Nonfiction Ink

By Penny Sansevieri. Reprinted from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com

There’s a story that circulated heavily back when Van Halen was still actively touring. The story was part of the whole “aren’t they diva’s” that fan mags used to love to kvetch about. It started when Van Halen insisted that the concert venue have a bowl of M&M’s in their dressing room but remove all the brown ones. Turns out it wasn’t a diva-act at all. Eddie Van Halen was a perfectionist and the band had extensive lighting and sound requirements for each performance. Eddie knew that if he checked the bowl and there were brown M&M’s that likely the venue hadn’t read the contract and things that would directly affect the show were likely overlooked as well. Really a brilliant move. With one simple clause inserted he could be alerted to a potential problem before it affected their show. So how does this relate to book marketing? Well, my question is: what are your brown M&M’s? Or better yet, what are some key things that are in place to help you know if your marketing is working, or if it isn’t?

So often, we plod along, marketing and marketing and then when our royalty check arrives we find that our sales are paltry at best and assume that our marketing isn’t working. Measuring success in sales is not a good barometer for success. Why? If you need clarification of this you should read my piece on Why (Some) Authors Fail. Find other triggers. Let’s look at a few.

First off let’s look at some numbers. No, not book sales, other numbers. How is your Twitter account doing? How much traffic are you getting to your Facebook Fan Page? What about your website? Do you notice any trends in your work as it correlates to your traffic and/or Twitter sign-ups? Keep in mind that if you’re blogging, twittering, and using Facebook and you’re not increasing traffic then something is wrong. In other words, brown M&M’s everywhere.

What about speaking or book events? If you do these ask yourself how successful they are. Do you get lots of newsletter sign-ups when you do these? Do you make lots of sales? If not, why do you even bother? More brown M&M’s.

Your website: if you’re getting traffic, what are they doing when they land there? Nothing? You have more brown M&M’s than you know what to do with. Your website is your 24/7 sales tool and if it’s not working for you, it’s working against you.

They key focus here is that you need to find a good, solid set of triggers. If those triggers aren’t responding, or in some cases are, then you know that you have a bigger problem. Make sure that you’re doing periodic “sound checks” to make sure your marketing campaign is operating at its peak and most of all, make darned sure there are no brown M&M’s.

MEASURING RESULTS

Now, let’s look at how to measure results. It’s one thing to be aware of all of these issues, it’s quite another to figure out how to track them.

Twitter: There are a bunch of Twitter analytic tools (meaning tools that help you analyze your Twitter traffic, sign-ups, etc). My favorite is: TwitterCounter.com, but if you’re looking for a variety, here’s a great list to choose from.

Speaking events: so how do you know if your events aren’t working? Well, let’s do a quick check-in. First off, do you feel like you’re getting good leads from the event? Are people buying your book? Are you getting asked back? Does speaking help to sell other products or services? When I speak, it’s not always about selling my book, though my bookis my business card, it’s really about introducing new authors to our company. Ask yourself if you’re doing this for the fame of doing a speaking gig or if they are really paying off for you. It could also be that you’re not doing enough promotion to support the event. For example, if you’re doing an event in a bookstore you should always try and promote the event to the local media as well as any local lists you have.

Website: if you have analytics on your site (and you should) take a look at traffic patterns on specific days that you push content such as each time you blog, or daily as you post to Twitter. You need to look at “unique visitors” as well as where they’re coming from. An analytics report will show how and where the traffic is finding you. For example, you might read the report and see that 30% of your traffic is finding you through your Twitter account. What does this tell you? It tells you that you need to spend more time on Twitter because 30% is a very high number. Having a look at traffic will really help you understand the places you’re getting traffic from and then when you discover this, you can create a roadmap to follow in the future. You can dump the useless stuff and do more of what matters.

The Van Halen story is a great one and can be applied to virtually any industry you’re in. Setting up systems so you can be alerted to problems before they arise is always smart and will save you not only time, but valuable marketing dollars as well.

