Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Chanticleer Workshops

Demystifying SEO: Your Pathway to Potential Readers in the Digital Age

An author’s role has grown exponentially over the years.

The classic image of the man in Caps for Salenby Esphyr Slobodkina takes on a whole new meaning!

Now, when we say “I’m an author” we should be adding, “and a financial expert, a promoter, a marketer, and a search engine optimization (SEO) expert.”

This last designation might sound bewildering to some in our writing community, but it is an essential component needed to reach your books’ sales goals.

Don’t be frightened by SEO!

In today’s crowded digital landscape, authors face the unique challenge of not only crafting compelling stories but also ensuring those stories reach their intended audience. SEO plays a crucial role in this process. From optimizing website content to utilizing social media effectively, a strong SEO foundation can transform how authors engage with their audience and grow their readership. Whether you’re a seasoned novelist, a traditionally published author, or a first-time self-publisher, embracing a strong SEO foundation is essential for navigating the complexities of the digital age and growing your readership.

Read on for a closer look into how authors leverage SEO.

Understanding SEO Basics

At its core, SEO is all about increasing traffic to your website through organic search engine results. A potential reader inputs their selected keywords into the search engine, perhaps a character type or specific genre, and the search engine presents its results. Authors who effectively employ SEO practices into their online marketing improve their website’s chance at being placed high up in the results, increasing the author’s visibility and expanding their reach to new readers.How to Increase Your SEO Rankings Using Effective Keywords

Reaching the highest SEO goals means creating quality content and optimizing their online platforms to attract organic traffic—and it all begins with effective keywords. The keywords you insert into your content is the pavement on the road that connects your website with potential readers. In order for them to be effective, you need to understand what people are searching for online in relation to your work—what words they’re using to find you and what type of content they want to read. Knowing this will provide you with information regarding which topics to write about because you now you know what the targeted audience is looking for.

But how do you know what keywords are most effective?

Authors should identify key terms and phrases that potential readers are likely to use when searching for books in their genre. Looking at what other authors are doing is a great first step to better understanding effective keywords. Looking at how other websites think about writing, like Amazon’s BISAC codes or Thema can help give you some guidance of where to start. Incorporating these keywords into book descriptions, blog posts, and website content can significantly improve search engine rankings.

Optimizing Your SEO

Creating high-quality content is key to SEO success. Blog posts that explore topics related to their books, sharing writing tips, giving peeks into their daily lives, or discussing industry trends are all topics that can contain the keywords you’ve decided work best for your work. Authors will not only be positioning themselves as thought leaders; you’ll also be connecting with readers and encouraging them to engage with you. For your keywords, you want to be sure to use the most specific options available. For The Hobbit, you might think High Fantasy, and Action and Adventure is enough, but fixating down on the nitty gritty helps you stand out from the crowd with keywords like Hobbits, Dwarves, Epic Quest, Children’s Fantasy Novel.

Here are four steps you can take to increase your SEO

1. Websites

An author’s website serves as a central hub for their online presence. Focus on optimizing your the meta data and descriptions for your titles as they are the snippets that appear in search results and work best when they contain high-ranking keywords.

A compelling meta description can entice users to click on a link, thus driving more traffic to your site. Consistently publishing new and updated content also signals to search engines that a site is active, which can further boost rankings—so consider plan on publishing new content on a regular basis.

2. Building Backlinks

Backlinks, or links from other websites to an author’s site, play a significant role in SEO. The greater number of reputable sites that link to an author’s content, the more credible they appear to search engines. Authors can cultivate backlinks by guest blogging, collaborating with other authors, or being featured in interviews. This not only improves SEO but also expands their audience reach by building a digital network to other websites.

3. Understanding Analytics

Authors should familiarize themselves with tools like Google Analytics to track the performance of their website. Understanding metrics such as page views, bounce rates, and user demographics can help authors refine their strategies and focus on what resonates with their audience. This data-driven approach ensures they are continually improving their online presence, and points them to the right keywords when interest changes.

4. Leveraging Social Media

A strong social media presence can have an indirect but greatly positive impact SEO by driving traffic to an author’s website. By sharing blog posts, book launches, and engaging content, authors gain interest in their work and that can encourage their followers to visit their website, effectively increasing their overall visibility. Engaging with readers on social media platforms will create a community that further supports their work and their reputation with readers. You can learn more from us about Social Media here.

The Importance of SEO

Embracing SEO is not just an option; it’s a necessity for authors in the digital era. In a world where readers often turn to search engines to find their next book, effective SEO strategies can mean the difference between being seen, or remaining invisible. Effective use of keywords empowers authors to take control of their marketing efforts, increase their search engine rankings, reach a broader audience, and ultimately drive up book sales.

Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your online strategy, now is the time to invest in good SEO!

Chanticleer Editorial Services – We’re ready when you are ready!

Did you know that Chanticleer offers editorial services?

We do and have been doing so since 2011!

Tools of the Editing Trade

Our professional editors are top-notch and are experts in the Chicago Manual of Style. They have and are working for the top publishing houses (TOR, McMillian, Thomas Mercer, Penguin Random House, Simon Schuster, etc.).

If you would like more information, we invite you to email Kiffer or David at KBrown@ChantiReviews.com or DBeaumier@chantireviews.com for more information, testimonials, and fees.

We work with a small number of exclusive clients who want to collaborate with our team of top-editors on an on-going basis. Contact us today!

Chanticleer Editorial Services also offers writing craft sessions and masterclasses. Sign up to find out where, when, and how sessions being held.

A great way to get started is with our manuscript evaluation service.

Here are some handy links about this tried and true service: https://test.chantireviews.com/manuscript-reviews/

Writer’s Toolbox

Thank you for reading this Chanticleer Writer’s Toolbox article.

Writer Toolbox Helpful Links:

BISAC Headings List

Thema Subject Categories

Making Social Media Easier for Authors by David Beaumier

Ready to dive deeper? Check out Getting the MOST TRAFFIC out of your Website by David Beaumier

November 18, 2024
AIOSEO – More than Alphabet Soup – Getting the MOST TRAFFIC out of your Website — A Chanticleer Writer’s Toolbox Article
Demystifying AIOSEO

AIOSEO (All In One Search Engine Optimization) is a profoundly popular tool for marketing. Now you don’t have to respond to the daily emails offering you the First Page of Google, and you can instead feel confident you are doing the best you can.

Disclaimer:

One important thing to consider is that this article is written in early 2021. If the date is considerably later, then it is out of date.

Technology grows and changes rapidly, and we must always rise to meet it. This article won’t look too deeply at categories and tags, because those should just be already listed on your website. If you’re interested in learning more about tags, click here for our article, by Kiffer Brown on using hashtags, which follow a similar rule.

KEY TIP: Always click save when working on anything, especially after adding images. Don’t count on the program to autosave things for your website. Save your draft work early and often.

AIOSEO – More than Alphabet Soup – All In One Search Engine Optimization — will help you drive more traffic to your website.

More Web Traffic = More Book Sales

We will be using WordPress as our example, and you can see our initial AIOSEO score on a new article below:

If you pay a web service, like WordPress, for your website, they should have a help system that you should be able to email if you have additional questions to address. Let’s dive in!

We know what AIOSEO Stands for. What Does it Do?

The AIOSEO looks at how search engines will read your website. Yup, they are reading your website to try and guess how the website will be read by humans. A human programmed a search engine to try to read a website like a human in order to determine if the website will be easy for actual humans to read. If that feels circular to you, you are not alone.

We all have a lot of time in front of computers in our future

Here are things that help your website seem more readable:
- Headings every few paragraphs
- A Post Title of 60 Characters or slightly fewer.
- Meta Description of 160 Characters or fewer
- A Focus Keyphrase that appears everywhere
- Less than 10% of the piece should be in passive voice
- No more than 25% of sentences should be over 20 words
- Paragraphs should be no more than 120 words
- Images and Videos should be included
- External and Internal Links should be included
Wow! That’s a lot! When do we know that we’ve done enough?

Sites like WordPress give you your AIOSEO score to see. The score is out of 100, and most website score between 60-80, so that’s a good place to aim. Obviously some of these won’t be reasonable for your website to accommodate depending on the material you promote.

For example, as a website with a lot of reviews, we have more passive voice in our reviews. Why? We don’t want to give away who is responsible for the action in the book! Passive voice avoids answer who is responsible for an action, and allows us to provide excellent, spoiler-free reviews.

Let’s break down some of those bullet points together.

Headings

See the word “Headings” immediately above this sentence? That’s a heading! Usually websites offer the opportunity to choose between Paragraphs, Headings, and Quote Text. A heading lets your reader know you are moving to a new subject. They are an excellent way to signal a change in subject, and lets the reader find the information they want to locate right away.

Within a section, you can use multiple headings, usually in the form of “Heading 1” “Heading 2” and so on to create subheadings within a section. You can see what our Heading dropdown menu on WordPress looks like below.

From here, we’ll move to looking at the keyphrase and title.

Focus Keyphrase is essential for AIOSEO

This is the main idea of your post. For this post you are reading our keyphrase is AIOSEO. You want it to be ubiquitous throughout your post. This is where it should show up:
- Title
- Post Title
- Meta Description
- The First Paragraph
- Tags
- Alternative Text
This is how the Focus Key phrase appears for us

Remember, these will appear differently to everyone based on a number of factors that we can’t predict, so take your time looking for them or Google what you’re looking for and the name of the website you’re using.

