Mar 25 2009
SEO for Book Blogs
NOTE: I have added a second page full of SEO tips. Be sure to read through this post and then click on the link to Part Two, where you will learn how to optimize your blog.
I am titling this “SEO for Book Blogs” because I am a book blogger and…well, it’s easier to explain SEO when there is a topic you can refer to. But quite frankly, this could just as easily be “SEO for Auto Mechanics” or “SEO for Dentists.” Just replace “book blogs” with your field and call it good. 
Second, I am getting most of my information from the Great and Wonderful Oz Grizz, who can you find at Make Money With Adsense. If you read through this post (which is just a very simple intro into the world of SEO and is by no means an in-depth look at it) and have more questions, please check out his site.
Last note and then we’ll get into the fun stuff: I have been blogging for a handful of years, and even managed a group of bloggers for a while (paid position). Even so, there is a lot that I’ve done wrong and had to relearn. There is not a single mistake listed below that I have not made myself, most of them hundreds of times. So don’t think that I am trying to set myself up as some sort of amazing SEO goddess - I have screwed up with the best of them. That’s why I’m doing this - to help others learn what I wish I knew from the beginning.
Okay, first question: What does SEO stand for? SEO = Search Engine Optimization. That simply means setting up your blog so that Google sees it as being more important than your competition and thus ranking you higher when someone does a search for information. (I know that there are certainly other search engines than Google, but it is by far the most popular one out there and quite frankly, “search engines” is a much more cumbersome phrase than Google. So Google it is.)
Google doesn’t search the web for information and then randomly throw the information it finds onto a search results page. If you do a search for book blogs in Google, then Google puts the results in order of decreasing importance, starting with what it believes to be the most important website of them all at the number one spot.
How does it decide how to list or rank those sites? Basically, it lets you do the work for it. Let’s say that we have two blogs that are equal in every way except the number of links coming in from other sites (these are called incoming links). Blog A has 200 incoming links. Blog B has 2 incoming links. Which blog do you think is better? Yeah, Google agrees with you - it would rank Blog A much higher than Blog B.
Every link that goes from someone else’s site to your site is in essence a “vote” to Google, where this other site is saying that they think your site is important. The more incoming links on a site, the more helpful and informational it is in Google’s eyes.
But it doesn’t just stop there. In order for you to be important in Google’s eyes, you can’t just have incoming links, you have to have the right incoming links. Google has figured out that when someone links to another site and has that link say book reviews, then there’s a pretty darn good chance that the site is about book reviews. You wouldn’t link to an article about Britney Spears by saying, “Check out this great Wikipedia article on various types of coffee,” obviously.
So whatever terms people use when linking to your site, Google will then remember and associate those terms with your site and rank you higher for them when someone does a search for information in Google.
This all works great in theory, but then you have the links that look like this:
I found a great book blog today - fantastic! You’ve got to check it out here.
So what does that tell Google? That my blog is a very fine place to go if someone is looking for the term “here.” Would you rather have Google associate your blog with the phrase “book reviews” or the word “here”? Yeah, me too.
What is the bottom line? You want to have incoming links that say “book reviews” or whatever key terms you are interested in. The more links you can gain that have the right words in them, the higher you will rank for those words.
Along with receiving great incoming links, you also want to be careful when you create outgoing links because although Google doesn’t bestow nearly as much importance on your outgoing links as it does your incoming links, it does pay little attention to it. Google figures (correctly) that if a site is always talking about nonfiction book reviews and blogs about books, etc, then there’s a pretty good chance that the blog itself is focused on books.
So it’s good for you and good for the site you’re linking to, to use good keywords in your links.
How do you decide what keywords your site should focus on? That’s not something I consider myself well versed in - there are fairly technical things you can do to determine the right keywords, etc. I decided that for this site, I’m just going with my gut. The whole focus of my site is to write and post nonfiction book reviews, right? So that is the phrase I am hoping to rank well for: Nonfiction book reviews. Those are my “keywords” for my site.
Notice, however, that my URL is actually NonfictionLover.today.com. Unfortunately, the phrase “nonfiction lover” isn’t exactly something many people search for (but if they did, I would rank #1 for that term. Yay me!) So what’s the normal thing to do when linking to my site? This:
I found a great new site about nonfiction books. It’s called Nonfiction Lover - check it out!
I absolutely do that with other sites, and I absolutely expect others to do that with my site. That’s why it’s so helpful to pick a website address that has all of the right keywords in it because then if someone links to you they will automatically use the keywords you want them to use.