By Penny Sansevieri. Reprinted from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com

In the past few months, I’ve come in contact with numerous bloggers who are ready to take their work from blog to book. Maybe it’s the influence of movies like Julie and Julia, it’s hard to tell, but suffice it to say the idea of selling your blog to a publisher is very appealing to a good many bloggers. But what does it really take to get your blog noticed? Here are some tips if you’re trying to raise the bar on your blog and get it noticed by a publisher:

Ironically, many of the rules of good blogging apply to this article and the first is: Blog often. If you’re a serious blogger you are likely posting daily, if you’re not, then you probably don’t have much to say. If you want to get your blog noticed, you need to be blogging daily. Why? Because it’ll not only help you look massively articulate, but it’ll really help with your traffic and search ranking, and let’s face it: If no one is finding you, how do you expect a publisher to discover your work?

Write great blog posts: OK, I know this is probably another “duh” tip, but here’s the deal: if you’re blogging every day you need to keep your writing strong. Not all your blog posts will be worthy of front page news, but your writing must remain consistently good and your blog posts should be unique, helpful, enlightening, or whatever your goal for the blog is.

Be consistent in your message: in other words, don’t change horses mid-race. If you start a blog on, let’s say, dogs, don’t start talking about guinea pigs three posts into it. You’ll have a boatload of dog people going “huh?” Keep it topical and on message always.

Educate yourself in publishing: if you’re going to compete in this market (meaning publishing) you’re going to want to get to know the industry. Go to (writers) conferences, read some of the trade publications (like Publishers Weekly) and dig into this market. If you find that what you’re blogging on is super-hot, you might want to ramp up the promotion of your blog.

See who’s buying what: there’s a site I highly recommend called publishersmarketplace.com. You can register there for either their free or paid Publishers Lunch newsletter, and with that you’ll also get Lunch Weekly, which shows you who is signing and what they’re buying. If you get a membership on the site you can also dig in and find Editors and Agents that might be interested in your topic.

Tell people you have a blog: do you have a signature file on your email? If you don’t you should, this is the first and one of the best places to promote a blog. Second, get business cards and make sure your blog address is listed there.

Get a unique URL: if you’re going to be a serious blogger get a serious domain name. Yes, you can get sallyauthor.blogspot.com but that’s not your own property. Meaning that Google still owns this. If you’re going to be a real blogger, do you really want someone else owning your blog? I don’t think so. Buy a domain name and make sure your blog is hosted there.

Brand yourself: when you’re ready and you have the budget, find someone who can turn your blog into a custom site. They’re great and super easy to do (read: not that expensive) and make a fantastic first impression.

Do some social networking on blogs: get to know your space, meaning get to know who else is doing what you’re doing and make friends. Unless you’re sitting on the most original idea on the planet, I don’t believe in competition. Get to know who else is out there and start commenting on their blog posts so they know you. There’s a great way to discover the top people in your market. Go to a blog search site like Google blog search, type in your keyword and start following the top five bloggers in your market. See what they do, learn from the pros and then thank them for their knowledge by posting helpful comments on their blog (bloggers love comments, by the way). I have a whole article on social networking on blogs that you can read here. Many of the tips will be helpful to you as you continue to cyber-schmooze online.

Market your blog: now that you have a unique URL and branding, you’re going to want to start marketing it. You can do this by getting a Twitter page and feeding your blog through your account (you can use Twitterfeed.com to do this). You should also consider getting a Facebook Fanpage (again branded to your blog) and feed your blog through that as well. Why do you want to do this? Well, it’s important to get as many access points as possible, right? Social networking sites are feeder sites. Use the content on these sites to help you dig deeper into your markets and gather new readers for your blog.

Make your blog shareable: Make sure that folks can share your blog posts to sites like Twitter, Facebook, and all the social bookmarking sites. It’s an easy widget to add and most blogs come with this pre-installed.

Social bookmarking: it’s good to social bookmark all your posts. Yes, and I do mean all of them. You should bookmark on the major sites like Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, and Social Poster. You can add more to this list but those are the majors.

Keep good track of your stats: this is another reason why you want to have your own site: so you can keep track of your traffic, which you can’t do if someone else owns your domain. You’ll want to keep a close eye on your blog traffic and learn how to read the site analytics (which is a lot easier than it sounds).

