Though I put a lot of thought into starting a blog and how to write a blog about 2 years ago, I admit that I really did not know what I was doing. In fact, after I paid for my domain name and contracted with a service provider, I put up an “Under Construction” page behind which I tested themes and wrote a number of blogs that I never allowed anyone to see. I studied a lot of other blog websites and tried to figure out Google tracking and ranking of blogs so that I could start fast.

The good news is that I learned some things. The bad news was that I also missed a few tricks. After a year (about 15 months ago), I redoubled my efforts to optimize for SEO and to add value to writers trying to write the best book they can and ramp their book sales on Amazon. My website ranking started to climb, as did the number of people signing up for my email list. Some of the blogs I wrote that helped me ramp my traffic include:

Climbing The bestseller list by optimizing my Amazon keywords

9 Steps to great book reviews from top Amazon reviewers

10 super easy tips to ramp your international book sales

Hemingway Editor + Grammarly App = Nirvana (almost)

When to “show” and when to “tell” in your fiction

Though there is a lot of material out there about how to start a blog — most of it on various blog sites — there is really no single answer or checklist to help writers (in particular) create a blog targeted at writers and the readers they want to target and then how to increase the visibility of their blog. In my experience, what there is ranges from blogs and books that are either simplistic or exhaustively detailed, often diving deep into technical SEO work.

In the spirit of being helpful, here are a few things I would recommend based on my experience with my WordPress blog if you want your blog to become one of the best blog sites:

Add value… Add value… Add value…

You have to say things that writers find helpful and want to read. You have to be clear and detailed. This one has been a little tricky for me, especially early on. Many of my blogs in the last 15 months have been fueled by my experience with my first novel, which has made it to the top 10 of Amazon’s (many) top 10 lists.

However, there are only so many things I can say about keyword optimization, how to price your book on Amazon, how to get reviews, etc. I know…it seems like circular logic: you have to know something to say something someone cares about hearing… But you have to start somewhere. So jump in and learn the ropes while your audience is small and share your experiences as you learn.

What I’m not going to do is create a blog primarliy about the craft of writing — there are already a bunch of very good blog websites for doing that which I can’t compete with. I do have a few strongly held opinions, which I share on occasion, but when it comes to the craft of fiction I’m not an authority. For that, I would direct you to Emma Darwin’s This Itch of Writing.  She knows way more than I’ll ever know about the nuances of the craft. (Interestingly, as of this writing, per Alexa, my blog ranks just below hers internationally, but well ahead of hers in the United States…hmm…)

Lastly, do I promote my book (and will I promote my future books) on my blog? Yes. Absolutely. But that is secondary to adding value to other writers. If my website is nothing other than a billboard pointing at my Amazon sales site, few people will visit my website and fewer will stay. I have to add value. I have to help others. It is what I want to do. My writing and my book sales are largely independent of whatever I say or do on my blog.

Yes, as a blogger you have to learn some SEO

Neil Patel’s blog on QuickSprout has been invaluable to me in this regard. Though about 70% of his blogs are either not relevant to me (such as optimizing a web presence for a local business) or just too deep into SEO mechanics, about 30% are extremely helpful. I am NOT an SEO expert by any stretch, but I’ve learned enough to help my blog get favorably cataloged by Google and served up on occasion, sometimes pretty high in the search results.

Your website must load quickly

There is a lot of SEO things you can do to optimize your site. One of the most important is pretty simple: Make sure your website loads fast (on both desktop and mobile devices, which are two different tasks). If your site can’t load in less than 2 seconds you are at risk of losing visitors before they even see your content.

I’ve spent some time tinkering with my WordPress blog to get it to do just that. I’ve played with a variety of plugins to compress images, load content faster, use content distribution networks, etc. Excluding the impact of network latency and a few other factors outside the control of my website and my hosting firm, my blog now loads in less than a second, and that is on the cheapest plan my hosting service offers (that is, my blog shares data center resources with other blogs — my point is you don’t have to buy an expensive plan for your site to load quickly).

You need your own domain

This may be obvious to many, but if you want your blog to rank for you, then you need your own domain. Going with one of the free blog sites for which the host’s name is in the url mostly benefits them. You need your own domain and host, which in my experience you can do for less than $5 a month. That is not a lot to establish your web presence and author platform.

Keep your blog simple

There are lots of creative things you can do with blogs: polls, graphics, videos, etc. But many are a time sink (and many slow down your loading time). Some of the best blogs do these things and do them well to generate more website traffic, so my upside may be capped. But I look to Google as my guide for how to present info. Keep it clean and simple. And I don’t have the time to make my blog super fancy — I’ve got a science fiction novel to finish and publish!

