It’s hard to find a writer without a blog in this day and age. We’ve all heard we have to have a platform. We have to blog regularly to draw in an audience of folks who will be enraptured with our prose and want to check out (AKA buy) our books.
The problem? We writers are good at writing blog posts, but we’re not always the best at marketing our blogs, so our brilliance goes unnoticed by the blogosphere. There are lots of things you can do to get more eyeballs on your site, but if you do nothing else, do this: get other people to link to you.
The more links pointing to your site, the more of an authority the search engines believe you are. It’s just like high school (depressing, I know): it’s a popularity contest. More links means more status with the search engines. Your posts will appear higher in the rankings for the keywords they’re discussing (we’ll talk more about keywords later), and you’ll be more likely to be discovered by people who aren’t related to you.
There are lots of ways to get links, and some are perfect for writers since they involve–you guessed it–writing. Let’s take a look at a couple methods.
1. Link Building Through Guest Blogging
It’s hard to pump fresh, original, and useful content out on a blog day in and day out, so lots of folks open up their sites to guest bloggers. They invite people to submit blog posts (useful articles) on subjects related to their blog. In exchange for this free content, they’ll usually allow you to mention your own site and link to your book’s sales page.
It’s best to have a bit of a relationship with a blogger before asking to guest post, especially on more popular blogs. Maybe you’ve commented on the person’s posts a few times, or maybe it’s someone you know from a forum or from Twitter. Either way, the blogger will be more interested in publishing your content if she has a vague idea who you are.
Ideally, you should guest post on blogs where your target audience hangs out. There’s nothing wrong with posting articles about writing on blogs for writers, but also consider hunting down blogs related to your niche or genre. If you’ve written a ripping space opera adventure, then a guest blog post on a science fiction site could earn you some new readers. Or perhaps you’ve written an ebook on yoga for golfers. Try guest posting on fitness and golf blogs.
2. Link Building Through Article Syndication
This is how I do a lot of my link building, and it’s great for the introverts in the crowd. No human interaction required!
Write an informative article related to your niche and include an author bio with a link to your blog or book sales page (or both). Then head over to EzineArticles and make an account. It’s free. When you submit your article there, other bloggers looking for content can find it, use it, and include the bio at the bottom (with the links back to your site). Though it’s rare, I’ve had articles I posted there end up in major online newspapers. At the least, you’ll end up with a link from EzineArticles.
You can do the same thing at other sites as well. Google ‘article submission directories’ for lists (I usually just do Ezinearticles and a couple of the other top ones, since that’s where most people shopping for articles go).
Try these simple link-building techniques, and you’ll see your search engine traffic increase in the months to come!
Thanx, I knew about guest blogging but not the other. Will try!