Reprinted by permission from PR Takeoff Jet Set Ezine.

Like all functions of marketing, PR campaigns can have an immediate payout, but they are also invaluable as a long-term investment. When first starting out, the best place to focus your time and energy is likely in your local market, where your business is based. This can lead to immediate awareness and credibility in your own town; and it is also slightly “easier” to book yourself, simply because the local media is more inclined to profile someone who is an expert in their own market.

That said, most people have longer-term investment strategies in mind when they begin a PR campaign. As you get some experience under your belt within your own market, you will want to begin strategically expanding to other local markets as well. Why? Because by making this investment to build your media profile, you ultimately can grow your business in the following ways:

• In order to get any national broadcast coverage, you will be asked to submit a reel of your previous appearances. A local morning show appearance is the perfect thing to include, preferably several appearances. With slight exceptions when it comes to breaking news, no national broadcast will even consider an expert until they have some local TV experience…unless, for example, you are a person somehow tied-to breaking news, such as if Tiger Woods is your client.
• Once you have a media reel, you can leverage this for paid opportunities as well. For example, let’s say you are a financial planner specializing in retirement strategies. A credit card company that is targeting the retiree marketplace could hire you as their media spokesperson and/or sponsor a series of webisodes. This gets you a.) a nice payment; b.) more exposure; and c.) your PR “pitching” is done for you at that point by the company that hired you. Current examples of this can be seen on a daily basis – Suze Orman partnered with a credit card company; then went into malls across America on a tour; and got an ABC World News story out of it. None of this happens without having previous media exposure.
• Local hits allow you to immediately continue to build your list.
• If you decide to publish a book, having had local media experience generally makes it easier to get future media interviews, ultimately reaching a wider audience. Having a media profile also allows you to potentially go the traditional publishing route via an outside publisher, as opposed to self-publishing.

Not to mention, when you do get on a national TV show, you will be extremely grateful for the experience you have accumulated in front of the camera. Nothing says, “It’s go time!” like having a camera pointed at you during a live, national segment!

Regina Novickis and Stacey Johnes have nearly 30 years of combined experience helping both emerging and global brands take off and enter the spotlight through public relations. They apply their creativity, strategies and proven know-how to help business owners and experts get their message out to the world. If you’re ready to get your company off the ground and soaring through the incredible power of public relations, get your free tips now at www.PRTakeoff.com.

Read my guest blog post How To Find A Literary Agent (When You’ve Self-Published) at The Savvy Book Marketer.

Leili McKinley is an award winning entrepreneur, social media coach and branding architect for authors and writers.  Utilizing her expertise in branding, search engine optimization (SEO), social media and e-commerce, Leili empowers her clients with marketing insight and assists them in increasing their overall profitability. Visit her website for more information.

Q:  What are some of the steps a published author can take to promote their book?

The first thing any author or writer should do is make their book their business. Whether you have a store that sells shoes or a site that sells pencils, once you’re published, you need to sell your book and that means digging in and marketing it just as you would with any other product.

Put your book front and center beginning with a web page to showcase it. Build momentum around the website through blog posts and by exchanging links to drive traffic to the site.

Consider offering sample chapters as free downloads. Covert a few into PDF files and let people get a taste for what the book is all about.

Giving away copies of your book is great if you’re giving the copies to the right people. You can use the book as your calling card and share it with influential individuals and reviewers to generate publicity.

There are truly hundreds of creative ways to begin the branding and marketing process for a published book, but what it all boils down to is consistency and dedication. The book needs to be a focal point. Layout your marketing objectives and make sure that efforts support what your book’s goals are.

Q:  If an author has a limited budget, can they still succeed in marketing their book?

Absolutely! Marketing your book on a shoestring budget isn’t difficult. The power of the Internet makes it very convenient to leverage electronic communication and presence. Connection with individual readers, book clubs, review groups and power bloggers is easier than ever. The only cost  associated with marketing your book online is time. It takes quite a bit of time to build relationships within networking communities, but it is completely worth it because of the credibility that an author can build and the fan following that will come with it.

