Tag Archive for 'online book'

Online writing tools are just as important as real world tools - just a bit different!

In my online writing tips yesterday, I suggested that it was very helpful for online writers to think of their web site or blog as a book. Today, I will be suggesting that online writers should treat the search engines that index their web site or blog as if they were their publishers.

Search engines have many similarities with conventional publishers.

• Search engines bring readers to online writer’s sites as do conventional publishers.
• Search engines want the sites they recommend to be of as high quality as possible.
• Without the help of search engines, you are unlikely to become a well known online writer unless you are famous already.

Just as you would want to work closely with a conventional publisher, you need to work closely with the search engines. They know their business and what they need. It is therefore in the interests of each online writer to make the search engines a friend.

The easiest way to start doing this is to sign up for a Webmasters Tools account with Google. It will give you access to the way Google sees your online book / blog and provide you with helpful suggestions as to how you can improve your online writing site from the search engine’s point of view. Best of all, as I write this, Google Webmaster Tools accounts are free so this helpful online writing tip must surely come in the category of ‘a no brainer’.

Armed with all the helpful advice and ongoing monitoring of your sites search engine positioning from Google Webmaster Tools, as your online writing grows, hopefully, you should see the sort of growth in your advertising revenues that will make all the effort worthwhile.

It would be wrong of me, however, to claim that online writing is an easy road to instant wealth – although sadly many sites do. Online writing is an extremely competitive business, just like conventional writing. The only main difference is that online writing makes each book you write available to your public with a greater degree of certainty, whereas conventional publishers act as gatekeepers permitting readers only to see the work of a selected few.

Once you have a blog / online book that is world ranking in its written quality and perfectly in tune with the requirements of the search engines, there is still the challenge of getting known to the public and, for the unknown writer, even correctly indexed by the search engines, this can take a long time.

However, with time on your hands, you have an ideal opportunity to get on with your next book / blog. If you check out the traditional book list of many successful writers you will find they often have multiple books to their names so it makes sense for online writers to have many online books / blogs to their names too?

A further incentive is that, from the online writer’s point of view, each book / blog out there in cyberspace is an emissary that advertises all the other books you have ever written.

From the online readers point of view, if they find an online writer they like, they will be sure to look for more online writing by the same author and that brings online writers more readers independently of the search engines, which is always a good thing.

Good luck!

More free online writing help tomorrow

Bye for now

Rob Hopcott – online writer