For authors who may have yet to gain any prior expertise with it, search engine optimization can sound like a very complicated concept with many moving pieces. Increasing book sales, securing author interviews, and even building credibility with literary agents, editors, publishers, and the press depends on being found online. Even though SEO may appear overwhelming and difficult to you as an author, you will learn the most crucial suggestions for improving the visibility of your author brand or your upcoming book in search results.
Here we will discuss the top SEO plans for authors that would help you to build a concrete SEO strategy, digital transformation strategy for book authors and witness a satisfactory result on the SERP pages.
It’s critical to recognize that SEO for books and writers differs from SEO for other sectors of the economy, such as retail, financial services, or software development. Unlike other, more established brands, authors may sell various books in different categories. Additionally, because each category is fiercely competitive, you need to consider how someone can find your website without being aware that you are an author.
On the other hand, it’s difficult to predict what someone might need to search for if you’re an independent fantasy author with a new book coming out. Even if they were to conduct a Google search for “new indie fantasy fiction releases,” there would likely be so much competition for that term that, despite your best efforts, you might not be able to rank for it.
Here goes the competitive analysis
The word analysis may sound complicated and time-consuming, but that’s not what this will be. You probably want to avoid feeling like you’re in a rivalry with other writers as an author too. The authors you are formally competing with are probably your idols, and you aspire to follow in their footsteps. It’s alright. It’s not intended to compete with another author for book sales when an author conducts competitive analysis to improve their SEO, digital growth strategy for book authors and market their book online. Instead, it should be used as a research tool and launching pad for their SEO.
Your main interests are in the Top Pages by Traffic, Keywords by Traffic, and Backlinks Overview. When you run the scans in these areas, you’ll learn which pages on the author’s website receive the most traffic, which keywords they currently rank for in Google, and what kind of press exposure they receive from backlinks.
Create the right page title and meta description
Next on our list are the site description and page tags. Never disregard them in the name of higher site ranking. If you don’t handle things yourself, you’ll rely on luck. The first 100+ symbols of your page and a page title are chosen randomly by a search engine.
Because of this, choose it yourself or with the aid of plugins rather than letting the search engine do it. Keep in mind that this add-on is for WordPress websites only.
Keyword research
Knowing the search terms and keywords associated with your genre as a writer can help you choose the finest website pages and content for your author’s website. Additionally, it can assist you in making wiser choices regarding the media partnerships that will have the biggest positive effects on the development of your internet presence.
Since you’ve been working with technical SEO best practices for a while, you should be aware that keywords on your website will have a different impact than they would have on a more conventional company entity. Depending on your genre, it can be impossible for you to get the top Google ranking in the book industry due to the intense competition.
Backlinks strategy
The most crucial SEO strategy an author can take to improve their SEO and credibility is to build high-quality backlinks. How do backlinks work? A backlink occurs whenever someone links to your website from another, and you might think of it as a “mention.” Your website will receive more SEO authority from Google as more people “mention” it. The higher your website ranks in search results, the more SEO authority it has.
It’s crucial to enlist the aid of others to help you promote your books as you develop your author brand and SEO. Reach out to book reviewers on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms directly to accomplish this.
Nothing is better than practice!!
While author SEO is essential to your career as a writer, it’s undoubtedly distinct from other business models. Your aim as an author should be to gain visibility online through gratifying interactions with book reviewers, the media, and readers. Analyzing other authors in your field will help you develop a backlink strategy customized to your genre. Make a list of all the web locations where those authors are cited, and then take an effort to appear there.
Check out our business growth strategy for book authors.