Shelagh Watkins - Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine
by Shelagh Watkins
Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine by Shelagh Watkins
I read this on your page Selling Books Online: Search engines drive most of the traffic. If search engines aren't driving traffic to your site, then the only people showing up are likely those you hand your business card to! The title of my children's novel is Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine. I decided to do a Google search on "model airplane children's book" Out of 1,310,000 matches, my book was twelfth on the list: Children's Books - Zimbio Guide to great children's books with tips for parents. ... After retirement, Mr. Planemaker decides to build a scaled, model airplane because he wants to ... www.zimbio.com/Children's+Books and thirtieth: Shelagh Watkins After retirement, Mr. Planemaker decides to build a scaled, model airplane because he wants to build something lasting for his children but he dies before ... www.squidoo.com/shelaghwatkins and fifty-first: Shelagh Watkins's Page - Published Authors Children Book Market Testing Made Simple. Congratulations Connie! ... After retirement, Mr. Planemaker decides to build a scaled, model airplane because he ... publishedauthors.ning.com/profile/shelaghwatkins By adding "flying" to the search, I pulled up my book on the first page, listed tenth: Shelagh Watkins I wrote Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine as a children's novel but there is ... Mr. Planemaker decides to build a scaled, model airplane because he wants to ... www.squidoo.com/shelaghwatkins I also did a Google book search on "flying machine children's book" and my book showed on page four (32 out of 695): Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine - Page 148 by Shelagh Watkins - Juvenile Fiction - 2005 - 200 pages ... and announced the proposed date for launching the Flying Machine PHI into space. ... The next stage of the children's training involved the use of a ... Limited preview - About this book - Add to my library On Google web search, "flying machine children's book" brought up my book at the top of the first page - number one of 216,000: Amazon.com: Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine: Shelagh Watkins: Books I wrote Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine as a children's novel but there is more to the book than just a story, although readers are left to figure out . ... www.amazon.com/Planemakers-Flying-Machine-Shelagh-Watkins/dp/141377136X Response from Steve Barancik, webmaster: Shelagh, you're the greatest! Readers, you've just met Shelagh Watkins, webmistress extraordinaire. Before I respond, let me tell you about some of her sites: Shelagh Watkins - Books, Poems, Short Stories The Published Authors Network The Published Authors Forum Shelagh's blog Now let me tell you about a huge coincidence. I wrote the text Shelagh quotes above about a hypothetical children's book about a child who builds model airplanes. Then Shelagh shows up having written such a book. Well, maybe that's not a coincidence. Maybe that's just Google. Regardless, it's pretty funny. Now Shelagh, if I read her correctly, is questioning what I said previously. She's saying her book does indeed show up ranked highly in a search for Model Airplane Children's Book But if that's the case, she's misread me. I did say her book would rank highly for that search. What I said was it wouldn't rank highly in a search simply for Children's Books The truth is, Model Airplane Children's Book is what is called a long tail search. That is, it's so highly specific that it's rarely searched. Yes, it's great if your site comes up #1 for that long tail search, but... Shelagh's doesn't. Somebody else's site (where her book is mentioned) comes up #12. On the second page of search results. (However, if one searches Flying Machine Children's Books, Shelagh does indeed, as she said, come up #1. (Her book, not her site.) But that's an even rarer search.) Almost any site on the net - even the worst site - can come in #1 for a specific long tail search. (As long as the site has been indexed by the search engines.) For instance, I'm rather confident that this site will soon rank #1 for the search phrase Shelagh Watkins Webmistress Extraordinaire Why? Because I used that exact phrase earlier on this page. And I'm confident that no one has ever strung those 4 words together in that order before. Building a site that will rank highly for highly searched keywords is a big job. Your site needs to be a comprehensive resource on that subject! Take Children's Books. That's a pretty huge keyword. It's safe to say that thousands of people make that search each day. This is a pretty huge site on the subject of children's books. I have nearly 300 pages (and counting). But the only search engine where I've yet ranked in the top 30 sites on the subject is msn/live. Still, I'm doing pretty good. I get a TON of medium tail traffic. Each month I received THOUSANDS of visits from people searching on these terms: cheap children's books bibliotherapy free children's books discount children's books classic children's books sesame street magazine free books for kids free kids books how to write a children's book writing children's books classic children's literature free books for children how to write children's books best children's books Why? Because I'm on page 1 of the search results for each of them. Sometimes I'm #1! Last month (May, 2008) this site received over 40,000 page views, nearly all of it search engine generated. And the site keeps growing! Moral of the story? A little website where one author does little more than hawk his or her book or books is destined to receive very little search engine traffic. (Shelagh's sites, by the way, are not such sites. They're huge...and useful. They just aren't focused on the subject of model airplanes.) The key to traffic, which both Shelagh and I know, is to create a comprehensive site on a focused subject. Lots of pages, lots of words, lots of good, solid information. How can such a site help you sell your books? Make sure the subject you focus on is a subject that will have appeal to the same market your book appeals to. Then your book will have the chance to sell itself. Click here to read or post comments.
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