I have no affiliate relationships and I don’t support Google ads

I’m losing out on some (modest) amount of money because of this, but I want my integrity and the perception of things I say to be beyond a shadow of a doubt. If I recommend a tool, a book, a website, etc., it is because I truly believe it will be helpful, not because I’m getting money on the backside. Hopefully, Google won’t penalize my ranking for saying this. I’m sure they won’t. Right, Google?

Be you (and your Alexa ranking will rise)

Keep it real. Be yourself. For one thing, blog readers want to know they are dealing with a real person. For another, it is a lot of work to be something you are not. Keep it real.

And, related, play the long game. Assume you will be successful as a writer. Never blog anything that would embarrass you 4 years from now when your book is on the New York Times Bestseller list and someone decides to repost a blog you wrote one day when you were angry.

Hopefully, all this will help you figure out how to make a blog that is effective and engaging and a rewarding experience to you and that climbs in the Alexa ranking. It should not be something you hate working on, or that you do only because you feel it is a mandatory part of being a writer.

Feel free to write me directly or leave a message below if you have any questions or I can help you ramp your blog’s rank.

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So you are an aspiring author and keep hearing that you need a “platform” if you want to publish, which usually means a web presence. But you are new to the world of blogging, or maybe you already have a site but are not getting very many visitors in spite of cranking out a few blogs? Want some help that is free and clearly explained? Here are the 3 best, easy to use, and free guides that can help you.

SEO explained

I want to share three great sites that can help you figure out what “SEO” is and how to optimize for it. I do not have any monetary or quid pro quo connection to any of these sites or organizations. No affiliate relationships. I just wanted to pass on what I’ve learned along the way that might be helpful to you.

When I started out nine months ago I realized I knew almost nothing about what I was doing and how to ramp my traffic. As you probably have, I went searching across the net trying to find helpful guides and simple explanations. There are two challenges: First, to be honest, ramping traffic to your site is not easy. It takes time and know how, so you need help from people that really know how to do this. Second, there are lots – tens of thousands – of sites out there that are loudly screeching that they know exactly what you need to do. And they have enticing headlines:

7 Ways to increase your traffic by 131% in four days!

Cut your bounce rate in half with this one simple trick!

Climb at least 20 spots in the SERPS by Monday!

11 secrets every SEO consultant knows that you don’t!

Most of it is junk by hacks that are doing some kind of bait and switch or are scamming for your money.

No doubt every company that has an online presence is out to sell something. The smart ones and the ones with integrity know that they will make more money by offering you benefits while maintaining their brand equity.

So after sampling many, I have found three that I’m recommending.

QuickSprout

Run by Neil Patel, QuickSprout, is a great site that publishes very clear and simple-to-follow blogs about three times a week. The blogs are concise, generally about 1,000 words, but sometimes double that. And sometimes they are rich infographics. Neil focuses on things you can do to increase your traffic, and does so in a very conversational and engaging tone. He also shares his personal experience on occasion, to include mistakes he has made. Lastly, he has a very rich set of free guides that are very detailed and specific to how to ramp your traffic and engagement across a multitude of  venues. If I was only to subscribe to one site to help me ramp by success as a blogger, this would be it.

Social Media Examiner

In many ways comparable to QuickSprout, SME also focus on things you can do to ramp your traffic and effectiveness. They also drill into a single thing with each post that is narrowly defined and easy to take on yourself. SME is a bit more diversified with their authors, so you see a wider range of topics and tone, and there is a greater variety of how information is presented.

MOZ

This crowd is also a sophisticated “SEO” shop. They are a bit more technical than the first two, but also provide some very compelling, easy to action ideas that will help you ramp your presence. MOZ has a distinct sense of humor. They can also get too technical for me on occasion.

All three are free, so you can sign up to get their emails, which come about three or four times a week. So in total you’ll get about two emails a day from the three of them. I quickly scan them and delete them if not relevant (for instance, if I don’t have a Pinterest account and it is about Pinterest, I delete it). Other times I’ll be excited to find a ‘how to’ in my inbox to help me address something I’ve been struggling with (and sometimes they are things I did not even know I was struggling with).

QuickSprout and Moz also offer some free tools that can be helpful to you. And, yes, they are in business to make money, so at some point you will see pop ups offering their consulting services, or other advertisements. But they are usually not too obtrusive.

Don’t use “Black Hat” SEO tactics!

Another aspect all three share is that they do not promote “black hat” SEO tactics, so don’t worry about being duped into doing something for which you’ll get penalized. If you are not familiar with the term “Black Hat” it is a reference to ways to “cheat” and to trick search engines into ranking a site higher. Some such tactics work, though generally for only a short time, and once Google figures it out, they will “penalize” the site, in effect dropping it even further down in the SERPs. Additionally, if your visitors figure out that you are operating that way, don’t expect them to come back. You don’t want to be scammed or tricked, and neither does anyone else. So don’t do it.

