Here are a few free tools for networking with other writers, getting the word out about your website, and evaluating its performance. … Also, the frequency of my posts about building an online presence are probably misleading. Despite appearances, I am not spending hours online, am indeed writing a new novel, and am keeping up with editing projects!
Technocrati: It is my understanding that if you have a blog, listing it on Technocrati will increase your traffic and web rankings. Once you create a profile, you’ll get a claim code (like this: P9MM9PVRFXT7), which you post on your blog (as I am doing now), by which they’ll verify your blog and eventually include it in their databases. It is also my understanding that Technocrati is valuable enough to make the long wait for verification worthwhile.
Website Grader: The tool scores your site on a 1-100 scale, and tells you what you need to do to make it easier to find, push it higher in Google’s Page Rank system, and communicate better with your audience. (Yay, Julia Stoops of BlueMouseMonkey.com, who designed this site! It got an 87 right off the bat.)
Twitter: OK, obvious one. But I’ve found that 15 minutes a day of sharing useful content, and hash-tagging keywords (e.g., #publishing), will accrue relevant followers and also turn up helpful articles, depending on whom you follow. Not sure how some people gather followers who number in the thousands, but I get two or three new followers every day by using Twitter moderately. I’ve found that I’d rather limit my Twitter-time to the book industry, and save Facebook for chatting with friends.
SPANnet.org: If you have a book out, join this free and growing community of authors. Most are self-published. In concept, this is what needs to happen next in publishing–authors need to start working together more to promote each other (rather than themselves), and connecting directly with readers. SPAN may not be there yet, but it’s a step along the way.
***Also recommended by a fellow editor and web-savvy colleague: Google Analytics, which provides free and thorough traffic data for your site.
Tags: promotion, tools, write locally
