At this point, it is no surprising thing that the majority of book lovers use Google search to discover what they want. Most of them also hit up to search for books by their titles and descriptions. But how do these platforms know which books to show as a result? The answer, is SEO.
SEO or search engine optimization is a set of practices, tactics, and strategies that improve the visibility or discoverability of your product when online users look it up. Whether you have just started your Ebook business or if you want to increase its sales, working on improving your SEO should be your top priority.
When it comes to self-publishing and other platforms, there are a lot of factors to be considered if you want your Ebooks to sell fast. One of them is ensuring that it reaches its target audience properly. Luckily, SEO can help you accomplish that and more.
Optimizing an Ebook consists of certain important elements that help your readers and customers look it up more easily. These optimizing elements are:
● Title: Your Ebook’s title is where you use your primary keyword for optimization. Creating a title that uses the keyword effectively and isn’t too long or too short helps catch the attention of the customer. For example, if your keyword is “cooking on a budget”, your title can be “The Exciting World of Cooking on a Budget”.
● Subtitle: Aside from the title, your Ebook’s subtitle is where you can include various relevant keywords to help make the Ebook more visible. These subtitles use keywords optimally, make the cover appealing, and provide a brief insight of your Ebook to the customer.
● About: This section of your Ebooks includes its description and gives the customer what to expect from your Ebook. While it provides them with valuable insight, it is also a great place to include more relevant keywords to help customers look it up..
While it is not necessary, you can also include reviews of your customers to help improve the ranking of your Ebooks on Google. When optimizing, be sure to be careful with your keyword placement.
You can also sign up for an Author Central Account on the platform to further establish yourself as an Ebook selling entity on it. Creating this account is free of charge and you can add a bio and a photo to your profile as an author to help customers connect with you better. After your Ebooks start selling, they will have their sales page which will feature your author profile on them.
Publishing tends to avoid certain publishers who use unethical tactics to market their Ebooks. One of them is using black hat SEO tricks which include keyword stuffing, spam tactics, and using backlinks that you bought. Using these tactics can cause you to violate the Terms of Service that book follows and as a result, you might face some consequences.
Violation of these TOS can cause publishing to terminate or suspend your account, diminish your Ebooks’ rankings, or completely remove your Ebooks from showing up on the result pages. To avoid all this, staying away from these nasty black hat SEO tricks is recommended.
Your SEO depends upon finding the right keywords for your Ebook business. However, coming up with the right keywords is not an easy task since you have to do some research to brainstorm them. You can brainstorm relevant keywords by:
● Utilizing online keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner to create appropriate keywords.
● Typing in a relevant phrase in Google bars and using the suggestion list as keyword inspiration.
● Browsing through your competitor’s page or site and noting down the keywords they use.
It is important to note that only relevant keywords will sell. After you have decided on a list of keywords for a single Ebook, try to find the best ones from it. You can do this by typing in the first set of keywords you came up with in the google search bar and reviewing the first few results. Select the google Best Seller Rank of every Ebook that popped up and copy and paste its rank on the Sales Rank Calculator available on google. If the Ebooks aren’t doing well or haven’t been searched recently, then they are bad keywords. Cross out that set of keywords and repeat until you have found the ones that will ensure good ranks for your Ebooks.
After all is said and done, SEO is not everyone’s cup of tea and you don’t have to do everything on your own if you are unfamiliar with it all. If you are unsure of how to proceed, it is more viable to seek professional SEO services from an SEO agency or an Ebook writing service. Collaborating with a professional service that takes care of your SEO can help you with:
● Ensuring that your Ebooks’ indexing is done correctly, which includes implementing the right keywords and adding them to the right category.
● Marketing your Ebooks on social media channels such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook aside from using ads.
● Working and expanding your site to feature your Ebooks and monitor its progress.