Unfortunately, the automatic thing isn’t always the helpful thing, so what about us bloggers who have website addresses that are not full of great keywords? Well, we end up having to ask other bloggers to use the right keywords when linking to us (and then having to explain to them what we’re talking about.) I figured that if I could educate a small corner of the book blogging world and then they could spread that information to others who would then continue the chain outwards, eventually we’ll have a much better educated blogging world.
Feel free to link to this post if you end up trying to explain keywords to an unsuspecting blogger.
The last part of this and then I’ll stop making your brain hurt, promise, is that Google knows that although looking at links is the best way to decide how to rank results when someone does a search, it also has a fatal flaw - people can game the system. Google is counting on links being made from one blog to another because the bloggers really like the website they are linking to, but it is just as easily the case that the person is getting paid to put the link in there.
So Google tries hard to spot anything that looks suspicious - if ALL incoming links to my blog were for the exact phrase “nonfiction book reviews” then Google would know that something funky was up, and it’d throw me into the doghouse for sure.
That’s why I don’t ask everyone to link to my site using the phrase “nonfiction book reviews” but instead ask that people use at least two out of the three of those words in their link, in whatever order they want. Some examples of helpful incoming links for my site would be:
reviews of nonfiction books
great book reviews
fun nonfiction review site
book reviews for nonfiction
interesting nonfiction books
Etc
Make sense? It just can’t be the same thing every time, or Google will smell a rat and say that I am trying to game the system. Because honestly, what is the chance that every single person who ever read my blog would want to describe my blog using the same exact phrase? Not very good.
One thing to keep in mind is the fact that a mere one or two links is not going to make a ton of difference in your rankings with Google. It might raise you a spot or two, but nothing drastic. It needs to be done by quite a few websites before any big changes are made in Google rankings. But hey, every little bit helps, and if you continue to garner a link here and a link there, eventually your ranking with Google will climb. You have to be in this for the long haul.
Although the concept of this is fairly simple, it’s actually pretty hard to put into practice in real life because it depends on others doing something - you can’t make the links happen by yourself. You’re depending on other people to do it for you, which makes it much harder to actually get it done (and especially to get it done right).
If you want more in-depth SEO info, please check out the website Making Money with Adsense.
I hope this helped someone out there!
Havs
15 Responses to “SEO for Book Blogs”
thanks for this.
I’m trying to do better with my blogs… but can’t say that I’m seeing much improvement in search engine traffic
Thanks! I came over from the forums. I’m probably going to come back a time or two while I continue to wrap my head around this SEO thing, but you’ve done a great job explaining it here (I’m just not really awake).
LadyD >> I’m glad to hear it! I hope that these tips help you out on your site.
Flit >> It does take a while. Google does not search every website every day, so if I link to you today, Google may not see and credit you until next week. It’s a trickle down effect, and it definitely takes more than one or two blogs linking to you correctly in order for it to help. Age is also a helpful factor.
Jayewalking >> I totally understand that. I just finished some math homework that was SHEER DRUDGERY because my brain just isn’t focusing or functioning well. Come back and reread my post when you’re more awake, and then if you still don’t get it, be sure to email me and I can go into greater detail then.
The great thing is that these are simple things to do to make your site more SEO friendly - changing a link from “here” to “nonfiction book review site” isn’t big deal. It doesn’t cost you $200 or take hours to do. On the other hand, it also doesn’t change a whole lot overnight. It’s the accumulation of the little things that help over the long haul.
Going to bed - have a great evening everyone.
Havs
Hey Amber, I’m so glad this could help.
There is certainly more to SEO than what I have written above, but honestly, if you do the above stuff, then you’re in a lot better shape than 90% of the average bloggers out there.
Hugs!
Havs
Hava - Thank you for posting about SEO in an easy to understand way for us newbies. I have been reading Griz’s site, but your explanation has been easier for me to grasp. I can try some of these techniques, then reread some of the more complex stuff on his site. A couple of questions - Does it matter if the same blog keeps linking over and over? What if I link about topics on one of my blogs to the other on a regular basis? Does Goggle only count unique site-to-site links? Is it also true that having the keyword in the post title and early in the post helps? Does having your blog’s name on someone’s blogroll help, too?
Hi Havs!!
Finally had the time to read this page & again, thanks so much for all the help you’ve been giving me. My question is this: Is it just as good to have my site in a blogroll as it is to have someone link to a specific article? Obviously, it’s a lot easier to exchange links on a blogroll, but what are some ways to get my articles and/or site referenced in an actual post or comment?