Q: What marketing advice would you give to a non-published author or someone in the process of writing a book?

Start building your platform now. The most successful book launches happen because the author has a built in audience. You see this happen with celebrity books. However, unknown authors like Hugh Macleod have made the bestseller lists instantly, by selling into an audience, instead of trying to find one after the book is finished.

If you see what I am doing with my clients, we develop their brand and their platform before they even send their first query letter. We have watched it make a huge difference in the acceptance of authors by agents, editors and publishers. We are building the very platform these folks want to see in the marketing plan for the book.

Q: What marketing advice would you give to a newly published author?

Once a book has been printed, the window of opportunity to promote and market a new book is a small one. It needs to be done quickly, but also done succinctly. It’s important to develop a one sheet, distribute press releases, plan a book launch tour and set-up speaking engagements, not to mention maintaining the social media aspects to keep the online momentum going.

Take the time to write a business plan just like you would with any other business. Look at your competition, analyze the book marketplace and think about what you can do to set yourself apart. Having a plan in place will serve as a road map to the author’s success.

By Penny Sansevieri. Reprinted from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com

If you’ve ever searched your site on Google and then sat in wonder trying to figure out what page it was on, take heart. Many site owners are wondering the same thing. Search results ping back hundreds of sites, but when you find yours showing up on page five – or worse – page fifty, you know it’s time to take action. Studies have shown that 93% of web users don’t look past the first page of results. So what’s a website owner to do? Well, there are a few things that are out of your control: algorithms for one and competing sites for another. But you can make sure your site is armed for effective ranking and high searchability. Here’s how.

1) Make sure you have an analytics system and know how to use it: first and foremost you want to make sure that you have access to your back end statistics. Why? Because they’re important and because you want to know how much traffic your site is getting and where it’s coming from. Also, learn how to read these reports. I would recommend considering Google analytics, it’s the easiest to learn, manage and install. You’ll want to monitor this data a few times a month (especially if you’re knee-deep in book promotion) to see where your traffic is coming from and whether the work you are doing to send people to your site is paying off in unique visitors.

2) What is the one major goal for the site? Do you know what you want your site to do? If you don’t, then start here and make this your #1 priority. You must have one major goal for the site (yes, you can have additional goals for it but you need to identify your #1 priority first). If your goal is to sell books then you need to be clear about this message. Why is Google going to care about this? Because part of the reason some sites don’t get consistent good traffic or ranking is that their site is a mish-mash of 9 different major goals and confusing messages. If your site visitor is confused, Google will be too.

3) Keywords: I know this is a tricky area. The term “keywords” often conjures up the idea that hours of research are involved in getting the perfect set of words. Well, it might take you a few hours but it’s worth it. You want to know this not only to identify what your users are searching on but also, what words Google will rank you best for. Identify first where your major searches are coming from via your back-end site statistics, then head on over to the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and see what’s coming up in your market search-wise. Once you have these keywords you’ll want to use them on your site. See #4

4) Use of keywords: there is a good way to use keywords and a bad way. The good way is to use them in sentences, headers, blog posts, articles, Twitter postings. The bad way is to do keyword stuffing, which is where you stuff a blog post or intro paragraph on your site with so many keywords that not only does that paragraph not make sense, the keywords won’t even get ranked in Google because there are so many of them used in a non-sensicle way. I’m not kidding. Google can spot keyword stuffers a mile away. Here’s a tip if you’re using keywords in a blog post – use them in your header, first paragraph and last paragraph – then sprinkle them throughout the 2nd or 3rd paragraph. Just enough to capture the traffic, but not enough to seem like you’re spamming the search engine world with an overabundance of keywords.

5) Linkbait: if you’re getting a lot of incoming links to your site, great! But make sure there’s a good reason for people to visit. This is called linkbait. Some SEO experts use this phrase to mean capturing people through a loss leader online that brings people back to your site. They will then capture them into their funnel via a “teaser” posted somewhere online. There’s nothing wrong with this as long as the teaser and the linkbait have good content, but for the purposes of this piece we’re focused on the content on your site and if you’re leading people back to your URL via linkbait, make sure both are substantial.

