Friday, February 19, 2010

Guest Blogger - Dana Lynn Smith - Increasing Your Books Visibility On Amazon


How to Increase Your Book's Visibility in Amazon's Search Results

by Dana Lynn Smith

Amazon.com customers typically search for books by author, title, or keyword. Like search engines, Amazon uses several criteria in deciding which products to display on the search results page and in what order to display them. Popularity (the number of books already sold on Amazon) and how well the book matches the keywords are major factors in determining the results of keyword searches.

The more books you sell on Amazon, the more books you will sell in the future, because your book will appear higher in the search results. In addition, many customers assume that the best-selling book must be the best one on the topic.

One way to increase your book's "popularity," and therefore its search results placement, is to direct all of your online book orders to Amazon.com.

It's also important to make sure your book matches popular search terms entered by customers. If your book is not yet published, you can add important keywords to the book's title and subtitle. Some publishers use long subtitles in order to pack in as many keywords as possible.

To capitalize on searches for keywords not contained in your title and subtitle, enter important keywords into Amazon's Search Tag feature.  Near the bottom of the Tags section (about halfway down your book page), look for "Help others find this product - tag it for Amazon search" and click on the "suggest" button.

You can't use keywords that already appear in Amazon's search function, such as the book title or author name. Word order matters, so create different search tags with variations on your most important keywords. After you enter a keyword, you must to tell Amazon why you think the book should be indexed under that particular term.

Amazon staff members approve Search Tags, so make sure your tag and your explanation are relevant and don't sound like a sales pitch. It's best to use the keyword phrase within your explanation. You can personally submit up to ten search terms for you book. If you have additional search terms to enter, ask a colleague to enter some for you.

Another way to increase your "popularity" on Amazon.com is do a virtual book tour or an "Amazon best-seller campaign," designed to push up your Amazon sales rank by generating a large number of orders on a single day.

There are a number of other ways to promote your book on Amazon.com, including getting lots of good Amazon reviews, writing reviews of other related books, participating in the Look Inside program, creating an Amazon Connect blog, enhancing your book description, participating in Amazon forums for your book's topic, and creating Listmania lists and So You'd Like To guides.

For a more in-depth look at Amazon promotions, I recommend
Aiming at Amazon, by Aaron Shepard.

Dana Lynn Smith is a book marketing coach and author of the Savvy Book Marketer Guides. For more tips, follow @BookMarketer on Twitter, visit Dana's blog at www.TheSavvyBookMarketer.com , and get a copy of the Top Book Marketing Tips ebook when you sign up for her free newsletter at www.BookMarketingNewsletter.com.

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