Caregiving Daughter, I am glad that my post helped you some. SEO can be confusing, and so I tried to post the absolute basics above. I am thinking that I need to put together another post with other SEO information other than just linking, because there are definitely other things you can do to improve your SEO rankings. Hopefully you’ll come back and check that out too.
As for having the same blog link to your blog over and over again, that isn’t a good idea. Google will look at it as spamming and as you trying to “game” the system. At best, it will simply ignore all links coming from that site to your site; at worst, it could possibly rank you lower in search phrases.
I don’t think Google does the worst case option because that would make it easy for a mean and nasty website to link over and over to its competition in order to cause it to lose rank. But still, I wouldn’t take the chance. And of course, the best case scenario still means that none of those links do any good, which still isn’t a good scenario.
You can link more than once to another website - I am not saying that you can only link once and never again. Google just wants to see a pattern of normality - anything too excessive raises a flag in its mind.
I think (and this is only my guess - I am basing this on my judgment and common sense, but would definitely not bet the farm on it) that Google would give the first link the most “weight” and then give each following link less weight. Again, you want this to be natural. I have linked to Rocket Scientist’s site several times plus I have her in my blogroll, but it was a casual thing, not something I did every Tuesday or something.
Having the keyword(s) for your post in both the title and early in the post (preferably the first sentence) help tremendously. You want to then use the keyword(s) (or some form of it) every other paragraph or so, if you can without it looking unnatural. This not something I am really good at, but I do make sure to always use the name of my book plus the author in the title, the first paragraph (usually first sentence), and at the end of the post. If I get it in, in the middle, I just consider that to be a bonus.
Having your website (using the keywords for your website!!!!) in someone else’s blogroll is absolutely helpful. As far as I know, there is no difference in SEO goodness between a link in a post and a link in the blogroll (although I am NOT sure on that, and reserve the right to change my mind at any point! :-P) But, a link is a link, and so yes, a link in the blogroll is definitely counted when Google looks at how to rank your site.
If you have any other questions, please ask.
I love to help.
Mkissing, it’s about time you made it over here!
Just teasing you.
Some ideas on getting people to link to you in their actual post…Well, I would say the most obvious (but the hardest to do!) is to write up such amazing posts that someone spontaneously links to your site without any nudging on your part.
Of course, you don’t want to wait around for that, so I would say that next best idea is to approach people who you have built up a relationship with online and ask them if you could do a link swap in the posts instead of the blogroll. It’s easiest if the person already knows about SEO, but if not, I know this great gal who has written up an entire page on her site about how to use SEO on your blog! 
I’m funnier in my head than down on paper…
Anyway, perhaps put up a post on the Today forums and see if anyone would be interested in doing that with you. Also, look at running a contest on your site (like I am here) to garner links that way. You could specify that you only want links in the posts themselves.
I am not currently reading an environmental-related book but when I do, I will make sure to link to you.
Hava
Hey Callista, thanks!
I appreciate it!!
Havs
Hey, thanks! And thanks TWICE for actually posting what SEO stands for, which everyone else at the party already seemed to know and I didn’t. *sheepish look*
I’m off to go write a post full of “Portuguese Water Dog” and “Obama” and “White House Dog” now. Couldn’t hurt. Might help.
Tracker >> LOL! Hey, you’re not the only one standing around at the party, not knowing what SEO stands for.
You’d be surprised how many people don’t know this information, including me just a couple of years ago.
And writing posts with helpful keywords that are currently being search about not only couldn’t hurt, I’m positive it’ll help!
I am going to edit your comment, and make the words “Portuguese Water Dog” a link to your site, AND edit out the automatic no follow on that link (all links in my comment section have a “no follow” on them, which means that I’m telling Google not to pay any attention to that link. By editing that out, I can manually change the link to be a normal “follow” link, which will tell Google that it should pay attention to that link and rank you higher because of it. BTW, all Today.com blogs are this way - Today has it set up that way, even though I wish they didn’t.)
Let me see if doing that can’t help you out a little.
Do you have any dog blogging friends who can also throw a link or two your way? Those links really are king!
Hava
Well darn it!!! I added the link, as you can see, but when I delete out the no follow part and click Save, it automatically puts that no follow right back in. I thought I could manually delete it out and have it work.
Well, that’s just crummy!
I don’t have any books about dogs in the queue right now, but as soon as I review another one, I’ll be sure to link to you then.
Good luck!!
Havs
These are fantastic tips and I will implement them on my sites and see if I can get more organic traffic through it.