The Savvy Book Marketer

How Nonfiction Authors Can Build Niche Authority through Content Marketing

Content marketing is one of the very best ways for nonfiction authors to build their expert reputation and generate links to their website. In today's guest post, publishing and marketing expert Judy Cullins shares some terrific tips for using content marketing as a promotional tool.

Are you unsure of how to make yourself and your service well known, liked and trusted? Have you tried social media conversations without getting a bite or sales yet? If you are perplexed as to why what you're doing is not working, there's a reason – maybe several reasons.

My 13 years online have taught me one thing. That books and blog posts are a marriage made in heaven. They have kept my site name ranked #1 on Google for all that time, and brought me a lovely income doing what I love. It took steadily creating fresh content on writing, self-publishing and marketing books and business.

I set up my website so it is a major resource for authors and business people who want their successes "almost" guaranteed. I say "almost" because it's a noisy online world and your success depends on who you trust to get the best information, and taking action on that best advice.

Share your niche savvy know how and build authority in these ways:

1. Be on a mission. What do you want to achieve? And why?

A recent client found her mission during writing her new ebook. We brainstormed and came up with her specialty – assisting mature people to avoid serious falls using Balance, Posture and Exercises. A book is the number one way to define your niche and attract only your targeted audience.

2. Develop your own voice. What's unique about you?

To me, this was a real challenge because I loved all topics and wrote books on health, personal growth and business marketing. My voice didn't evolve until I came up with my central thesis.

"You can write a financially successful book If you make it short, how to, and one that answers your primary audience's concerns."

Too many professionals don't realize they are wordy, stuck in academia language, and tell (lecture) rather than show. These styles don't focus on the audience's needs and wants.

5 Easy Ways to Promote Your Articles and Blog Posts Through Social Media

This is the final post in my series, Top 5 Ways to Get Your Articles Found and Read Online.

 Now that  you have written a high-quality article with a catchy headline, you want to encourage people to read it and to share it with others. Promoting through social media not only draws readers to your article, but it has the potential to multiply your audience as those readers share your article with their own friends and followers. Here are five easy ways to promote your online articles:

1. Set up your blog posts to flow automatically to social networks.

There are several ways to do this. First, check on your blog platform to see what type of widgets or tools are available to flow your posts directly to social networks. If that doesn't work, search for apps on each network that can import blog posts. On Facebook there are several apps available, including the Notes app. Do a search on Facebook and on a search engine to look for popular apps blog sharing apps for your networks.

2. Manually post links to your online articles on your social network status updates.

There is some debate about how many times it's cool to post a link to your own articles. Some people post several links when an article appears, posting on several networks at once and even posting it several times that same day on Twitter. Personally, I find that excessive because so many people follow me in multiple places and I don't want to annoy my followers.

My  blog articles automatically appear on my Facebook Profile and on Twitter. Then I use HootSuite to schedule additional announcements of the post. For example, I might schedule a link to this post appear onLinkedIn next week, on Twitter the following week, my Facebook Fan Page the following week, and then on Twitter once a month for the next several months. I also schedule these posts at various times of day.

The Secret to Using Keywords Effectively in Articles

This is the fourth part in my series, Top 5 Ways to Get Your Articles Found and Read Online.

In the last post, we talked about how to find the best keywords for promoting your articles and blog posts. Now let's look at the most effective ways to use those keywords.

Keywords in Headlines

Search engines use the words in article headlines and subheads to help determine the topic of the article.

For maximum search engine optimization, use the primary keyword at the beginning of the headline, in the first three to five words. Here is sample headline for the "promote your book" keyword:

Promote Your Book With Facebook Pages

Also, be sure to format your subheads with a heading tag, rather than just manually making the font larger. This helps search engines identify them as headers.

Headlines are also vitally important to attracting readers. When someone is glancing over the articles posted on a blog or skimming down a page of search results on a search engine or article directory, the article’s headline needs to grab their attention and encourage them to read the article instead of passing it by. 

See this article for tips on writing effective headlines that draw readers in. Lynn Baldwin-Rhoades shares some great advice on writing compelling headlines in her article, Do You Know the 3 Secrets to Writing Killer Headlines?

How to Find Keywords for Book Promotion Articles

This is the third part in my series, Top 5 Ways to Get Your Articles Found and Read Online.

One of the best ways to get your articles and blog posts noticed by search engines like Google and read by your target audience is to use important keywords in the headlines and articles.

A keyword is a word or phrase that people would be likely to use when searching online for information on your topic. Here are some tips for finding the best keywords:

• Make a short list of the keyword phrases that you think people might use to search for the topic of your article. It's better to search for short phrases rather than single words. Three to five keywords should be plenty.

• Enter your keyword ideas into a research tool such as the Google Keyword Tool. This tool will show you how many people are search on the keywords that you identified, and also suggest alternative keywords. Here's a sample:

• You can download the keyword search results into a spreadsheet for analysis or later use by clicking on the Download button near the top of the list.