Post Title

See how above the “Post Title” is a “Snippet Preview” to see how your post will appear in a web search? That’s a great way to really see what it looks like. And in the bottom right corner you can see that it only uses 38 out of the 60 recommended characters.

Don’t worry, we didn’t forget about Alternative Text, it just needs a little more explanation than a quick screenshot.

Alternative Text adds a couple AIOSEO points

Generally, if you click “edit” on an image, one of the categories that pops up will be alternative text or “ALT text.” ALT text is what a screen reader will read out when it comes across an image on your webpage. This helps anyone who has issues seeing the webpage or even people who can see the webpage fine and simply prefer to have text read to them. Simple and direct is usually best with ALT text.

Internal and External Links add a few AIOSEO points

Internal links are simply links that go to somewhere else within your website. External Links go somewhere outside your website. We always recommend making sure your Links “Open a New Tab” rather than navigating away from the website you are on.

That top box is the ticket!

Opening to a new tab fulfills both your readers need to not lose their place in what they’re reading, and it fulfills your need to keep them on your website!

Thinking of screen readers again, remember to make it clear what is and isn’t a link, by stating exactly what the link leads to, and then hyperlinking it.

Hyperlink Recommendations

Which link do you find more appealing to look at?

https://www.chantireviews.com/chanticleer-conference/

OR

Click Here to Learn about the Chanticleer Authors Conference!

Probably the second one. Now imagine you are using a screen reader. Would you rather have a computer voice attempt to read that full URL to you (h t t p: w w w…), or would you rather a direct description of where the link will go followed by the words “Click Here”?

Most people recommend the hyperlink as opposed to the full URL. If you really want to use a full URL, you can always consider using a custom tiny URL by going to the Tiny URL creation website here.

One Last Note: #Hashtags

Everyone loves the Hashtag, or as we like to call it, the octothorpe. When using Hashtags, we recommend capitalizing every individual word. For example #chanticleerauthorsconference would be #ChanticleerAuthorsConference or for Twitter #CAC21 #SeriousAuthors

Octothorpe aka Hashtag aka pound symbol has 8 points

The capitalization won’t make much of a difference to the computer that analyzes your work, but it will make a huge difference in terms of whether your hashtags will actually be accessible and readable by a large audience.

So How Did We Do?

We looked at this post a couple of times before posting. Here’s how our score looked.

Here is a look at our AIOSO score throughout the writing of this article:
- Text and Title Only: 58
- After Adding Headings: 68
- Adjusting Post Title and Meta Description to appropriate word count: 79
- Adding AIOSEO as the Focus Keyphrase: 89
- Adding an image with the alt text AIOSEO: 90
When we finish with adding our links, the score raises to 95! Tightening up language as suggested by the AIOSEO brings us all the way to 96!

Update from 10/24/24: We’re now at 98!

The increase in score is likely due to us always purchasing the latest p0ssible services to promote our authors.

Before you hit publish on your site, check out the AIOSEO score.

Remember, between 60-80 is considered pretty good!

Good luck, and happy posting!

If you are interested in participating in a Hands On AIOSEO Workshop, please send us an email to Chanticleer@ChantiReviews.com

Writer’s Toolbox

Thank you for reading this Chanticleer Writer’s Toolbox article.

Writers Toolbox Helpful Links:

HOW HASHTAGS can INCREASE ONLINE BOOK SALES by Kiffer Brown

The 2021 Virtual Chanticleer Authors Conference

The Tiny URL website
April 8, 2021
Supporting Cast – Taking Risks with Your Secondary Characters – From the Editor’s Desk of Jessica Morrell – A Chanticleer Writers Toolbox Post

Character, not plot, is what chiefly interests the reader because he translates and feels the character’s actions, desires, and passions from his own data bank of experiences and emotions. – Jessica Morrell

Long after the intricacies of a fictional plot fade from a reader’s memory, the characters linger with an almost physical presence, a twinkle of personality, unforgettable actions, and their happy or sad fates. Fictional characters whisper their secrets, allow us to witness their most intimate moments and sorrows, and trust us with their messy emotions, bad decisions, and longings. They penetrate our aloneness, populate our imagination by starring in our inner cinema, and slip their hands in ours and transport us to another place, another time. And while all this is going on, often they teach us what it means to be human complete with all the troubles, heartaches, and mysteries.