6) Have lots of content on your site: this goes back to #5 – linkbait. Content, content, content. Make sure you have a blog and that it’s updated at least twice weekly. If that’s all the content you have on your site you’re doing better than most. A blog is a great way to develop content and keep the site fresh, focused, and personal.

7) Dump flash: having flash on your site is like putting up a brick wall around your domain name and making sure no search engine can get in or see it. Now there are different types of flash and some of it can be searched, so check with your website people – but generally, flash is bad for the site (users don’t like waiting for the flash to load or display) and search engines can’t even see it.

Sitemap: if you don’t have a sitemap, have your designer add one. Google loves sitemaps, and it’s a great way to make sure all your pages are getting spidered in Google.

9) All pages should be created equal: when you look at your site stats, check and see where people are coming in (what pages they’re entering your site on). You might find that most visitors aren’t coming in through your home page, they’re entering somewhere else. What’s on the page they are entering through? If there isn’t a lot of content on there you’ll want to make sure to make it substantial. Remember: Google sees all your pages, so be sure that they all pass muster.

10) Twitter: if you want to get a lot of incoming links to your website then hop onto Twitter. All Twitter posts are searchable and live forever online so a) never post anything you don’t want your grandmother to read and b) make sure and post often, including links back to your site when appropriate. You shouldn’t put links to your site all the time, otherwise you’ll just look like a spammer. A successful method to offer a good number of links without seeming too salesy is to link your blog to Twitter via Twitterfeed. Then every time you update your blog it will update Twitter, send a link back to your site and voila: another incoming link. Yep, the stuff Google loves.

A final tip for helping Google find your site is through incoming links. Google loves these and it will really help your site bump up in searches. You’ll want high-traffic, high-quality incoming links, so that means links from sites relevant to your own in topic and sites that are coming up high in searches. What’s the best way to get links? Well, you could offer them a review copy of your book (when they review it they will likely post a link to your site) or if the site has a blog (most high-traffic sites will) then you can post comments on their blog (see my article on Social Networking on Blogs for an explanation of how this works).

These tips might seem simple, but they work. If you’ve been perplexed about your site ranking and tempted to call Google and say “Hey, where’s my site??”, try this. It’s effective and will not just get you ranking in the short-term, but it will help you build your site’s credibility for the long-term.

By Susan Gilbert, America’s Focus Expert. Reprinted from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com

Becoming an accepted Google news authority is not an easy thing to accomplish – and – it is a very worthwhile effort when successful.

In order to become a Google News Partner the site has to pass a review with Google, and this is done by a real person. There are currently about 25,000 websites approved for Google News Syndication Partner.

The rewards for making the cut are extreme.

You can expect to have your article indexed in Google News in under 10 minutes. You can also expect your site to get traffic from the primary news sites that draw from Google News. You can also expect inbound links from all of the sites that pull from Google news within your topic or theme.

How to Qualify for Google News Partner

1. Provide news and updated news-worthy industry information.

2. Provide news-worthy material in at least TWO TOPICS OR CATEGORIES on the same site.

3. Have a site layout that seems like a magazine style or news-tone site. Google does not like a normal blog layout.

4. Your site cannot be overly “pitchy” or have a sales agenda that outshines the news-worthy information.

5. Your site must have a high quality standard of writing.

6. Content needs to be original, high-quality articles.

7. You will need to use a special site map and mark-up language that is specialized for Google News.

8. You need to have more than one editor and/or author that is actively on your staff or working on the site.

Again, keep in mind that Google will personally review the site to make sure it matches the standards expected. This quality control is important to Google because so many networks and sites draw upon Google news in order to provide content for various topics and themes.

By Penny Sansevieri. Reprinted from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com

For many of us, Twitter is a good news/bad news social networking site. The good news: it’s super popular and it seems like everyone is using it. The bad news is that for the newbie Twitter person (and even if you’ve been on this site for a while) it can be confusing to know what is working, what isn’t and what’s actually making a difference.

