As we continue discussing how book marketing is similar in many ways to marketing a company, one consideration to always keep in mind is “search engine optimization.” This may seem a more appropriate topic when it comes to marketing a company, specifically as it relates to optimizing a company website, but the same considerations — and therefore the same tactics — hold true with regard to book promotion as well.
Optimizing your book for Internet sales starts with the title. I discuss this subject in my book Sell Your Book on Amazon in regard to how Amazon’s search engine indexes books, but the same can be said for Internet search engines in general (Google, Yahoo, etc). When “content” is indexed by computers, the “title” of that content is weighted quite heavily. For books, the title is… well, the title. For web pages, the title is the “title page” in the HTML.
This is so important for authors that Outskirts Press offers an optional service whereby we offer title suggestions to our authors. This begins with seeing the author’s initial title and/or sub-title. We analyze that against the content of the book and against other books that may either share that title or be “too similar” to that title. Next, we suggest 3 alternate titles and sub-titles that are geared toward maximizing the applicable “keywords” that define the book’s subject matter or content.
Sub-titles for books are one of the most powerful, and one of the most overlooked, marketing opportunities for books in the Internet age. One need look no further than five of the top 10 bestselling books published through Outskirts Press in 2009 for perfect examples. I’ll highlight the keywords that are helping these books get seen by more potential customers who conduct searches on the Internet.
- The Complete Guide to Day Trading: A Practical Manual From a Professional Day Trading Coach, by Markus Heitkoetter
- LEED AP Exam Guide: Study Materials, Sample Questions, Mock Exam, Building LEED Certification (LEED-NC) and Going Green, by Gang Chen
- Meat Smoking and Smokehouse Design, by Stanley Marianski, Adam Marianski, Robert Marianski
- Sell Your Book on Amazon: Top-Secret Tips Guaranteed to Increase Sales for Print-on-Demand and Self-Publishing Writers, by Brent Sampson
- What To Do When You Become The Boss: How New Managers Become Successful Managers, by Bob Selden
If sub-titles are so successful for books, ask yourself…. should your company have one? Are the names/titles for the products or services you launch optimized for search? These are important things to consider.
President of Outskirts Press 