren't applying them frequently enough.

But, let's just say that people are using words in search that aren't even related to your blog and you want to know what you're doing wrong. You're not doing a thing wrong. The search engines' spiders have pulled these words out to give to this particular person a reason to land on your blog. It's all good, whether they have a thing to do with your blog or not.

I did a real fun experiment on my blog at www.overthehillchick.blogspot.com. There are certain search words that really do get a lot of hits. If you go right now to www.yahoo.com and look at the bottom right of the page, it will tell you what searches are getting the most hits.

At the time, "sex" was a pretty popular sex word (don't ask...I'm just the messenger).

For the experiment, I posted the word "sex" in the title of one of my posts, and watched the site meter. You would be surprised as to how many people visited my site on that day. What a surprise when they got there and it was all about a boomer chick, and not a wild one at that. If you want to see how I did this, you can visit Hot Sex and How to Do It and Sex, Sex, Sex.

So, this proved to me that titles are so very important.

Guess that's it for today. Add your site meter and watch where your visitors come from. They might just surprise you!

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, site meter, free book promotion workshop, sex

How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books Workshop - Pt. III - Starting from Ground Zero - Question about Book Covers

I thought a new blog post was needed instead of answering Kathy Holmes' question in the comment section, so here it is. Kathy asks, "I have my cover posted on the sidebar of my blog, but do you think it's important to highlight it in a post also?"

Great question, Kathy!

As for the graphic itself, it's fine just the way it is, and doesn't need to be highlighted in a post unless you come up with a new angle (about your book such as a review or book tour or anthing like that) and want to use the cover to go with the blog post. BTW, I love how you posted a link underneath the cover to lead visitors to an excerpt. Great promotional tactic!

If you mean blog about the book, yes, most definitely, keeping in mind to actually mention the book's title as often as you can so that the search engines will pick up on it. Actually, as you know, I visit your blog frequently, and I do know you use key search words throughout your blog. I'm curious, since you do have a site meter, what kind of hits are you getting using these words? Is it paying off? Do you find that most of your hits are from the search engines when people put in these certain search words or do you find a mixture of key search words and other words that you might not have thought would bring people to your blog?

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, Key Search Words, free book promotion workshop, Kathy Holmes

How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books Workshop - Pt. III - Starting from Ground Zero

Good morning everyone! Are we all ready to pump up our blogs to sell more books? Great!

To recap, what we have done so far is taken our blogs and realized how important those search words we include in them are for our readers (and buyers!) to find us. We want those search words in the title of as many blog posts as we can, and we need them sprinkled in as many blog posts as we can, without being obtrusive.

One very, very important thing that I might not have mentioned at this point is that if you are already published, or you're about to be published and have received your book cover graphic, PUT THE COVER ON YOUR BLOG. And I don't just mean in a blog post. That cover has to be in the sidebar where everyone can see it as soon as they open your blog up. Your blog is basically going to be the selling page for your book. Or, one of them, anyway.

One of my new clients has just started a blog, which I highly recommended her to do to create pre-buzz for a new book she will be having come out in the upcoming months. It's never too early to start creating that platform, and what she will be doing until then is developing it by blogging about the subject of her book.

What I will be doing is using her blog as an example of how easy it is to pump up a new blog to the point where she will be receiving lots of visitors if we play our cards right.

We will learn how to add features such as email newsletters, labels, tags, widgets, images, tracking devices, visual aids, all sorts of fun things that will help get visitors to our blogs.

So, let's begin by using Marilyn Celeste Morris' new blog, Once a Brat, in learning how to take a fresh blog and turn it into a powerful online promotional vehicle. Marilyn's blog is what I call unpumped down to the bare bone. What we're starting with is a fresh slate, but a good beginning as it is a blog with great potential because she is going to use it as as promotional vehicle to sell one of her previous books, Once a Brat, and to create pre-buzz for her next book, Camp Sobingo, that is closely related in theme and genre.

Go over there and view the blog before we turn it into a pumped up promotional machine. After we are finished with this part of pumping up our blog to sell more books, I'll send you to Marilyn's blog to see how well she has progressed since we first started this session.

