SEO for Authors: Is it Necessary?

Here and there around the internet I've heard that authors need to make sure that there websites and blogs have SEO or Search Engine Optimization. I put the information into my memory banks and didn't much think about it. But then the other day on an industry blog, a web guru advised writers to hire a web programmer to build a website for them to include SEO at a cost of $1000 - $1500 AND to ditch blogger and set up their blog on wordpress because you can't do SEO on blogger.

The engineering part of my brain went WTF?!? You can edit the html code on blogger, so you can do whatever needs to be done to get SEO on your blog. But I was assured by the webguru and the blog host that ALL the web progamming experts and gurus say that you NEED to have SEO on your blog and website. The engineering part of my brain was not satisfied with their answer.

Here's the thing about web gurus and computer geeks, they love the bells and whistles of computers and programming. I have much experience with these types of people as my son is one of them. "Oh mom, you need this sound card and this video card to get the best sound and graphics on your computer." Except that I wasn't into computer gaming and those things are only necessary for a great gaming experience. Then there are the mac users vs. windows users arguments. Yeah... Most of us couldn't tell the difference between using a Mac and using Windows. The only people who need to use a Mac are those people who do sound and video editing or graphics like architects and graphic artists. So, the probability that a web guru is telling you that you need to have something you really don't need to have is high.

Web programmers and developers love to complicate things as well. Here's an example: CSS or Cascade Styling Sheets. I still haven't figured out why they are better than using the font or italics or bold codes. In HTML the code for italics is < i > . With a CSS, the code for italics is < s p a n s t y l e = " f o n t - s t y l e : i t a l i c ; " > You tell me which one is easier to remember and type? Right. And yes, I have not yet learned how to use CSS as it appears to be a waste of my time and energy and makes an easy coding job more difficult.

Your eyes are probably rolling into the back of your head, so I'll get to the point.

SEO is Search Engine Optimization. It is doing things to your blog or website so that it will appear higher in the search engine results like google or yahoo or whatever search engine one uses. Sounds like something one really needs, right?

Well, no, not if you're an author. People do not use google or yahoo or some other search engine to browse or search for books they might like to read or new authors they might like to check out. It would be a monumental exercise in frustration to search the entire internet for a book or author when you're just browsing. Amazon or Barnes and Noble are better places to browse for unknown books or authors. In other words, regardless of whether you have SEO or not, no one is going to find you doing a general search on google or yahoo.

And if someone does a search for you using your name or the title of your book on google, then you will pop up in the first slot or at least on the first page. I tested this with Cherie Reich, Aubrie Dionne, Nyki Blatchley, Lindsey Duncan, and a few others. Mette Pesonen who's only published work is The Annals of Hypnosia on Scribblers and Ink Spillers comes up on the top spot of a google search. And none of these pages have SEO.

The bottomline: SEO for an author is a waste of time and money. And if someone tells you to spend FIFTEEN HUNDRED dollars to do it, run the other way.

The Author's Gender

"I rarely read books written by men." I ran across this statement yesterday and it got me to thinking.

If a man said, "I rarely read books written by women." We would jump all over his butt for being sexist...

Both of those attitudes are ridiculous and limiting for the same reason: The person is automatically rejecting a book using a criteria, the author's gender, which is irrelevant to the quality of the story. There is no gender difference in being able to write well. People who pass over a book written by one gender or the other are missing out on some great books.

And here's the ironic bit: Unless there is a picture of the author on the cover of the book, you do NOT know the gender of the author. There are men who write under female pseudonyms and women who write under male pseudonyms. It is possible that the person who "rarely reads books written by men" is primarily reading books written by men using a female pseudonym.

It's something to think about.

Now if you're consciously trying to read more books written by women or men because you're reading selection seems to be skewed toward one gender, then carry on. That's a different situation as you're attempting to be more inclusive in your reading choices.

Excluding a book because of the author's gender is just silly.

Underwater Dogs: The Photographs and Cat Diaries

Seth Casteel, a pet photographer, got the brilliant idea of taking his camera underwater in a swimming pool and taking pictures of dogs swimming underwater to get their pet toys which had been tossed into the pool. This is the result. I think I might buy a print of that black labrador. It's too funny cute to pass up.

Carli Davidson decided to take pictures of dogs shaking water off their fur.

To be fair to the felines, I ran across this youtube video: Cat Diaries: The First Ever Movie Filmed by cats. They put gopro video cameras on the cat's collars to see the world from a cat's point of view.

12 Things You Were Not Taught About Creative Thinking

Here's an interesting article: 12 Things You Were Not Taught About Creative Thinking

Hmmmm It's not a rejection, it's a market that doesn't fit the story.

Peeing Outside of the Box

My cat is doing research for a nonfiction book to be titled: "Peeing Outside of the Box: Tricks and Tips for Annoying Your Human Servant".

I found the following notes:

Pee outside of the box - This trick is particularly good for male cats as our urine smells really BAD. To accomplish, step into the kitty box so that all four feet are in the sand, then lower your hind end so that it hangs over the edge of the box, and pee on the floor. You can't get in trouble for doing this because technically you are in the box when you relieve yourself. WIN!

Howl at the Moon - Yes, I know this is something the dog does, but it is so much more annoying when you do it. It also helps to be born with the a voice that resonates on a frequency that can not be ignored. WIN!

Bonus points for howling if you can do it at 4:00 AM while running. Even more bonus points if you begin your run at the point farthest away from the human's bed and end with a flying leap onto the human's head. WIN! WIN!

Needless to say I am not amused at being the subject human for his research.

Your Blog Design: Some Things to Keep in Mind

One of the good things about Blogger is that you don't have to know webprogramming in order to have a blog. It is very easy to customize your blog to reflect who you are. But here's the catch, your primary goal with your blog is for people to read it. So you have to balance your personal creativity with readability.


I cruise around the blogosphere reading the blogs that I follow, checking out new ones, bookmarking the ones that I like some of which will end up on one of the sidebars. Recently I've noticed a couple of things: blogs which were hard to read because of the color scheme, links which were almost invisible because of the chosen colors, having to scroll down through a lot of stuff to find what I am looking for, and so on.


Here are a few things to consider the next time you change your blog or website design.

• A white background with black or dark letters is easier for most people to read.


• White letters on a dark background is also not hard to read, but most people prefer having a lot of white space around what they read and you can't get that with a dark background.


• Make sure the colors for your links are clearly visible.


• Put the important information near the top.


• If you like strong colors, consider using them as accents instead of background colors.

In case you didn't notice, I tweaked my layout to get my other blogs of interest up closer to the top. Now, if I could just find a better picture for my background...

50th Anniversary of First US Man in Space

Today is the 50th anniversary of John Glenn's historic orbital flight in Friendship 7. I find it rather amazing how far we have come technologically in 50 years. In 1962, there were no personal computers, no cell phones, no vcrs, dvd players, microwaves, no handheld calculators. Television was still in black and white and reception came through rabbit ears on the set if you didn't have an antennae on the roof. Engineers were still using slide rules to make their calculations.

Take a look:



I have to wonder where we'll be technologically fifty years from now...