• It's tempting to select the most popular keywords, but sometimes you may be better off selecting keywords with less competition (fewer searches and fewer competing pages.) One easy way to find out how many other Web pages are using a particular keyword is to type the keyword (in "quotes") into a search engine and see how many pages it brings up.

• Decide which keyword you will use in your article and headline. I sometimes select a both a primary keyword and a secondary keyword for my articles, using the primary keyword in the headline and using both in the article body.

While it would be ideal to keyword optimize every blog post, that may not be practical if your time is limited. In that case, strive to keyword optimize your most important posts – the ones most likely to draw traffic and showcase your expertise.

Read the entire series here:

Part 1: Top 5 Ways to Get Your Articles Found and Read Online

Part 2: Produce High Quality Articles and Make Them Easy to Read

Part 3: How to Find Keywords for Book Promotion Articles

Part 4: The Secret to Using Keywords Effectively in Articles and Headlines

Part 5: 5 Easy Ways Promote Your Articles and Blog Posts Through Social Media

Produce High Quality Articles and Make Them Easy to Read

This is the second part in my series: Top 5 Ways to Get Your Articles Found and Read Online.

To get maximum readership, it's important to provide high quality information or entertainment and to make your articles visually appealing. When writing articles and blog posts, first write a strong headline and lead paragraph that conveys the purpose of the article and draws readers in.

Long, dense blocks of copy are hard to read, especially online. When people glance at the article, you want it to look inviting and easy to read.

Tips for Making Your Articles More Appealing

• Don't get too long-winded. If a blog post is more than 500 words, consider breaking it apart into a series. For other online articles, 600 to 800 words is a good range.

• Use short paragraphs and insert subheads to organize the information and make it easy to scan.

• Bullet points and numbered lists create both visual appeal and interest from readers.

• Use examples and stories to illustrate your points, when possible.

• Add photos or images to draw attention to your articles. You can find free photos and illustrations online or purchase images for about a dollar at sites such as iStockphoto. The illustration in this article came from Wordle.

Finally, be sure to spell check and proofread your article. I do that first in Word, then proofread the draft of the article online before I click the Post button. It's amazing how many times I find another error on my second review.

Read the entire series here:

Part 1: Top 5 Ways to Get Your Articles Found and Read Online

Part 2: Produce High Quality Articles and Make Them Easy to Read

Part 3: How to Find Keywords for Book Promotion Articles

Part 4: The Secret to Using Keywords Effectively in Articles and Headlines

Part 5: 5 Easy Ways Promote Your Articles and Blog Posts Through Social Media

Top 5 Ways to Get Your Articles Found and Read Online

Writing online articles is a terrific way for nonfiction authors to showcase their expertise, drive traffic to their website, and promote their books. Authors can post articles on their own blog, provide articles to other blogs and websites read by their target audience, and submit articles to online article directories.

In a recent issue of The Savvy Book Marketer Newsletter, I discussed the changes that Google made to their search algorithims in February of 2011 and how that is affecting article marketing strategies. Although traffic to most article directory sites is down due to Google’s changes, articles are still an effective way to promote books.

Now it’s more important than ever to write high quality articles and to carefully follow the submission guidelines of any article directory that you use. But how can you increase the odds that your online articles will be found and read, wherever they are posted? Here are five strategies:

1. Determine what kind of information your readers want.

2. Produce high quality articles and make them easy to read.

3. Find the specific keyword phrases that people are searching for.

4.  Use keywords effectively in your headlines and articles.

5.  Promote your articles through social networks.

How to Promote Your Book by Writing Effective Titles for Your Articles and Blog Posts

Writing articles and blog posts is a terrific way to promote your book. The title of an article affects its ranking in search engines and influences how many people click through to the article from a search engine results page or take time to read a post on your blog. Here are some tips for creating great titles.

1. Do your keyword research first.  Keywords are the words and phrases that people use to search for your topic on a search engine like Google. I use the Google Keyword Tool to create keyword lists for topics that I write about. For example, I have lists of keywords related to book marketing, book promotion, authors, book publishing, etc. 

Promoting Books With Keyword Rich Articles

Posting articles on your own blog and submitting articles to article directories, newsletters and other blogs are very effective ways of promoting books. Articles posted on other sites can drive direct traffic to your website and improve your site's search engine optimization.

Good keyword optimization will increase the chances of people who are interested in your topic finding your articles in article directories and through search engines. Here's my formula for promoting books by writing keyword rich articles:

• Determine the goals of the article: how will this article help you in promoting your books and what action do you want readers to take?

• Define the target audience: who are you writing to?

• Select the topic of the article: what do you want readers to learn?

Easy Ways to Promote Your Book With Articles

An ongoing article marketing campaign is a terrific way to promote your book and yourself. In the June issue of The Savvy Book Marketer ezine, you'll learn about easy ways to promote with articles, using content that you've already written.