After we are finished discussing the different ways you can pump up your book/author blog, we'll begin to understand the different ways we can PROMOTE it, so stay tuned!

If you have any questions at this point, leave them in the comment box below and I'll get to them as they come in. I still have a few questions I haven't answered, but they will be answered in the next few posts. Meanwhile, pump up that blog by adding fresh content and using your key seach words frequently!

Tomorrow's Lesson: How to Pump Up Your Blog by tracking your visitors!

Tags: ground zero, How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, Key Search Words, Marilyn Celeste Morris, free book promotion workshop, Once A Brat

Pump UP Your Blog to Sell Your Books Workshop II Follow-Up - Learning How to Use Key Search Words

Yesterday, we were talking about key search words and how to use them effectively to pump up your author/book blog in your online book promotion campaign. I had a few comments with questions from those who would like to learn more which I'd like to share with you so you can learn from them, too.

One of the comments was from Sis Zabrina, who was looking for the reasons why her blog wasn't showing up on the first page of the search engines with her certain set of key search words and phrases.

Her blog is titled "Power of Words" and can be found at http://www.wisdomthruwords.blogspot.com/. Her search words that she gave me were: motivational stories, inspiring stories, inspirational stories, quotes.

Before I even began to evaluate her blog for SEO (search engine optimization), I took her key set of search words and tried to find them on the blog, which I couldn't. Perhaps they were on a post somewhere, but nowhere did I see these exact words, so right away, I know that Sis has to change a few things in order to use those certain search words. It doesn't surprise me that her blog doesn't show up because the spiders can't find them. She has a choice: incorporate those search words into her blog by directly applying them, and continuously, or change them altogether.

The next thing I did was take her url and put it into Google to see just where she was showing up.

Oopsie, one link and it was hers. If this was a new blog and she hadn't really gotten off the ground yet, I could understand it. But, the blog has been up since August 2006.

If Sis wants anyone to know about her book, she's got to make some changes, but what I would suggest to her, unless her book mainly deals with the posts she has up on her blog now, would be to start a completely new blog, and talk up her book, or about her life as the author of the book.

My first impression of Sis' blog was that it was a plethora of newsclips and her personal impressions and observations living in her native country, and nothing that I could find mentioned anything about her book. That said, her words were beautifully written. Her love for Allah is apparent as this is mentioned quite frequently, but not to the point where it would turn people who didn't have the same religious beliefs completely off.

But, the search engines don't care. All they care about is finding those key search words and if they're not there, they go somewhere else to find them.

From a promoting standpoint of an author, unless she had lots of visitors, I would suggest to her to start a new blog devoted entirely to her book and the life of an author. From a promoting standpoint as far as the present blog goes, what she has to watch is how she posts. For her blog to come in at only one link and this was her own, I can tell you right now that this blog needs a lot of pumping up which Sis will learn as we continue with this workshop.

Sis, my advice would be to either a) start another blog devoted to your book and life as an author, or b) develop better search words and use them very frequently on your present blog so the search engines will find you.

Hope this helps!

Tags: Free Book Promotion Workshop, How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, Sis Zabrina, Power of Words, search engine optimization

FREE BOOK PROMOTION WORKSHOP: How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books - Pt. II

While there are so many ways to pump up your book or author blog, what I'd like to talk about today is content and how you can get more visitors to your book or author blog by paying close attention to what you post there.

It's a known fact--in fact, I've mentioned it before--your blog is the most search engine-friendly vehicle you have at your disposal and for 99% of us, it's free. So, let's take advantage of that fact and use it to its full potential to sell our books. It's book promotion at its best.

For starters, I want everyone to go to www.google.com and put in their key search word or phrase that you believe people would put in the search engines to find you. If you're having trouble narrowing it down, I'll use one of my writing group's free ebooks as an example.

Love is in the Air was sent out into the world last Valentine's Day. It was a free ebook that my writing group and I wrote for the sole purpose of using it for promotional purposes. But, more than that, I wanted to see if a particular formula that I had discovered to get it in the top position of the search engines would work.

