On Being a Published Writer
A to Z Blogging 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Day 23
Welcome to the 2012 A to Z Blogging Challenge. This year I’m focusing on things I’ve learned, observed and experienced in the nine years I’ve been published. If you’re a reader, I hope to offer an inside glimpse into the writer’s world. If you’re new to writing, I hope I can provide an insight or two. If you’re an established writer, maybe you’ll see similarities to your experience. Whatever path you walk, I welcome you to mine and hope you’ll enjoy the 2012 A to Z Blogging Challenge.
Your website is the most important promotional tool in your arsenal, and you need to have complete – and I mean complete – control over its content. Even if you pay someone to be your webmaster, you need to know what questions to ask to make sure your web presence is what you want it to be.
Is creating and managing your website yourself difficult? Yes, it is, but it’s not impossible. Software abounds. I call mine Software for Dummies. It came free from the company I buy my domain name and webhosting from as a marketing tool. It works well and that’s the important thing. But how to make the most of? How to get it listed in all the search engines?
Often times the answer is as easy as putting the question into a search engine. Whether it’s a good thing or not, Google handles the biggest chunk of the search engine business, so let’s talk about Google.
Obviously I can’t cover everything in this one little blog, but I have a few tips I want to share that I hope will help. First up, how many pages of your website and blog can Google find? Go to Google.com and type in this: site:kckendricks.com. Now try it for your website and your blog. If Google is missing pages, you might need to verify your sites with Google. It’s easy for the brave, but the faint of heart (like me) might need a glass of wine first.
As strange as this may sound, check out YouTube for tutorials. I once took a workshop in SEO (search engine optimization) but after the week was over, I still had questions. I found those answers on YouTube. Type “tutorial” as your first word in the YouTube search box and prepare to be amazed.
Probably even more important than having your site registered with Google is the use of key words. Google found my website for years before I verified and registered it. How? By the use of key words.
It took me awhile to get on right track with key words. I thought adding them to the meta tags was enough. Turns out, it’s not. Those words should also appear in the text of the webpage they’re in the meta tag for. Really good key words for what KC Kendricks writes are “gay” and “romance.” So every page of that website has “gay romance” somewhere on the page.
More wine? I like Sutter Home White Merlot.
I know a lot of freebies are out there, but if you can afford it, consider going “dot.com.” What’s the first thing we do when we want to check out a company? We type in [company name].com. I want the publishing world to know I’m a serious writer, and I think owning your dot.com projects that.
All this might reads like a lot of work, but doing your own website is fun, too. You control the content so add a page of vacation photos if you like. Have a banner exchange page. Plant a few Easter eggs. Create a wine list. (Why didn’t I think of this sooner? I’ll get to taste the wine!) Share your free reads.
Whether you create it to be all business or throw in some fun, your website is your home on the Internet. Use it to showcase your work, and who you are as a writer. The future is already here and the Internet is not going away. Claim your unique space and make it your own with no apologies. You’ll never regret it.
KC Kendricks
website at: http://www.kckendricks.comblog: http://www.kckendricks.blogspot.comTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/kckendricksmailing list at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/betweenthekeysGoodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1989106.K_C_KendricksFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Kc-Kendricks/1439574042MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/kckendricks
Tomorrow… X is for Making Your Mark
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