Help Book Benefit from TV Buzz

by Donna Aviles

I'm wondering if you have any tips for me. This is a "make hay while the sun shines" kind of question. My books were optioned by Bill Rotko who happens to be the creater/writer for the new series on A&E THE BEAST starring Patrick Swayze. I added a paragraph to my site announcing the premiere of the show and the connection to my books hoping that my site would come up on a search for 'patrick swayze the beast rotko'. It comes up on page 8 of a google search. It doesn't come up at all if I remove the word rotko. Is there anything more I can do to, that you know of, to take advantage of this short term opportunity? Thanks in advance for any insight and many thanks for this site! Donna Aviles (very non-technical author but trying...), Orphan Train Books

Webmaster's note: Read about Donna's experience self publishing.

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First of all, Donna, congratulations on having your books optioned. How exciting!

Now, about what you're trying to achieve...

As you allude to, what interest you hope to benefit from is likely to be very short term. And no one goes to page 8 of a Google search. What you don't mention is that even if you do attract traffic, I kind of doubt it's going to result in book sales! (But maybe some Hollywood type will show interest in still more of your work.)

I have one idea for you, with no guarantees.

The search engines like focused content. A site should have a focus, and each page should have an even closer focus.

The Rothko/Swayze content you've added to your home page is actually reducing focus - at least on that home page. You're liable to make Google and Yahoo think you're willing to cover just about anything!

Try this: remove the content from your home page. (It was a very nice try, but page 8 isn't good enough so it's time to try something else.) Instead put up a text link - high up on the page - that says something like, "Patrick Swayze and Orphan Train: How They're Connected!"

This link should go to a new page, with a file name like swayze-rotko-aviles-beast.com.

Google pays attentions to file names. Yours now reflects your last name - saying, "Hey, this DOES belong on the site" - along with the keywords you're hoping to get found for.

(Speaking of Keywords, make sure you fill in your "meta" for this new page. No leaving it all blank, as you have on your home page! In fact, go add meta to all your pages!!!)

Now go move that home page content that we removed to the new page...and expand on it. If you want to be Google's queen of patrick swayze the beast rotko, you need to be the best source of information on patrick swayze the beast rotko.

Now, add one link each to the page for Swayze, Rotko and The Beast - perhaps to their imdb pages.

At this point, you'll have done everything you can to signal the engines that you are the guru of patrick swayze the beast rotko...and Orphan Train to boot.

Doing all that might work; impressing the search engines is still more art than science.

Let us know the results!

Steve