August 4, 2015
by punjacked
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August 3, 2015
by Jandré
3 Comments
Most self-help books provide a bunch of techniques. If you do such and such thing, you will experience these results. Books like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People provide a more philosophical framework that theoretically enables you to find ways to customize a solution or some such thing for your own life.
Both of these approaches are relevant. If you want to lose weight or build muscle, you do not need a philosophy but a set of exercises that strengthen muscles. On the other hand, if you have ever tried to implement a lifestyle diet created in a country other than your own, you will quickly run into problems because some foods are not available in your country (Has anyone eaten Bambara groundnuts?). Here’s a philosophical approach– low carb, high protein, no sugar, etc.– would be more appropriate.
“Google said that Hummingbird is paying more attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the whole query — the whole sentence or conversation or meaning — is taken into account.”
This kind of search, where all the words, as well as their relation to one another is taken into account, is called a conversational query.
Becoming more philosophical about SEO can also benefit your product. Remember, like we mentioned in the SEO Checklist, Google, Bing and the others do not supply us with their search algorithms and therefore it is not merely a matter of filling the blanks.
The question: Is so-and-so a pig? (or is so and so Justin Bieber? but we tread cautiously before the potential law suits by the World’s Porcine Population for insulting them.)
Clearly, you are not trying to figure out what kind of animal your chosen so-and-so is. This sentence is about a person’s character, morals, and behavior.
Semantics is all about meaning. As you can see from our example, the meaning of the sentence, or, if you prefer, this specific combination of words, is completely different from the words.
So, you have to accurately determine what your potential clients mean when searching for something. Even more than that, you will have to anticipate the user’s meaning behind the conversational query. Do this, and your page will be ranked higher.
This means that focusing solely on keywords is not enough anymore. You will have to use long-tail keywords and LSI keywords.
Let’s say, your eBook is about zombies. (ZenScribe: Is there any philosopher out there who would like to explain why the Zombie genre is so popular these days?)
However, knowing that there are millions of competing eBooks, you add a twist in that your zombies die whenever coming into contact with a white rabbit. Which “three and four keyword phrases” would most accurately describe your book?
Why is it important to focus on long-tail keywords? Somebody using a long-tail keyword phrase is more likely to buy something, seeing that they are searching for something specific.
In our example, we are not just searching for any run-of-the-mill generic zombie, but a very specific sub-genre.
Long-tail keywords generate less traffic, but the quality of the traffic increases.
LSI is short for Latent Semantic Indexing. Why they do not just call it what it is– plurals and synonyms– I do not know. It seems that obfuscation provides an element of intellectual superiority.
You will have to include words like, “living dead, walking dead, biter” and whatever else you use to refer to your decomposing characters.
Google also uses LSI to determine how these words relate to one another. Orange can refer to a color, fruit, film, war, bicycle or a multinational mobile telecommunication company.
If your LSI keywords, include “citrus, vitamin c, juice” or a whole range of other possibilities, your customer preferred search engine should be able to figure out that your website is about the fruit and that it is not relevant for someone looking to complain about service.
One way to help search engines better understand what your website is about is to use Semantic Markup. This supplies the search engine with information or micro-data about your website.
This information is not used by Google to determine the ranking of your website. Then, why do it, you might ask? Search engines use this information to display rich snippets in the search result itself.
The price or another piece of information displayed in the search result might just be the key needed to open a prospective buyer’s wallet.
The main problem with SEO is that it cannot think. It does not contain intelligence in itself. And, while artificial intelligence is still a dream, the algorithms will always fall short. This is why these algorithms are updated periodically.
The End of Keywords is not in sight at all. Unless Google starts scanning your brain. Keywords will always play a very important role. Semantic queries and semantic based searches mean that you should really pay attention to long-tail and LSI keywords.
July 31, 2015
by InstaScribe
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July 30, 2015
by Jandré
1 Comment
In Part 1 of this series, we looked at some of the basics of SEO like keywords and tags. In this post we try to simplify meta descriptions, URLs and ALT tags. Read on and unlock the SEO mystery.
If you were to Google, InstaScribe, you will see something like this:
The text in the black rectangle is called the Meta Description. This is where you put your bait for the potential customer. Meta Descriptions are aimed not so much at the search engine than the search engine operator.
