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There are little things that we can do to help authors, and in turn, help them sell a couple books. Like checking off tags—a small task that can reap big benefits.

But What Are Tags?

Let’s say you’ve just finished a book and you think it’s swell and you want to help the author optimize her/his web presence. So you find the title on Amazon, then you scroll down past the basic info, past the reviews, perhaps past a few more sections, and then bam! Say hello to the Tags.

Here are the tags for the book, Love Comes Later, currently on a WOW! blog tour:

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below.
contemporary romance(7)multicultural romance(7)london(6)middle east(6) olympics(6)qatar(5)romance(5)kindle free(1) kindle freebie(1)      Agree with these tags?



So tags are keywords or labels. They have tons of uses and you can find out more here. But you want to know what tags have to do with selling books.


Why Tag?


When you click on a book’s tag, you’re sending a vote. You’re saying, “Yes! I agree this book is about this label or that label.” The more times a particular tag is clicked (like contemporary romance), the more that book will show up in searches (of contemporary romance). So checking the tags helps that author’s book get more exposure. Easy, right?

And authors, you can help yourself by tagging your own book! You can add up to 15 tags, and you make it a little easier for your readers to vote when they can click on that “Agree with these tags?” button.


Is That All There Is To It?


Well, you have to be signed in to your Amazon account for your tags to register. And your tags will only count on whatever edition of the book you tagged (ie. hardcover, paperback, Kindle). And really, you should read the book so that your tags are accurate.

But, yeah. That’s it. So check those tags—and help sell a book!

~from Cathy C. Hall

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Demystifying Google Penguin and SEO Strategies Part 1

In light of Google Penquin, the latest update, I’ve been reading a lot about the new marketing strategies that should be used for effective search engine and content optimization, or as Scott Frangos of WebDirexion.com puts it, “social environment optimization.”

I think Frangos hit the nail on the head – the new marketing strategies to be used, to appease the marketing gods (search engines), is all about social networking, connections. SEO was always kind of a popularity contest, but now even more so, but on a somewhat fairer playing field.

Before, search engines simply connected searched keywords to related websites. Simply put, the more links back to your site, the higher your status. Quality links were always better.

Now, while keywords offer a ‘pointing finger,’ it’s the content itself and its shareability that matters. The more quality ‘like-minded’ sites and visitors you get the more Google will like you. The quality and relevancy of the links matter.

The new update is a good thing for writers who provide useful information for their readers. The content itself is ‘worthy’ and packs the ‘ranking punch.’ It doesn’t need lots of special optimization tricks. 

But, Google’s new update does raise some questions:

•    Do effective titles and content still matter?
•    Are keywords still needed?
•    What about ‘tags?
•    What about anchor text?
•    What does Google penalize for?
•    How do you rank with Google?

Let’s go over each one:

1. Do effective titles and content still matter?

Yes they do. It’s the title that will attract a reader’s attention and help turn attention to interest. Having a relevant keyword in the title helps the search engines categorize it and lets the reader know if it’s what he is looking for.

It’s the content that will keep the visitor on your site and motivate her to SHARE. This is the social connection.

2. Are keywords still needed?

Again, yes. Keywords help search engines categorize your content and help searchers find it, as mentioned in number one.

But, the keywords should be content relevant and not used primarily for money-making optimization. Sites that heavily use ‘money keywords’( keywords specifically used to make money through strategies like PPC), will most likely be penalized.

3. What about tags?

Yes, to this also. Tags, like keywords, help search engines categorize your content.

4. What about anchor text?

According to MicrositesMasters.com, “Google has issued a link over-optimization penalty (or at the very least over-optimization link devaluation).”

This pertains to anchor text linked primarily to ‘money keywords’ and that brings incoming links specifically to make money. These sites usually lack valuable content.

Using anchor text to give your reader more bang-for-the-buck, a broader reading experience is a good thing. Along with helping your reader, if you’re linking to other valuable

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Last Monday Part1 on this topic was posted here. It talked about website traffic statistics in regard to two of my sites. Today, we go into the rest of the 'blog posting' promotional elements: anchor text, tags, and promotion.

Blog Posting, Keywords, Anchor Text, Tags, and Website Statistics Part2

Anchor Text

Another interesting fact in regard to the statistics’ referring sites is that the KCWM site itself is listed as a source. This is accomplished by creating anchor text within the post content and/or at the bottom of the post as “Additional articles to read.” The anchor text leads the reader to another page/post within your site.

According to Wikipedia, “anchor text is weighted (ranked) highly in the search engine algorithms, because the linked text is usually relevant to the landing page.”

Is there a difference between an anchor text leading to another post and simply putting the url itself? YES.

Anchor text allows search engines to easily find and index your content and they value this strategy, the url address doesn’t have the same ‘word power.’ Wikipedia says, “The objective of search engines is to provide highly relevant search results; this is where anchor text helps.” This is part of SEO.

Blog Tags

Next on my ‘to do’ list when posting an article on my site is to put relevant tags.

