Treat your blog or web site as if it were a book for maximum customer satisfaction.
Yesterday I wrote about online fiction writing and online publishing success through selection and positioning of keywords and discussed some technical aspects involved in using blog posts as a medium for posting your fiction online.
Today I thought I would expand on the subject of keywords by discussing the importance of keywords in your URL or sub-domain and keeping the subject matter of your web site or blog tightly themed.
From a writer’s point of view, the best way to look at blogs and web sites, is to think of them as online books. Keep this rule in mind and a lot of the generally accepted rules for good online publishing practice will start to make sense.
Blogs and web sites are more useful to visitors and readers if they keep to a central theme. No writer would expect to include gardening information in a book that was mainly about caravanning tips, yet blogs and websites that are seeking success in online publishing regularly mix themes on the same blog or web site that are better kept apart. The low cost of blog publishing online, these days, makes multiple publishing platforms eminently practicable.
The URL of a blog or web site is very similar to the title of a book. A book’s title provides information about the contents of the book and so should the URL of a blog or web site. If your blog is about ‘fiction writing’ then ‘fiction writing’ should perhaps be included in the URL. It helps the search engines know what the blog is about so they can send relevant visitors and helps the reader to remember the blog for later use.
The sections of a blog or web site are very similar to the pages and chapters of a book and this raises design questions:
- Is each page a separate chapter?
- What are the different sections?
- Is there a central plan that holds the blog or online book together?
- What keywords are the prospective readers likely to use to find your writing? Can they be included in the URL?
Blogs are naturally orientated towards daily posts and ongoing streams of information but they can be organised to help the reader who is then more likely to reward the writer by coming back again and again – the very thing all we writers want.
Just as books get recommended to friends, whole websites or blogs may also get recommended, but an individual page or a chapter is far less likely to be passed on by word of mouth, whether it is in a blog or a book.
Online writers and online authors who put a single item of writing online and expect to be extensively recommended across the Web, I suspect, are being very optimistic and, in my experience, over-optimism on the web is generally rewarded only by disappointment.
So, my online writing tip for today is to treat your blogs and online writing as if they were books.
Naturally, books take a long time to write and you may be fortunate to get interest in your book while it is only partially written. Treat this early interest as a bonus – it may even help you shape and form your online book – but always keep clearly in mind the overall structure, chapters sections and theme of your book / blog and a clear view of this theme will help you identify a descriptive URL for your online writing site.
Lastly, all books are written by somebody and your readers need a name (and ideally a picture) to relate to when they recommend you. It is therefore not a bad idea to include your name in the URL, along with key descriptive words. It helps your online readers, it helps the search engines and the extra visitors and advertising revenues you then might receive as an online writer is more than likely to put a smile on your face.
Good luck! More soon!
Bye for now 
Rob
