Book Marketing: SEO Basics | Writing for Children with Karen Cioffi

By Karen Cioffi

As an author, it’s important to understand book marketing.

To understand book marketing, it’s important to understand the basics of SEO.

SEO may seem confusing and even intimidating to some. But it needn’t.

Just dip your toe in and learn the basics. It’s common sense once you understand its purpose.

This acronym stands for search engine optimization, and its fundamental purpose is to increase your visible and build your authority through organic strategies (marketing strategies that are free).

This, in turn, will help you build your readership and help you sell your books and/or services.

It’s also important to understand that having your website and content optimized isn’t only for the search engines; it’s also for searchers (the people using keywords/phrases to search for what they want) and visitors to your site.

Before I delve into SEO, let me talk a bit about author websites, as they’re a crucial part of online marketing.

You Need One

Every author and writer should have their own website. If you weren’t sure about this before, you can be now.

You can’t rely on social media networks as your only online address. For instance, having a Facebook author page is a good idea, but it shouldn’t be the only place people can find you for a number of reasons.

These networks are continually changing the game. Your organic marketing reach (the other users in your social network who actually see your posts) is shrinking more and more. To increase visibility you need to pay to ‘boost’ your post.

The last I read (October 2025), organic reach for the average Facebook Page is around 2 percent. Roughly, this means that only 20 out of every 1,000 connections will see your posts.

I think in some instances it’s even much lower.

And, if a social network doesn’t like what you’re posting, they can remove the post.

To establish a solid book marketing foundation, you need a website.

But, I’m getting off track here.

What is SEO?

SEO is like a popularity contest. Certain actions by people can give your website a vote of confidence (authority). A few of these actions are:

Liking you
Sharing your content (blog posts)
Clicking on your link that leads back to your website (this is considered an inbound link)
Staying on your site for more than several seconds
Linking back to your site from their website (this is considered a backlink)
Commenting

Google considers these actions as votes.

If a lot of people are giving you votes, Google will make your website and content more visible to people searching for keywords that are relevant to your site and/or article.

An Example of SEO in Practice

This site’s basic keywords are: writing tips, writing for children, book marketing, self-publishing, publishing.

If my site and its content on it are doing a good job motivating people to take action with votes of approval, Google will list my posts higher up on its search engine results page (SERP).

This, in turn, will attract even more people to the website, giving us more votes.

How it works:

I write a post on book marketing. I share that post on my social network accounts. People see the post and click on the link back to my website to read the post. If the visitors find the post informative, they will share it and possibly comment.

Then, let’s suppose Amanda comes along and wants to learn about ‘book marketing’. She puts that keyword in Google’s search box.

Google scours its millions or billions of tidbits of information and sees that Writers on the Move has an article that has gotten votes and is relevant to Amanda’s search keyword. So, Google places the link to that article on the first SERP, allowing Amanda to see it.

Amanda sees the title of the article and the brief description I included. She thinks it will be helpful, so she clicks on it.

See where this is going?

The more visibility you have , the more people will come to your website. This, in turn, boosts your authority and ranking along with your chances of ‘conversion’ (turning visitors into customers or clients and subscribers to your newsletter).

This is SEO.

Sharing and Commenting

Because of this cycle of sharing and visitors, and sharing and more visitors, it’s essential to get people to share your blog posts. It’s considered another vote.

Google pays attention to everything.

So, if you’ve read this post and found it’s helpful, PLEASE Share it. And, if time allows, please comment.

UPDATE: AI has changed the face of book marketing to some degree. While SEO is still needed, keywords are not as relevant as they were. Marketing is more about the conversation. Along with this, Google now gives the searcher the answer to their question, even going in depth. Google does, however, list the sources used for the answer to the right of the answer. This allows for the source sites to be listed.

This post was first published at: https://www.writersonthemove.com/2017/12/seo-for-authors-series-basics.html

I’m a working children’s ghostwriter, rewriter, and coach. I can help turn your story into a book you’ll be proud to be the author of, one that’s publishable and marketable.

OTHER HELP I OFFER:

HOW TO WRITE A CHILDREN'S FICTION BOOK
A DIY book to help you write your own children’s book. 

FICTION WRITING FOR CHILDREN eCOURSE
4-Weeks / 8 Sections Guided Self-Study Program

You can contact me at kcioffiventrice@gmail.com.