How Pubsoft Uses Search Engine Optimization
One of the key aspects to Pubsoft’s campaign for more influencer readers is a quality search engine optimization marketing platform, though COO Dougal Cameron stressed that SEO in the publishing world is not precisely the same as SEO in other internet-oriented industries. What is most important, according to Cameron, is visibility. For Pubsoft, that means putting author content, from biographical information to back cover copy to actual book preview text, in a place online that can be easily indexed by Google and other search engines. The slick website copy and keyword-heavy articles often offered by SEO firms are optional.
“Publishers don’t need a hired body to generate a ton of content for them because they have authors and their authors are already creating content,” Cameron said.
So how does Pubsoft use SEO if it isn’t operating with the same standards that many professional search engine optimizers hold dear? For Cameron, the key is making everything about a book searchable online. That concept takes many forms, from a descriptive URL to a full table of contents and a sizable HTML preview of the book that will hopefully turn heads and show up in Google searches more frequently than disconnected, keyword-heavy copy. For Cameron, the key is relevancy, and what could be more relevant to selling a book than the actual writing already featured in that book?
Ultimately though, Pubsoft’s goal for SEO is the same as any other company: make sure that each author pubsoft page is showing up in the first page of Google results for that author’s name.
“We want our system to be the choice,” Cameron explained. “We want influencer readers to see our page [in the search results] and say ‘that is the author, that is the publisher.’ Influencer readers are going to want to get close to the author, so they will click our page rather than the Amazon or Goodreads page.”
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Tech Desk
From the Tech Desk
New Publishing Software Puts Authors at the Forefront of Book Marketing
With press releases, web content development, and search engine optimization occupying the vast majority of weekly work hours for the average marketing department, it’s all too common for book publishers to under-use arguably the best marketing resources at their disposal: their authors and their readers. Pubsoft, a new and innovative brand of independent publishing software, is designed to reverse that trend.
According to Dougal Cameron, the chief operating officer for Pubsoft, most publishers aren’t getting the full sweep that they could out of social media and other internet tools, and it’s not hard to figure out why. For most businesses, social media marketing is straightforward: someone is put in charge of the company’s Facebook and Twitter accounts and is entrusted to serve as the public “face” for that business on the web. For publishing companies, this basic definition of social media marketing is still important, but readers and authors open up opportunities for internet marketing that many industries can only dream of.
The key for publishing companies, Cameron says, is to take advantage of what Pubsoft calls “influencer readers.” As Cameron explains, influencer readers are passionate book enthusiasts who “look for a higher level of engagement with an author or publisher than the average reader.” That desire for engagement may lead said influencer readers to follow their favorite authors or publishers on social media networks, regularly share book recommendations via sites like Goodreads, or consistently scour the internet for the next big thing in a favorite genre.
Regardless of the activities the influencer reader is participating in, the idea of Pubsoft is that such passionate audiences represent a massive untapped marketing potential. On one hand, influencer readers, since they are always looking for new titles to read, are more likely to take a chance on a new book or an unknown author. On another, influencer readers and their active social media personalities can be seen by publishers and authors almost as vehicles by which marketing can be spread further. According to Dougal Cameron, both facets are interconnected and both are important ingredients to the success of an independent publisher or author in the digital age.
“The Pubsoft system allows publishers to capture that influencer reader, sell additional books to that reader, or launch new authors into that reader,” Cameron explained. “That reader will then use their influencer capabilities to bring the conversation to Goodreads, Twitter, and Facebook, and also create downstream revenue opportunities for the publisher.”
Conceptually, that all sounds like a grand idea, but how does Pubsoft deliver on its promise to stand apart? On the surface, the program doesn’t look a whole lot different than many other varieties of all-inclusive publishing software. Using Pubsoft, authors or publishers can do everything from uploading epub files for direct sales opportunities to distributing to other outlets (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo are the entities supported so far), all at the click of a button. The interface is easy to use and the pages look great, but most of the distribution and management options available to Pubsoft users have already been offered by other publishing programs.
Where Pubsoft truly innovates, then, is on the marketing side of the equation. Pubsoft generates both a publisher dashboard and an author dashboard for its clients, allowing publishers to manage authors and books on a wide scale, but also giving authors the tools to see sales data and analyze other information in relation to their readers. By separating “publisher” and “author” into two entities, Pubsoft is able to bring the author further into the fold as far as the actual selling of the book is concerned.
“The end goal is for the author to have a structured and focused way to engage in marketing and to interact with readers who have bought their books,” Cameron said. “That way, the author can try to stimulate the conversation that will cause a reader to go to Goodreads, Twitter, or Facebook and tell their friends about the book.”
The ultimate hope is for the author and the publisher to get closer with readers than ever before, creating a greater level understanding between publishers, authors, and modern reading audiences along the way. If all goes well, Cameron hopes that publishers implementing the Pubsoft software today will be able to build a dedicated base of 5,000 to 10,000 influencer readers within a year. Those readers can then be targeted to help get new titles off the ground in prime genres or subgenres, or to tell publishers exactly what kinds of books they want to read. The end result in both situations? Boosted revenues, and the whole chain starts with the simple decision within a publishing company to, as Cameron says, “unleash the latent powers of authors” in book marketing.
Interested in learning more about Pubsoft? Visit their website at pubsoft.com.
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Craig Manning is currently studying English and Music at Western Michigan University. In addition to writing for Independent Publisher, he maintains a pair of entertainment blogs, interns at the Traverse City Business News, and writes for Rockfreaks.net and his college newspaper. He welcomes comments or questions concerning his articles via email, at manningcr953@gmail.com.