In the article “Using Categories and Tags Effectively on Your Blog” on
ProBlogger.net, it explains that tags should be thought of “as the colorful little page markers you might use to flick back to your favorite pages in a book. The tags don’t describe the book as a whole, instead they describe individual sections of the book.”

Two important 'tags' factors to consider:

•    Tags complement categories. If you use Wordpress you’ll be able to and should use categories. Blogger does not offer this feature, so it’s even more important to use tags.

•    Tags should be focused and use the same ones for each specific topic. This means if you are writing about book marketing, use one specific tag: book marketing. Don’t switch it up with ‘book promotion’ or ‘marketing.’ Be consistent because it is this consistency that search engines will use to index your site and establish you as an authority on that keyword. This means a higher ranking in the search engines.

Going into this a bit further, when writing on the topic of writing, whether it’s on characterization, setting, or plot, you should always include the keyword ‘writing’ or ‘writing advice,’ or other relevant writing keyword you use consistently. You can also include the more specific keywords, like ‘setting’, ‘writing goals,’ or whatever the content warrants to give more indexing information, but it’s important to use your main ‘writing’ tag for all your posts on writing.

Promote your Blog Posts

If you want to enhance your visibility, you need to SHARE each article/post. Wordpress and Blogger both have plugins or gadgets to provide easy ‘sharing’  to Facebook, GooglePlus, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Linkedin. Make use of the ‘sharing’ feature.

Then of course there are your other social networks, your groups. Don’t forget to post a message in your groups letting them know you have a new post up.

Use these three blog posting elements for each of your posts and your traffic/views are sure to increase.
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Welcome to SSPP Reads, the official reading blog of Saints Peter & Paul School! Your go-to literacy and learning toolkit.

Let’s begin at the beginning:  ”Home” is where I publish our weekly post.  I touch on a variety of topics, from building vocabulary to Speech and Language,  and offer reading suggestions and links for further exploration.

Look to the right side of the page – I’ve posted links under “School Connections” to help you stay informed.

Below School Connections is “Latest Tweets”, the four most recent tweets of Sspp Reads on Twitter.  Click Latest Tweets for a direct link totwitter.com/SsppReads.

At the bottom of the right column  are Tags–these are keywords I attach to each of the blog posts. Every time I tag a post with the phrase “San Francisco Public Library”, the word will show up as a link at the bottom of the post. This is a “tag”. If you click the tag “San Francisco Public Library”, you will find all the posts  ever published that are also tagged with “San Francisco Public Library”.

Graphic courtesy of Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com Flickr Creative Commons License.

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At various times during the last year, I’ve heard a librarian here and there say that tags and tag clouds are a passing fad, something our patrons don’t even know about let alone use, and useless compared to structured search.

However, thinking that tags are only about classification (good or bad) is missing the forest for the trees. Tag clouds can also be useful as navigation tools and for pattern recognition. Which is the name of Jason Griffey’s blog and must be why Jason helps prove this point.

2008 State of the Union as Tag Cloud

“Last year’s 2007 State of the Union Tag Cloud was such a hit, I decided to follow up again this year. A few major differences: Congress is mentioned a lot more this year, while health and oil don’t show up at all. This year’s address looks more active…instead of ‘fight’ we get ‘fighting.’ ” [Pattern Recognition]

jason griffey, tag clouds, tags

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Me and the nice people from MetaFilter are starting an ambitious back-tagging project where a team of volunteers will be adding tags to the 42,000 posts that were on the website before we added the tagging functionality. We’re hoping that this will make it easier to track down double-posts and related posts and make browsing the site via tags a little more thorough. I envy sites like Flickr that have had tags since the beginning, doing it this way is hard and not at all optimal. In any case, if you have a MetaFilter login and would like to do a little volunteer tagging, please drop me an email or (preferably) an IM with your usernumber and I can get you set up.

mefi, metafilter, projects, tagging, tags

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My hubby tagged me for the In The Spotlight meme. I answer a bunch of questions about my blog and then hopefully, others play too! The rules are here.

So, here goes.

What makes my blog unique? I ramble on about weird things right along side animals, creating, and writing. I like to see my blog as an illustrated story!

When did you start blogging? A couple of years ago. I prefer it to messing with my web page. :)

What do you hope to accomplish with your blog? I want to INSPIRE others, and to share my work.

Favorite childhood memory? I had (still have somewhere) a red valentine bear my mom bought me. I went everywhere with Beani Heart. When I was a little older, I found out Mom had bought an extra Beani in case, DOG forbid, anything happened to Beani one. We called the second Beani, Beani's sister. My mom was pretty special.

Are you a spiritual person? Spiritual, yes, religious, not at all. I feel very connected to spirit, angels, God etc. I see everything from the perspective of what I am learning, etc. Sometimes, I have doubt and lack of trust. I'm working on it everyday.

My best quality? Tenacity.

Worst quality? Tenacity.

I tag anyone who reads this! Have fun. Let me know you are playing.

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A few weeks ago, my friend gave me a heads up that Randolph County Public Library in Asheboro, NC had an open house celebration for their teen area. Check it out! (and their blog too)

Posted by Kelly Czarnecki

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