After almost two years on Twitter, I’ve learned a lot of lessons – both in using Twitter to maximize your marketing goals as well as learning how to turn your Twitter tribe into engaged Twitter buyers. The list I’ve culled here isn’t new information, but I tried to present it in such a way that it will show you how to monetize Twitter and maximize it towards your Twitter efforts.

1) Be helpful first: believe it or not, the first piece of selling isn’t to sell, it’s to be helpful. As a guide for your market, you should be a “voice,” an opinion maker, and also – offer helpful insight, tips, guidance. By being helpful, you will build trust and people buy from someone they trust. Be helpful first, and a salesperson second.

2) Ask for what you want: when followers are inundated with messages, you need to ask for what you want. If you want a sale, offer them a special buy-in, offer them something they can’t get anywhere else, then offer this in a shorter period of time. Meaning, only make the offer for a day, an hour, or a few days – depending on the sale. This dials into #3 but bears repeating anyway.

3) Offer exclusives: this is possibly one of the biggest keys to Twitter. If you don’t offer your followers something they can’t get anywhere else, they may not take your sales pitch very seriously. Offer specials and select offers exclusively to your followers. Not only will they be getting something unique, but you will make them feel special.

4) Follow your customers: be sure and follow the people who are your customers or those you’d like to engage in your product or services. This is key: to know who they are and what their needs are. You’ll gain this insight by following them.

5) Ask for help: if you need help, insight, whatever – ask for it. The best way to engage on Twitter and to build your following and enhance the trust factor is to converse, which leads me to point #6:

6) Create Community! Don’t broadcast, communicate. If you want to turn a follower into a buyer, they’ll need to feel like more than just a number on your Twitter-counter. Communicate with your Twitter-peeps and make them feel a part of your community. When someone feels a part of your community, they will be more likely to buy from you. People buy from people they trust. You build that trust factor by not just being a megaphone for information, but by conversing with your community.

7) Become a filter. People buy from people they trust, that’s point #1. The second piece to this is that people buy from people who seem to be the experts. When you become a filter, i.e. the go-to place for all things related to your topic, you’ll build strong, engaged followers who will be inclined to buy from you. Being a filter can take a lot of forms. You might comment on news topics, share interesting blog posts, or tweet on a new book or product review. Again, become the expert in your field and people will view you as such.

The key to selling on Twitter is not to sell per se, but to build trust and community with your followers. It’s really not that different from your corner store. Maybe you go there because it’s close, but more than likely you go there because you trust them. You know they’ll have everything you need and you trust what they have is good, quality product. The same is true online, in fact, even more so. Your followers don’t have the luxury of meandering into your “store,” so you have to build that trust another way. You build that through engagement, interaction and the quality of information. Build the pathways, build the trust and the sales will follow. But, if you try to capture the dollars before you build your foundation you’ll find that your followers will leave you and sales will fall short.

By Susan Gilbert, America’s Focus Expert. Reprinted from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com

1. Make sure your page on Squidoo looks its absolute best. A polished page gets more results.

2. Don’t be afraid to promote and market your business and website through your profile or content.

3. Title your lenses effectively and use keywords to get attention.

4. Make the introduction and description captivating and helpful so people want to read more.

5. Add photos for visual interest in the description.

6. You can set up multiple lenses for multiple keyword phrases. This is highly recommended.

7. Use tags to your advantage, and do so by making the most effective tags possible using powerful wording and linking to the best sites that will get you real results.

8. Understand the link flow on Squidoo, so you know how people find you, and how your links get distributed from the source page.

9. Make a “lens of the day” to keep people interested in your page and they’ll want to see what you have to say more often.

10. Find your voice on Squidoo. Think about who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish. Brainstorm some content ideas and think about your plans in advance before setting up your profile and lenses.

11. Be sure you are not only knowledgeable about your content, but that it comes across that way to others.

12. As always, watch spelling, grammar, and use of language.

13. Patience is the key with this website as with any other, so do things right the first time, and don’t expect results overnight.

14. Use the forum to your advantage to get advice, see what others are doing, and ask and answer questions.

15. Do not spam your pages or lenses, as people will run away from your profile. Members can tell spam a mile away.

16. Make a lens solely about you, so people have a place to start.

17. Co­branding is popular and a great way to get more income. Find some other companies or brands you can partner up with.