Indeed, it did. It took one day for it to become the number one free ebook in google and yahoo, using OUR certain set of search words. Did you read that? ONE DAY.

Now, if I wanted to make sure our free ebook stayed in that #1 position, all I would have to do is continually blog about it, but as it served its purpose--to give readers a taste of how we write and, perhaps, check out our other books (and to see if we could do it, lol)--we went on to other things. However, if this was a paying ebook, we would, of course, still be promoting it.

For our certain set of key search words, I chose "free Valentine's Day ebook." Here are how those set of search words stand in the search engines this morning, almost two weeks after we started promoting it:

Yahoo (#1 out of 690 listings)

Google (#1 out of 256 listings)

MSN (#1 out of 454 listings)

Ask.com (#1 out of 13 listings)

The point I'm trying to make is that when your book is released, or even when it is about to be released (never too early to start promoting!), you have to come up with a certain set of search words that describes your book. It's all part of good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) planning because in the online world, the search engines are going to become your new best friend.

Okay, so do you have your set of search words that people would use to find your book and have you put them in Google to see what comes up?

Good, now we're ready to begin.

Click on the first listing and check it out. Do you see where they have used these search words to get into the number one listing? Of course, they have used other ways to get there including getting their link on every possible website they could, and other methods, but they wouldn't have gotten there if not for the fact that they were wise enough to know to use these search words so that the search engines' spiders could find them.

One mistake that most people make when they put up a new website or blog is list it with the search engines. Big mistake and a waste of time. I've done it so take it from me it doesn't work quick enough, and could take months.

The great thing about blogs is that it that it's an almost immediate reaction from the search engines. However, if those key words or phrases that people would use to find your book are not used continuously in your blog posts, it won't work.

This brings me to another important point. For it to work effectively and quicker, use those key search words in as many titles of blog posts as you can. This is another secret that I've used to get an immediate first place listing in the search engines. Try it and see for yourself.

All week long, I'll be talking about the using these key search words or phrases to pump up your online book promotion, but what I would like to do is if anyone needs help determining what their key search words or phrase might be for people to find your book, leave your comment and url in the comment box. I will be checking my email box frequently (I've fixed it up with blogger to have any comments come to my email box) and we'll determine which set of search words or phrases would work best for your book.

Happy promoting to you!

Dorothy Thompson

Pump UP Your Book Promotion eMarketing Expert

Tags: Free Book Promotion Workshop, How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, Book Promotion, Love is in the Air, free+ebook, search engine optimization, online book promotion

Blogging About Books or the Characters Who Bring Them To Life

Before we get into the next lesson in learning how to pump up your blogs to sell books, I've had some interesting emails and comments that I'd like to share with you. If you recall, the first lesson was all about how to create a blog centered around your book. While there were many wonderful responses, I can only share a few, but it's interesting how authors were very receptive to this. As most of you know, this is a new blog and already getting lots of hits. I want to thank all my readers!

The first one I'd like to share just come in my email box today. Someone had told someone else that I was running a workshop to help authors learn how to take full advantage of their blogs and this person contacted me, saying that she had a blog that was strictly to talk about her book. I couldn't wait to see it.

It's Harley A. Harvey's blog, a wonderful author who will have her first book, Karma, published the end of this month. What I found interesting was that I noticed that Harley started blogging about her adventures getting published--and I figure we'll hear about the road that follows as it continues--at the beginning of the month. How interesting to read about this because what perfect timing. Instead of waiting until its release, she's creating pre-buzz. Way to go, Harley!

I also want to share a comment left on yesterday's blog post because I think you're going to be delightfully entertained as I was.

Diana Holquist, author of Make Me a Match and the upcoming Sexiest Man Alive, has this to say:

"What a great site. Thank you. Just today, a truly unfortunate thing happened. One of my characters started her own blog to spite me. Seems she didn't like how her story was being told. It's already gotten sort of ugly. I have no idea what will happen next. It's at: http://www.gypsypsychic.blogspot.com. I'd love to know what you think!"
--Diana Holquist
http://dianaholquist.com

Well, of course, I headed right over to the blog and was just thrilled when I got there. In fact, with the right kind of promotion, this blog could really go places. I noticed that Diana is published by my absolutest favoritest to-die-for publisher, Warner, so I hope Warner knows what a great promotor Diana already is.

