“Although the internet has only been around for a little over 25 years, it has forever changed the way that products are successfully marketed to the general  public.” [1]

 

In my last article ‘How Google Books Revolutionised the Reading Experience‘, I briefly discussed how Google Books boosts readership through social marketing techniques such as ‘Google Books Reviews’, and how Google’s search facility allowed obscure titles to become more readily accessible to readers. In this article, I will continue to explore how publishers and authors can use Google to increase their book sales through following areas:

The Power of Suggestion:

Finding new books has never been easier. In fact, thanks to Google, readers don’t even need to actively search for a new book to binge on. Instead, platforms such as Google Books will show a customer ‘similar Ebooks’ to the book which they originally searched for –  as well as ‘more books by this author’. Gone are the days of pondering which book to buy next – now your next ideal read is most likely only a few scrolls down from the book you just bought.  Linked to this, when searching for a title through Google, the feature ‘people also searched for’ pops right up.

These features give readers a whole bunch of new books to delve into; and for authors, an increased following. Picture this: you find a book on Google’s ‘Top Selling’ tab (the place you always go to) – you love it. Then, after seeing Google’s suggested ‘more titles from this author’, you read one, two, or maybe more of the targeted recommendations and find a new favourite – perhaps a lesser-known piece of work by said author (or even a ‘similar author’). Google has now acted as a facilitator: introducing you to a book which you would not have found by sticking to your original searching habits, and in turn, has increased the attention towards a lesser-known title, so that it will, theoretically, one day reach the ‘Top Selling’ tab. The cycle then begins again.

The Significance of SEO:

Search Engine Optimisation – or, more commonly: SEO, is essential for getting books noticed on Google.

“If your main goal is selling books online, your biggest concern should be making sure that your books are as discoverable as possible. Making your books discoverable means ensuring that every aspect of the content marketing […] revolves around SEO.” – Amy Harrop, Book Coaching [2]

But what exactly is SEO?

SEO is the practice of using tailored keywords to optimise the chance of your product or work reaching its intended audience. For example, if you have written a short book called ‘The Trip’ of the thriller genre, set in Spain about a backpacker who encounters a sinister couple on a train, these keywords would be a good fit:

 thriller / Spain  / novella / train / travel / suspense narrative / plot twist / couple / unsettling thriller / psychological thriller / passengers / sinister / backpacker / gripping psychological thriller / deception 

“Google favours the cleanliness of information” – Matthew Gray, Lead Engineer of Google Books Search Quality [3]

To enhance your chances even more, you should include the keywords in the book description and subtitle, as it’s not uncommon for basic titles to get lost in a swarm of similarly named books. ‘The Trip’ could easily be a romance novel about the whirlwind holiday of a lifetime – or equally, a coming-of-age tale about a group of high school graduates on their first trip abroad. Therefore, to make the information as ‘clean’ and accessible as possible, ‘The Trip’ would fare better with a subtitle that identifies its purpose and ‘‘make[s] it easy for Google to find relevant content in a book and serve it up to the inquiring mind on the other side of the Google search box.“ [4]

Such as: ‘The Trip: One Backpacker’s Encounter with the Passengers from Hell’.

The Advantage of Digital Ads:

“Be just a Google Search Away” [5]

Linking well with SEO, Google Adwords is an excellent service for boosting book sales by connecting searchers to a title which relates to the nature of their general search; as Daniel Leffers elaborates: “With Google Adwords, the company’s primary advertising platform, self-published authors can publish text ads that will appear on search results pages.” [6] 

To our current generation – the Google Generation – this may not seem special or revolutionary. In fact, in this day and age, it seems standard practise to see ads popping up for the new bestseller that “everyone’s talking – or rather, posting – about!” However, in order to appreciate just how Google has ‘forever changed’ the way in which books are marketed and accessed by readers, we must consider how books were advertised in the pre-Google age. A variety of methods were used – anything from good old-fashioned pen to paper posters, to authors self-promoting their work on Television or radio stations.

But what do those methods lack? Targeting.

The internet has made it easier than ever for products to reach their indented audience; leaving it to chance whether your ideal customer will see a said poster or be watching TV when your specific advert comes on is a thing of the past!

A key example of this is Retargeting, used by Facebook Exchange: ‘FBX utilises tracking cookies to remember what products a customer has expressed interest in previously […] and then sends signals to Facebook that it should display [that product] to that particular customer.“ [7]

For example, if a user of Facebook has searched for ‘best seller thrillers’ recently on Google, the interest will be retargeted to appear on Facebook through a number of bestselling titles popping up on their News Feed.

To conclude, then, Google has revolutionised how readers connect with and buy books. Google makes it easier than ever to find a new read, with both content-specific and author-specific suggestions, and offers authors a platform to maximise the sales of their books by connecting searchers to content through its optimising search algorithms.

Author: Sarah Gunton

REFERENCES

[1] Amy Harrop, ‘How to Use SEO and Google to Sell More Books’, Book Coaching, 21 November 2017.  Available at: https://bookcoaching.com/how-to-use-seo-and-google-to-sell-more-books/ [accessed: 23 March 2018].

[2] Harrop, ‘How to Use SEO and Google to Sell More Books’. Available at: https://bookcoaching.com/how-to-use-seo-and-google-to-sell-more-books/ [accessed: 23 March 2018].

[3] Quote by:  Matthew Gray, Lead Engineer of Google Books Search Quality. Found in: DC Denison, ‘Getting Google to notice your ebook’, O’Reilly, 6 December 2010. Available at: http://toc.oreilly.com/2010/12/now-that-google-editions-has.html %5Baccessed: 23 March 2018].

[4] Gray, Found in: Dennison, ‘Getting Google to notice your ebook’.  Available at: http://toc.oreilly.com/2010/12/now-that-google-editions-has.html %5Baccessed: 23 March 2018].

[5] Google AdWords tagline. Available at: http://adwords.google.com/intl/en_uk/start/how-it-works/search-ads/?subid=gb-en-ha-g-aw-c-0-b0_xx_sho_xx_oh_bau_non!o2~1043941367-247065469405-kwd-12340353&utm_campaign=gb-en-ha-g-aw-c-0-b0_xx_sho_xx_oh_bau_non!o2~1043941367-247065469405-kwd-12340353 [accessed: 23 March 2018].

[6] Daniel Leffers, ‘Google Ads 101: A Guide for Indie Authors’, Publishers Weekly, 2 December 2016. Available at: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/pw-select/article/65767-google-ads-101-a-guide-for-indie-authors.html [accessed: 23 March 2018].

[7] ‘What is Facebook Exhange’, Big Commerce. Available at: https://www.bigcommerce.co.uk/ecommerce-answers/what-is-facebook-exchange/ [accessed: 23 March 2018].