18. Use the Squidoo Answer Deck if you have any questions or need help.

19. The Squidcast feature lets you promote your lenses, so definitely use this to your advantage.

20. Make sure all of your links work. You should check them periodically to ensure they still work.

21. If time goes on and you find better links, don’t forget to update them!

22. Add a table of contents to your lens. People really like this feature.

23. Spell check, spell check, spell check.

24. Update your profile to allow people to contact you so that you are available to your customers, potential clients, and anyone who wants to ask you something. Being accessible is a great way to gain a good reputation.

25. Twitter is a great tool for promoting your lenses, so use it to your advantage.

26. Edit your modules so they are not just the ones generated from Squidoo. Tailor them to each lens, so it looks more through and professional.

27. The more high quality lenses you have, the better so make up as many as you can. Just be sure each one has a purpose and will get results.

28. Think of ways to spin your company’s mission statement into a lens title.

29. Charities play a big role on Squidoo. Find a few you believe in, and work with them on your pages.

30. Don’t just limit lenses to links. Have them point to your RSS feeds, Twitter, Fickr page, and tons more.

31. If you’re a fan of other companies or products, make a lens for it. See if the place you’re a fan of will reciprocate the favor.

32. Use referrals to your advantage and recruit as many people as you can.

33. Don’t hesitate to make a lens about your own affiliate program.

34. Have your affiliates make some lenses of their own promoting your website.

35. Don’t forget that spam is NOT welcome on Squidoo, and your account could be canceled if you spam. Find out about their guidelines before publishing anything.

36. Use Google AdSense in conjunction with Squidoo, since they work hand in hand.

37. Max your lenses for optimum exposure. Simply check this option on the edit pages of your lenses for the maximum view and exposure.

38. Aspire to earn the Giant Badge so people will see you’ve been a long­standing member who produces quality content.

39. Try to get gold stars for your lenses, as this means you’re the best of the best.

40. Use the Flickr module to incorporate cool photos. Visually appealing lenses and modules typically have the most success.

41. Add your Squidoo links to your blogs and website.

42. Add your lenses to Squidoo groups. Look into the many different groups available and then add your lenses accordingly.

43. Introduce yourself in the Forums, and on other websites dedicated to Squidoo users.

44. The longer you’re on Squidoo, the better your reputation, so remember it takes a while to become established.

45. The more lenses the better, just make sure each is unique in its own way.

46. Make sure you have a Paypal account, because that is how Squidoo makes payments.

47. Your content should be thorough and high quality. Don’t skimp on well written content just to get more lenses published.

48. Do not just use Google as a resource for information when creating content. Look into more in depth resources and you content will be much better.

49. It’s up to you how often you want to update your lenses. As long as they remain relevant, it’s okay to leave them alone.

50. You can use popular hot topics for lenses aside from your own company or business related topics. It still gets hits!

By Penny Sansevieri. Reprinted from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques from A Marketing Expert

So you have a website, congratulations! Now let’s make sure it’s doing what it is supposed to be doing for you. Read: selling your book or product. While websites will differ in color, layout, and target audience, there are a few things that need to remain consistent. Let’s take a look at them.

1. EDITING:
Your website needs to be edited. There is no discussion on this topic at all. And don’t self-edit. Hire someone to go through your site page by page and make sure you don’t have any typos. Finding mistakes on your site is like finding typos on a resume. Doesn’t bode too well, does it?

2. WEBSITE STATISTICS:
Do you know your site stats? Did you even know you can get them? Site statistics are part of every website design. If you don’t have access to them make sure you get this. A good site stat service is Google Analytics, pretty comprehensive actually and easy to integrate into your site. You should know your traffic patterns and learn to read these reports (it’s a lot easier than it sounds). This way you’ll know what your site is doing and what it isn’t.

3. MEDIA ROOM:
Even if you have never had any TV or radio appearances, you should have a media room. The media room is a great place to list all of your accomplishments as it relates to the book. Also, a good place to put your bio, picture (both of you and the book cover), as well as media Q&A, and a host of other items (I’ll cover the art and science of a good media room in an upcoming piece).