Another interesting story comes from Isis McGowen who left a comment on yesterday's post saying that she was already doing this on her blog. It struck me funny as I recognized the name, and then I remembered it was the main character from Schuyler Thorpe's online serial, The Starchild Universe. Isis' blog, which can be found here, has already captured my attention in that she's a kick-butt type of woman, Star Trek-style. Not really being a Star Trekkie kind of woman (I know, kick me!), I still was drawn into her as if she really was real and it was all because Schuyler thought ahead and knew that his readers would love to hear more about her.

Sandy Lender, one of the members of my writing group, actually has two character blogs. One for Abigail (http://abigaillovesnigel.blogspot.com/) and another for Nigel (http://sandylender.blogspot.com/index.html), two characters from her soon-to-be-released book, Choices Meant for Gods. Way to go, Sandy!

And, finally, a question from Celise Downs:

"I thought about creating a blog for my current character, too. I'm working on a YA series (hoping to sell to an agent) and the main character keeps an online journal like I do. That would seem like a lot of upkeep and I wouldn't know which angle to use: write something fresh or re-post the entries from the books. Suggestions?"

I suggested to her to not post the entries on the blog simply because publishers, for some ungodly reason, do not allow the published material (except for an excerpt in most cases) to be published anywhere else. However, she could post fresh material in diary style if she wanted to do that. Either way she wants to do it, it's an excellent way to carry on the legacy of her character and how many of us hate to see our characters die when we write, "THE END"? This is an excellent way to keep them alive, not to mention a great promotional vehicle to sell her book.

That's all we have time for now. Stay tuned for the next lesson in how to PUMP UP your blog to sell more books!

If you have any questions you'd like to ask, please leave them in the comment box and I'll answer them in a future blog post.

Happy promoting to you!

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, Book Promotion, Harley A. Harvey, Diana Holquist, Schuyler Thorpe, Sandy Lender, Celise Downs, blog promotion

FREE BOOK PROMOTION WORKSHOP: How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books - Pt. I

There are blogs and then, there are blogs. Some blogs are to entertain. Some are to inform. As an author who is looking to pump up her blog to sell more books, your blog needs to be a lot of both to makes sure you get those books sold.

I cannot stress this more: EVERY AUTHOR NEEDS A BLOG.

If you don't, you are missing out on one of the most VITAL elements in successful book promotion. If you don't, you will NOT see the sales you expect. If you don't, hop on over to www.blogger.com, or one of the other free blogging services, and set you one up today because I am about to tell you some insider secrets on how you can turn your book blog into a money-making machine.

Are you pumped up yet?

Today begins a series of classes of sorts on ways you can turn your book blog into something that will attract potential book buyers. Your audience is who buys your book and without an audience, it's a struggle. In order to get that audience, a blog is the perfect place to start.

The first place to start is with a blog that is entirely devoted to pumping up your book. Save those everyday conversations (unless they're related exclusively to your book) for other blogs you might have.

Today starts the first day you're going to pay careful attention to what goes up on your blog and how you can make your blog stand out from all those other blogs out there. What you will be doing is creating a powerful online presence, as well as pulling in that audience. After all, what's a book blog good for if it's not going to be noticed?

Surely, you can't have that happen because pumping up your online book promotion is your main goal in successful book promotion any way you look at it.

With that said, if you really want to draw in buyers, make sure you do have a blog pertaining to the subject of your book. Since most blogs are free, it's wise to have a separate blog for this so that the attention will be directed toward your book and not what you had for breakfast so to speak.

The point I'm trying to make is that in order to pump up your book promotion, you need to center yourself and figure out how you can turn your blog into a great promotional vehicle to sell your book without coming off as one big ad.

What I would like to do is give you some examples of blogs that are directly, and intentionally, geared toward blogging about their books.