If you were looking for a way to create and publish your eBook, you might have seen InstaScribe in your search results. Unless you are familiar with what InstaScribe does, the name would have been meaningless to you.
The Meta Description might have made you click on the InstaScribe page. Meta Descriptions should be clear and compelling. It should, in effect, be a preview of what one should expect to find on the page.
A URL or Uniform Resource Locator is in effect the address of a web page. An example would be www.instascribe.com.
Make sure that the URLs you use are clear, readable and reflect the content of the page.
Bad URL: http://www.instacribe.com/title/tt54225/t
Good URL: http://www.instascribe.com/ebook-format-options
For the sake of argument, both point to the same article. Chances are much higher that you will choose the second example as you have an idea what it is about. Search Engines also use URLs as it helps them to understand the relevance of a page.
Remember that although search engines can read the most intelligent posts on the internet, they can not interpret the most simple picture. They can not even see a picture of a word!
ALT tags are what you use to describe an image. Your website would probably have pictures of you, the esteemed author, and pictures of the cover pages. And no matter how good these pictures or images are, if you do not have ALT tags associated with each one of these, they would be meaningless to a search engine.
If you can check the following requirements, you may sit back, pat yourself on the back and continue to anxiously hope that your book(s) will sell.
More Tools:
There are lots of free tools available on the Internet that can help you to rate and evaluate your own, and obviously other, pages.
Mozbar is a free tool that provides you with information about a page. Mozbar exposes the page data and can tell you how difficult it is to rank a specific keyword.
Term Target allows you to determine how densely specific keywords are targeted.
Google is your friend! There are hundreds, if not thousands, of SEO checkers out there. How about sharing your experience(s) with us?
There are always more things to consider, Security for example. A page or website that uses a better and more secure payment system will rank higher than a website with something that is less secure.
SEO is very much like life, always ongoing and always changing. Google, Bing and the smaller search engines keep on developing and optimizing their algorithms. So social signals might become more important, or less important.
You do not have to redo your website every month, but you have to do a regular and thorough overview. Combine the information we shared with the results of one or two online SEO checkers and you will quickly see what needs to be done.
July 29, 2015
by InstaScribe
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By InstaScribe
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July 28, 2015
by punjacked
1 Comment
July 27, 2015
by Jandré
6 Comments
What is SEO or Search Engine Optimization? SEO is a set of techniques employed to make a website more visible to search engines like Google and Bing. It helps the search engines to “see” your website.
In this article we want to examine some of the techniques you as an author should employ. Although there are some agreed on techniques and principles, please remember that Google and Bing do not tell us exactly how their search algorithms work.
This means that you might have to fiddle around with these techniques a bit. But rest assured, SEO is not as complicated as Einstein’s E = mc2. If you can write a book, you can figure out how to do SEO for yourself.
Matt Cutts, Google’s face when it comes to SEO, will tell you over and over, time after time, and repeatedly that content is the most important thing when it comes to determining the ranking of a search result.
Have you noticed that often Wikipedia pages rank very high? If you Google a title of a book or a movie, Wikipedia usually outranks the relevant homepage. Good content creates demand.
Somehow the Google algorithms can determine whether your content is actually relevant or if you are using keyword saturation to make it appear relevant. You should, obviously, still use keywords, but the content and how you use the keywords are more important than merely using keywords.
Make sure that your website provides relevant and unique information on every page. While describing your book as exciting, intriguing, well-rounded or whatever might interest a potential buyer, it won’t tickle the search engine’s fancy!
Social signals represent the influence an article has in the social sphere of the Internet. These would include things like Facebook likes, shares, comments, Tweets, links via LinkedIn, etc.
Search engines are paying more and more attention to these social signals. This means that your content MUST be socially available. On all of the better websites, there are “One click” options to share a page via Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Moz argues that if content can not be shared or linked, search engines are not very likely to rate it.
A keyword is, as the word implies, a key word, for the relevant topic. (Moz has a great article on how to determine which words are key to your SEO success.)
Keywords are those words typically associated with a specific search. For instance, you know or hope that there is a sequel of a book like A Catcher in the Rye but you do not know whether the book exists! So you type in the key words: A Catcher in the Rye and sequel. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
Keywords should not be over used on a page. It seems that the current theory argues in favor of 4 repetitions per page.