4. WEBSITE COPY:
Your website isn’t a magazine, people don’t read, they scan. Make sure your site isn’t so crammed with text that it’s not scannable. Ideally your home page should have no more than 200 to 250 words. Also, make sure you have a clear call to action. You want your visitors to do something on your site, yes? Make sure they know what that is, clearly and precisely.

5. STORE:
Yes, you should have a place for people to buy on your site, even if it means sending them off to Amazon.com or somewhere else to make their purchase. One key factor though: don’t make them hunt for it. Shorten the staircase. In other words, make it easy to find your stuff and then give them the quickest route to get there.

6. DESIGN:
I have two major rules in life: you should never cut your own hair or design your own website. Period. End of story. Why? Because much like editing our own books, we’re just too darned close to our message to be able to do it justice. Also, most of us are writers, not designers. Hire someone, invest the money, you’ll be glad you did. When you’re designing, also remember that your homepage should only do one thing. Your website can sell a lot of things, including any consulting or speaking services you offer, but your home page should be focused in on one major item. Surfers spend an average of 1/50th of a second on a website, if they have to stop and try and figure out what your site is about they will leave. I call it surf shock or analysis paralysis. Don’t make them guess what your site is about, or you will lose them.

7. SOCIAL CONTENT:
Make sure that you have something “social” on your site, whether it’s a blog, forum or even your very own social networking page. The easiest and best of these is a blog, in my opinion.

8. UPDATE OFTEN:
Search engines like sites that have a lot of fresh content, this will really help you with ranking in major search engines like Google. If you have a blog, you should plan to update it twice weekly at least.

9. SHARE AND SHARE ALIKE:
Make sure that your content is easy to share. If you don’t have sharing widgets on your site (Upload to Facebook, Tweet This!, Digg, Delicious, etc.) then get your designer to add it to the site asap. Most blogging software comes with this all ready to go.

10. PLACEMENT AND REMARKETING:
First off, make sure that you understand how people surf, meaning where their eye goes to when they land on a website. The first place is the upper left hand quadrant of a site, that’s where your primary message should be. Then the eye goes to the center of your site. These two primary places are significant in conversion. You should have a clear message, and a clear call to action (whatever that action is). I also recommend funneling your visitors into a mailing list. You can do this via a sign-up on your home page and then an ethical bribe to encourage them to sign up. What’s an ethical bribe? It’s something you give them (of value) to get something – you might give them an ebook, a checklist or a special report. Just make sure it’s something your readers want.

Bonus Tip: UNDERSTANDING ANCHOR TEXT

If you ask any Search Engine Marketing Expert they will tell you the importance of anchor text. So what is this exactly? It’s the hyperlinked text that you click on to follow a link. Most people overlook this text, using words like “click here” or other nebulous terms. If used correctly, anchor text can really help with your site ranking. It’s not that difficult to implement really, you just need to understand a few basic concepts.

First, anchor text should be descriptive. It should describe the link you’re sending people to using keywords that reflect the page you’re recommending.

Second, if you know the high-traffic keywords for your market you can use those as well to describe the link (but only if the keywords relate to the page you’re sending visitors to).

Third, knowing where to use anchor text is almost as important as the text itself. All external links should be anchor text, but often web designers forget internal links (i.e. links leading to pages within your site) although they are equally as important. Your home page is also critical for anchor text links. If you have a blog (and you should) make sure that any article, website or blog you reference has anchor text in the hyperlink.

Creating these hyperlinks is easy, especially if you’re using them in a blog. Most blog software has some very simple one-click anchor text creation widgets.

So take some time and go through your site, make sure that anything you have hyperlinked is anchor text. Stay away from nebulous terms like “click here” or “follow this link” because you won’t get picked up by search engines that way. Make sure the text is focused and specific. How long can anchor text be? It doesn’t have to be long, but if need be, it can be multiple words. Keep in mind that as long as the words are relevant to your topic, the anchor text verbiage is all that matters.