Rachel Newstead's book is called Orphan Toons: Relics of Animation's Forgotten Past. It's not published yet, but what she is doing is creating a platform even before the book sees the light of day. A fine example of pumping up your book promotion. If you go to her blog at http://rachel-and-kevin.blogspot.com/, you can see what I mean. But, one thing she is doing wrong. She doesn't have any way of knowing who is coming to her blog and doesn't have a way to keep those visitors from returning. In other words, she needs two things....one, a SiteMeter (www.sitemeter.com) and two, a subscriber box where people can have her posts automatically delivered to their email box when she posts new posts. The one I use is FeedBlitz (www.feedblitz.com). It's a little tricky, but dependable.

Another great example is Kathy Holmes' blog where she promotes one published book and another yet-to-be-published book, but she carries them both off very well without being obtrusive. Her published book is called Myths of the Fatherless and I have to tell you, this woman is one of the best promoters I have seen as far as getting the word out about her book, without it looking like one big ad for her book. Her other book is with an agent looking for a home, but it's called Real Women Wear Red and she does an excellent job talking about what the main theme of the book is about. Even though it's fiction, it deals with women of a certain age which she blogs about quite often. Now this is a pumped up blog if I've ever seen one.

While Rachelle uses her blog to create buzz for when her book becomes published and Kathy uses her blog to promote an already-published book, some authors even go outside of the box and create blogs for the characters in their books. Quite a neat idea, if you ask me.

One such writer is Jamieson Wolf. I've read many of his other blogs on a daily basis and I have to admit, this guy is going places. If I can only write as much during one day as he does, I'd be set in books for life. What Jamieson has done is started a blog for one of his characters in his upcoming book, Hope Falls, which you can see here. In fact, even before he got the idea to give his character her own blog, he had set up a website for her which you can find here.

These authors know what it takes to create a buzz for their books, whether they're published or almost-published. Maybe they'll give you ideas on how you can pump up your own blog--or perhaps to start a new one exclusively devoted to your book--to create a powerful online presence not only for your book, but yourself, too. It's all in how much you want it.

There are many, many authors out there who take full advantage of this free buzz-making publicity for their books, and these are just a few of the examples. More examples will be focused upon as this blog promotion workshop continues.

Do you have a blog that is devoted entirely to your one book? If so, leave the url in the comment box below so that others can learn from you!

Tags: free book promotion workshop, How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, Book Promotion, online book promotion, Rachel Newstead, Jamieson Wolf, Kathy Holmes, promotion workshopblog promotion

Why Blogs Are Crucial to Every Author's Book Promotion Marketing Campaign

One of the things I stress that is so important in every author's book promotion campaign is to have a blog. Most of you are already aware of this, but for those who happen to land on this blog and haven't taken the plunge to set up your own blog, read on.

As you know, there are two ways of promotion you can go with your book: offline and online. While offline has its certain advantages, online opens up a whole new world of promotion for you that authors years ago never had the opportunity to participate in. Why some authors balk at setting a blog up is beyond me because what they are missing out on is a very big chance some of your buyers will happen upon your blog and buy your book. No blog? No sale.

I feel blogs are very important because they are spidered by the search engines every day. If you have written a book titled "How to Groom Cocker Spaniels," for instance, the majority of hits from search engines to your blog will mainly be those who put "cocker spaniels" in search. This is really elementary, as I'm sure you all know this, but what is more important is that if you have optimized your blog to its full potential, you will tap onto an audience that you would not have had otherwise.

As I've mentioned before, just putting your book information up on your website is not good enough. Blogs give you an opportunity to get that information out and quicker, too. Websites are what the search engines call "static," whereas blogs are not. Makes sense because we blog every day. A webpage that changes every day will have much the same effect (although not quite), but who has time to do that? Besides, blogging is so easy!

So, how do you optimize your blog to its full potential? The Pump UP Your Book Promotion eMarketing Expert will be glad to give you hints as to how you can go about this in a series of posts I will be calling "How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books." I will use that as my "label" for easy reference in case you just want to access those particular blog postings.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's lesson!

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, Book+Promotion, eMarketing,