standthebook
by Debbie Williamson
Why "Souper Publishing"?
Site: Souper Publishing Debbie, something a lot of us learn when we first set up a website is that traffic is not doled out in equal shares. How can a search engine send us NOTHING??? Actually, it's not surprising. When we do a search and the engine literally brings back a million results, we know from experience that we only look at the ones near the top. If you come back at #367,945 for a search, you don't really expect traffic, do you? Now, did you know that there's a search that your site actually comes in #1 for? I just searched SOUPER PUBLISHING. You came in #1 AND #2. That means the good news is that the engines Stand ready to send you traffic. If people start searching for SOUPER PUBLISHING you're in the money. You see, the engines think your site is all about Souper Publishing and Debbie and Gary Williamson, and essentially they're right. The next time you do a search, take a look at the url's that rank highly. Search child abuse for instance and see how many of the urls and domain names include the phrase. Then visit the pages and sites. They're about child abuse, not about a book about child abuse, or an author of a book about child abuse, or the publisher of a book about child abuse. It's simple: the search engines try to send traffic to the best source of information on a subject. Is your site one of the best sources of information on child abuse? Nope. For all I know, your book may be the best source of information ever on the subject of child abuse, but alas... The search engines don't read books. You should also know that your site is sending out some weird signals! Stand might be a great title for your book, but standthebook.com says nothing about your book's subject. Souper Publishing might be a cute name for a publishing company, but not for a web site and web page. Again, it says nothing about the subject matter. Souper Publishing at standthebook.com would be a great url and title for a cookbook by the chef at a famous soup stand. That means you could go forth and turn standthebook.com into the world's most comprehensive site on child abuse. You would start getting traffic, but you wouldn't get nearly as much traffic as you deserve, just because you'd still be disadvantaged by your domain name. My question for you (and for any self published author): are you willing to put the time and effort into writing (yes, writing) a real site that will attract the audience that might buy your book? Maybe you've stumbled across this child abuse site. This terrific woman built her site from scratch (using the same company I use). Does she get traffic? See for yourself. Does she have a book to sell? Containing her own story? Of course she does. And with 14,000 visitors per month, don't you bet she sells quite a few! Building a trafficked website is both easier and harder than you think. Easier because it simply involves delivering on what your audience wants. People want information on child abuse? Give it to them. And give it to them in quantity. Quantity is the hard part. A good website with a big audience shares a lot in common with a good book. It's well-organized, and it contains a heck of a lot of information. In other words, there's no "trick" to traffic. It involves the hard work of providing what people are looking for. (And doing so, preferably, with a url and a title that speaks to your audience AND to the search engines.) Does it all make sense? Want to discuss further? Reply by commenting.
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