My recommendation is that you subscribe to one or two, starting in the order I presented them. Don’t action the first two or three emails you get. Rather, read them and think through how they present info and what they focus on. After you get used to that, then start picking a few of their blogs or guides that speak to things that might be helpful to you.

Do not get overwhelmed, and don’t try to talk yourself into doing something that is more complex than what you can do. There have been a few suggestions that looked like they could be helpful to me, but once I began reading I realized I would be trying to do something I don’t understand. I don’t want to take down my blog because I started mucking around with the code and fouled up something. In this case, better safe than sorry.

But do be sure that it is a war out there on the net every day,  and the optimized sites will get more traffic. Content matters a lot, but so does optimizing your site and your visitor’s experience. Doing both things will get you more notice, which should help your book get more looks. And that in turn should help you ramp sales.

As to book references… There are a lot, but I’m not going to provide a list here. There are two challenges with books on this topic. First,  there are dozens of social media sites, and I don’t know enough about all of them to make any recommendations. Second, they quickly become out of date. So I’m back to were I started: Check out these three sites for concise, timely and up to date help on sites that matter to you. That will be your best bet to get your blog more traffic.

Thanks, and please use the buttons below or to the side to share with other bloggers and aspiring authors!

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Confused by all the different image sizes you need for your social media presence? Wish there was a simple tool to create the images you want?

Problem solved! I’m going to keep this simple by highlighting the best sources for both.

The ultimate guide to proper image size for social media

Social Sprout’s social image size guide is fantastic.  It lists over 25 examples that are frequently updated. Each template is illustrated and clearly explained. Here is an example for Facebook:

Canva: The simplest tool for great social media graphics

Canva. Go to their site, scroll across the top (screen shot below), pick what you need, and start designing.  If you are looking for a custom dimension, they can support that, too. Their interface is super easy to use once you figure it out, but it is not intuitive. So take fifteen  minutes to look at their “Design School”.

That’s it. There are other guides and other tools, but from what I have seen and used, these are the two best. Use Social Sprout’s guide to understand the dimensions of what you want, and use Canva to make it look beautiful. Simple!

I wanted to keep this short and simple, but do share if you know of other tools that can be helpful. Good luck!

Please share with other writers and bloggers by using the buttons below or to the right. Thanks! Allen

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The good folks over at SocialMediaExamier put together a helpful, concise summary of how to configure the security settings at a number of the most popular social media sites (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest). Before you go there, though, let’s think about what your security settings should be as a writer seeking publicity. Just as there are steps to writing a book, there are steps to staying safe. Obviously you do want to increase your exposure and how often search engines find you (or SEO — Search Engine Optimization — as it is known). You don’t want your bank account emptied, though, so let’s talk about some social media security tips.

Clothing is Optional when you are promoting yourself

It is a rather contradictory position in which to find yourself. On the one hand you very much want people to know your face and your name. You want them to feel personally connected to you.

For reasonable and appropriate people, sharing many details is perfectly fine. Unfortunately,  when you step into the public arena, you can be sure there are going to be socially inappropriate people as well as criminals in the crowd. Should you catch their eye — no matter the reason — if they come after you, they will likely use the information you have shared via social media sites. Worse, they will probably aggregate a lot of it to build a more complete picture of you. So if you are on six sites, but only put your home address on one, be sure they will find it when they are compiling data on you.

Have a plan and be consistent with what you share across sites

As you should with most things in life, start with a plan. Figure out how much you want to share, and what you will not share. For instance, print off the checklist from the SocialMeidaExaminer site. Preview the screenshots they provide before you actually go to the sites. Use a highlighter to mark what you are willing to share, and use a black pen to cross out what you don’t want to share.

When you are done, make sure you are sharing the amount of info you are comfortable with, and make sure you are being consistent from site to site with what you share.

Be conservative — anything that you release about yourself is out there forever

Be conservative when you start posting and communicating via social media. That is, share less rather than more about yourself. There is a good chance that what you do share may stay in the public domain for a very, very long time. It might stay out there forever. Here is another good article about threats to your security via social media that highlights how simple comments can reveal far more than you think. 

Promoting yourself while also maintaining good social media security is possible

It is this simple. And it should not take you more than an hour to prepare what you want to share and then go to each site and set it up as you want it.

Here is the link to the Social Media Security Checklist. If you find their checklist helpful, be sure to “like” or “share” it to show your appreciation.

Some other helpful references:

FBI — Internet Social Networking Risks Humans are a weak link in cyber security, and hackers and social manipulators know this. They try to trick people into getting past security walls.

Social networking and security risks – GFI  Social networking and security risks. By Brad Dinerman. The popularity of social networking sites has increased at astonishing levels.

For a humorous twist on Identify Theft, check out this video.

 Please use the buttons below and to the left to share with other writers. Thanks, Allen

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