Title Tags are how you tell the search engine what the relevant page is about and to which Keywords it responds.
Each page on your website should have unique Title Tags. Suppose you have seven pages that share the same tags, you are telling the search engine that all of these are equal to the searcher’s query.
Even if you have seven pages about one book, for example, the pages should still have different contents and different tags.
Tags should be short, preferably not more than 55 characters. You should place the most important and relevant tags first, and your brand name at the end.
Example: eBook – publishing | InstaScribe
For more info on Title Tags please read the articles by Moz and Orbit Media.
July 24, 2015
by InstaScribe
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July 23, 2015
by Neelima
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Things started getting a little more serious after the fairytalesque introduction and the subsequent variety of the BYOB party.
Nilesh Trivedi, an engineer specializing in web and mobile software, got An Outline of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, which he highly recommends for its topical approach. “Although there has been a lot of path breaking development in cognitive sciences, this book is a good starting point. It can get dry in parts, but Russell is the clearest thinker who put his thoughts on paper, and a courageous writer too.”
It must have been the idea of Russell, but suddenly the BYOB party was a buzz with a flurry of mathematics and its personification- Alan Turing. Incidentally, Turing was also a pioneer in the field of Theoretical Biology, Aditya Sengupta, the biologist, reminded us.
Sameer Shisodia, Founder and CEO at Linger Leisure, was bowled over by the extremely fast paced history book called India – A History by John Keay. “It doesn’t feel like a history one bit,” he said. Abhaya incidentally picked up a Keay novel called To Cherish and Conserve: The Early Years of Archaeological Survey of India. John Keay brought them to the conclusion that history was more like putting pieces of a puzzle together. “There’s a lot of guesswork when it comes to creating history. You could be off by a thousand years, but that’s the beauty of it,” said Sameer.
There’s no verity in the past- the maps are mostly untrue. Even Kings had no exact approach about where their empires ended. There was genereal consensus about how history lessons in school never sparked this kind of excitement. “Who cares what year King so and so was born?” asked Nilesh.
Maybe a book called Guns, Germs and Steel is what every history hater should read, Abhaya said. Like Napolean’s Buttons that Sudharsan Narayanan talked about, this book too deals with how certain factors changed the course of events. “Environmental determinism takes away a lot of the blame of what happened in the name of colonialism, even then this book is charmingly written.”
The younger particiapants talked about other media– R. Sundararajan talked about a 26 episode documentary series called ‘The World at War’ based on the Second World War.
Srishti talked about a graphic novel called MAUS by Art Spiegelman. Only an illustrator can make sense out of the incomprehensible and Spiegelman does this by turning the Jews into Mice and the Nazis into cats. Conversation went around to what the ordinary German made of the entire scenario. “In all likelihood, war is not what people want; they just want a good harvest and a safe place for their babies,” Jaya said as she reflected on the war strewn atmosphere of G.R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. “The highlight of MAUS for me was when an African American faced racism by the same Jew who suffered in the Holocaust,” Srishti said. Spiegelman says so much in this book, it is worth a read.
It was not just books in English that were part of the conversation. Abhaya talked about a Hindi book called Aapki Bunti by Mannu Bhandari, acclaimed writer and wife of the famous Hindi writer Rajendra Yadav. It’s about the kind of impact a divorce could have on a child. “There are so many menaingful books in Hindi but the question really is where do we find them?” Shalini asked.
A few book stores were mentioned, but strangely enough there are not too many venues to buy Indian Language books from. A lot has to do with the mentality of publishers and the complete absence of marketing. Support from publishers is rare and except for a few instances of authors who are enterprising enough to promote their books on media like Whatsapp, there seems to be no vision. The general consensus is that people want to read books in all languages; however readers are also the problem. Here’s an instance of reader apathy that was shared. A writer once put up a chapter of his book on his blog. He was congratulated by his readers but all of them wanted a free copy. That’s the plight of the author, and so the publishing industry suffers as does the writer.
On the whole, the BYOB Party was a thought provoking exercise and it’s something that should be hosted in more and more places so that the love of books and cake and conversation overtakes everything else in the world!
July 22, 2015
by InstaScribe
1 Comment
By InstaScribe
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