during this initial stage. Test-drive your own links regularly to make sure they are working, that the site as a whole is functioning well, and that the interactivity that you set up on your site initially can work on autopilot in the future. After your site is established, it won’t require spending as much time maintaining or refreshing the content.
Keywords: If you identify and use the same keywords your audience uses to search the Internet, they will find you in the crowded space of the web and you will get a higher SEO ranking and higher numbers of visitors. Ideally you want to be in the number-one slot or close to it when a user types that keyword into the search bar.
Metadata: Learn to create compelling metadata, which is the line or two of text that shows up next to your website name when it’s found by the browser. If your metadata does not compel users to click that link to your website, then the best site in the world will be lost. By default, your search results display the first 156 characters on the page they searched. The Yoast WordPress SEO plugin allows you to write a 156-character meta description for every page and post on your site, giving you complete control over what appears in your search results. Use this option well! Be sure you describe what your readers are looking for to lead them to your site instead of a weak line or two such as “Like what you see? Please subscribe to my newsletter!” every time your site comes up in search results. Test this out when your website is complete: Google your keywords, find your website, and adjust your metadata to get the most powerful impact in searches.
GETTING HARD NUMBERS: GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Through the Jetpack plugin, WordPress gives you wonderful numbers showing you how many visits your site is getting, where your visitors are located geographically, and what pages and articles they visit while surfing there. Your web host also probably gives you a separate set of data. The gold standard for free information about your site’s visitors remains the company that relies on such data to drive its advertising-based business strategy: Google.
You might be a little intimidated, but signing up for and using Google Analytics is pretty painless, even for the technophobe. All you need to know beforehand is the address (URL) of your website and how to copy and paste material from one part of the Internet to another.
Go to google.com/analytics (you’ll have to log in to your Google account, which you already have if you use Gmail, YouTube, or any other Google property). Click the Admin tab, and look for +New Account. The new account screen appears.
You want to track a “website.” Read over the features you’ll get with Analytics, then scroll down to Setting up your web property. Tell Google the name of your site and the web address. Choose an Industry Category, such as Books & Literature, and select your Time Zone. Choose an Account Name, and choose who can see your analytics data.
When you’ve filled out the form, click Get Tracking ID. Google will generate a code that must be copied and pasted into the home page code of your website. The Google Analytics for WordPress plugin will simplify this process, so you’ll want to install that.
Analytics is a very important measure of the size and reach of your author website. It’s the best tool to show you how many people have viewed your site and to quantify your website subscribers, social media activity, and other data. Google Analytics also shows you search results for keywords and most-used phrases, responders to your contact forms, and more information that will help you target your audience further as you grow your site.
Your author website is your own online real estate, your central location to link to and plug in many pieces of growing media and networks, and your central place to tie your platform locations together. Don’t miss out! Start creating or updating, and enjoy the draw of your author website.
Checklist, Step 1: Author Website
Success Spotlight: Waterside Client David Meerman Scott (davidmeermanscott.com)
8 books
30 languages
1,000,000 sold, including university sales
The New Rules of Marketing and PR became a New York Times bestseller with 300,000 copies sold
Beginnings: Starting out as a student at Kenyon College, Ohio, as a liberal arts/economics major, David became a bond trader on Wall Street. He worked in Tokyo for six years, then held executive positions in the electronic news division of Knight-Ridder, at the time one of the world’s largest newspaper companies. In 1995 David joined Desktop Data, which became NewsEdge Corporation, and then became vice president of marketing at NewsEdge until the business was sold to Thomson Corporation in 2002.
In our interview, David said, “I didn’t plan on becoming a marketing strategist…. I came upon it accidentally.” At NewsEdge, he and his team found that do-it-yourself programs based on creating useful content and publishing it online at virtually no cost consistently generated more interest from qualified buyers than expensive professional public relations programs.
How he came up with his best-selling book idea: David said that when he encountered Web 2.0, he started to see that thinking like a publisher was what seemed most helpful for people to understand it. He felt that it was important to share with others that online marketing is more like online publishing than traditional marketing, and that in order to be successful, traditional marketing thinking had to change. He felt that publishers:
Know how to create and promote content;
See patterns that others don’t see; and
Use
