building a website

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Find Your Novel Online with Keyword Phrases

Posted by Dawn Ross on September 17, 2011
Posted in: Miscellaneous. Tagged: , , . 1 Comment

Using keywords and keyword phrases is the first very basic step to building a website for your novel.

Have you written a book and want to build a website for it? This can be done rather easily by using free space at Yola.com or Webs.com. But building it is not enough if you hope to be found by browsers. In order to be found by browsers such as Google, your website has to have what are called keywords.  Google searches especially index your website based on keywords. And since Google is currently the biggest search tool people use, it is best to do things their way.

So what are keywords? Keywords are words or phrases that are found throughout the text of your website. Your website should have lots of information. Talk about your book, the author, testimonials from customers, etc. And throughout all this information, be sure to use specific keywords or keyword phrases.

How do keywords and keyword phrases work? Consider if you are looking for a recipe on how to make pot roast. You would most likely go to Google and enter ‘pot roast recipe’ or ‘how to cook pot roast’. The websites at the top of Google’s search generally have exactly what you are looking for. How did Google find them? Most likely, the websites found on this search are rich with the terms you put in the Google search. These terms are called keyword phrases.

So if you are writing a fantasy novel like me, you would want to have lots of information on your website and include terms/keyword phrases that you think people looking for a good fantasy novel will use in a Google search. An example of keyword phrases that you could use for your fantasy novel are ‘fantasy novel’, ‘fantasy book’, ‘fantasy author’, or ‘fantasy ebook’, and these are just to name a few of the many possibilities.

The keyword phrases you use is up to you. Your website can have up to ten keyword phrases so feel free to use variations of the same phrase or various different phrases. Your name can also be considered a keyword phrase since someday you hope that your name will be known and people will do Google searches on you (or your pen name). Your book title, too, should be considered one of the keyword phrases.

Be careful to make sure that your keyword phrases fit into the information on your site smoothly. Your readers should be able to read the information on your website without the keyword phrases standing by themselves or reading awkwardly into the text.

Although I am still working on building my website for my fantasy novel, I have built several other websites for other things. I don’t consider myself an expert on this topic, but I am no amateur either. The information here is just the basic information on keyword phrases. It is enough to get you started. If you want more detailed information and information on how to find good quality keyword phrases, visit SearchInnovation.com. There are also great books on Amazon for Building a Website.

Building the Website for My Self Published Books (ebooks)

Posted by Dawn Ross on March 13, 2011
Posted in: The Dukarian Legacy - Fantasy Novels. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Build a website from scratch?  No way!  Unless you are very familiar with html language and how to build websites, this is a very daunting task.  So what do I do?  There are three choices which I would like to outline below.

Free Websites
There are several companies out there who host websites for free.  Some examples are http://www.yola.com and http://www.webs.com.  I’ve used yola.com to build my dog breed information website.  It does well for its purpose.  But it has many limitations – setting up payment methods, being forced to use only their web page formats, and other limits to functionality.  But if your message and your products are simple, this can be a good way to go.

Pay Someone to Build a Website
I would never recommend this option.  Although you have complete control over how your website looks and works, it can be very difficult to make changes.  Paying someone to build your website is expensive.  And if you want to make changes later, you have to pay again.  This can get very costly.

Go With a Website Hosting Service
This is the option that I chose long before I even knew that free websites existed.  I purchased six websites from a web hosting service and have used four of them in the past four years.  Although it was expensive up front and I have to pay a monthly hosting fee for each live website, I prefer to use this web hosting service to build my websites.  I have a lot more versatility, it is easy to use, setting up payment methods is simple, and I can make changes as often as I want at no additional costs.

However, if you choose to purchase a website from a website hosting service, be very very careful.  There are a lot of scammers out there.  And while I use StoresOnline for this service, they also have a bad reputation.  I probably paid more than I should have initially and maybe $25 per month per website is expensive.  But I love how easy it is.  And my website http://www.petautosafety.com is doing very well and has more than made up for the costs.

Most of the people who give StoresOnline bad reviews didn’t have the luck that I have had.  It takes more than just building a website to make money.  You have to do a lot of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which can take a good couple of years.  StoresOnline gives you a lot of tips and tools, but even this doesn’t guarantee that your website will be successful.

Supposedly, StoresOnline made a lot of people think it would be easy.  They have testimonials from people who made a lot of money right away.  But times have changed and there is a lot of competition.  When I went to a StoresOnline seminar, it was indeed very motivating.  But they made it very clear to me during the seminar that it would take a lot of hard work.  Perhaps StoresOnline wasn’t as honest at other seminars or perhaps people just heard what they wanted to hear.

My website for my self published books will be done through StoresOnline.  Look for it soon.  And look for more blog posts on how I will do the Search Engine Optimization (SEO).