Benny, the unforgettable secondary character in “The Queen’s Gambit” by Walter Tevis

Characters that leave a lasting footprint in our memory range the gamut from stuck-on-themselves divas and difficult drama queens, to aging Italian billionaires and lonely singletons, along with knights and spies and waifs and dwarfs. It’s simple really: Character, not plot, is what chiefly interests the reader because he translates and feels the character’s actions, desires, and passions from his own data bank of experiences and emotions.

This is the opening to my book Bullies, Bastards & Bitches: How to Write the Bad Guys in Fiction.

However, the book isn’t only about ‘bad guys’. It covers character roles and types including protagonists, heroes, unlikable protagonists, unreliable narrators, and a slew of information to add to your understanding.

I’ve been thinking about my book and all I’ve learned since I wrote it, because I’m creating a presentation on secondary characters for a virtual workshop I’m teaching at the Chanticleer Author’s Conference. Before I delve into techniques for creating secondary characters, I’m explaining the roles, hierarchy, development, and purposes of fictional players. Because the more you know about the many uses for characters –the enormous scope and weight they can bring to a story–the more tools you wield when playing God.

When I wrote my Bullies book as I sometimes call it, my main objective was to urge writers to take risks with their characters. To use shills and scapegoats and flamboyant loudmouths. Demon lovers, homicidal stalkers, criminal politicians. Stir in trolls, punks, bad asses, weirder-than-weird nerds, smarter-than-smart geeks, callous grifters, hard-to-believe they’re so foul-mouthed not-so-sweet old ladies.

A not-so-sweet old lady – Chrisjen Avasarla, UN Secretary – General of The EXPANSE SciFi series. She is always full of surprises.

Bring it on.

The same is true for your supporting cast. Sure you’ll add bit players, stock players, and archetypal players. Royals, innocents, mentors, warriors, and confidants. Burned-out cops, cranks, frenemies, crappy stepparents, and obnoxious neighbors. Familiar types with many valid, solid uses in storytelling.

And who could forget SPIKE from Notting Hill (1999)

It is said that the screenplay by Richard Curtis is funnier than the movie and more charming — if that is possible. -kb

Creating co-stars can be one of the great joys of storytelling. They can be outrageous, hilarious, freaky, maddening, sex-driven, drug-addled, and vapid. They can lie, steal, betray, enchant, and embolden. They sometimes get the best lines, spout the best snark. Give the best shade. They can drive their co-stars crazy and they can also drive the plot. They can star in their own subplots and often support the protagonist’s goals. Or thwart the protagonist’s goals. Or lie about supporting the protagonist while actually backstabbing the poor sod.

Boomer of “Dash and Lily’s Book Dares” – as acted by Dante Brown in the Christmas Mini-Series DASH and LILY BOOK of DARES

But like protagonists and antagonists, they can never be dull or commonplace. Never a pale footnote. Never thinly sketched unless the character has a walk-on part. But even bit players can possess physical characteristics. A lisp. A limp. An arresting voice. Inappropriate wardrobe choices and whisky breath.

I’m having a lot of fun thinking about this topic. Does it show?

Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart. Jessica

Jessica Page Morrell

Jessica Morrell is a top-tier developmental editor and a contributor to Chanticleer Reviews Media and to the Writer’s Digest magazine. She teaches Master Writing Craft Classes at the Chanticleer Authors Conference that is held annually along with teaching at Chanticleer writing workshops that are held throughout the year.

Chanticleer Editorial Services – when you are ready

Did you know that Chanticleer offers editorial services? We do and have been doing so since 2011.

Tools of the Editing Trade

Our professional editors are top-notch and are experts in the Chicago Manual of Style. They have and are working for the top publishing houses (TOR, McMillian, Thomas Mercer, Penguin Random House, Simon Schuster, etc.).

If you would like more information, we invite you to email Kiffer or Sharon at KBrown@ChantiReviews.com or SAnderson@ChantiReviews.com for more information, testimonials, and fees.

We work with a small number of exclusive clients who want to collaborate with our team of top-editors on an on-going basis. Contact us today!

Chanticleer Editorial Services also offers writing craft sessions and masterclasses. Sign up to find out where, when, and how sessions being held.

A great way to get started is with our manuscript evaluation service. Here are some handy links about this tried and true service: https://www.chantireviews.com/manuscript-reviews/

And we do editorial consultations. for $75. https://www.chantireviews.com/services/Editorial-Services-p85337185

Writer’s Toolbox

Thank you for reading this Chanticleer Writer’s Toolbox article.

Writers Toolbox Helpful Links:

The INCITING INCIDENT: STORY, SETBACKS and SURPRISES for the PROTAGONIST – A Writer’s Toolbox Series from Jessica Morrell’s Editor’s Desk

ESSENCE of CHARACTERS – Part One – From the Jessica Morrell’s Editor’s Desk – Writer’s Toolbox Series

February 2, 2021