2011 SEO Tips, Get On Google Front Page

Get On Google Front Page has just been released for 2011. This is my 5th book, and I’m really excited as it has potential to help a lot of people.
It’s been a long road learning the business of ebooks and self publishing. At first this was something that had to be done for my novels, but then the whole endeavor became something valuable to share with others. Hence the last three books have been all about learning how to make and sell ebooks, how to make your own free website, and now this topic of rising in search engine rankings with White hat, free, organic SEO methods.
What’s fantastic about the search engines is that they keep space available at the top for ordinary people with no money to spend on advertising. That means any website can make it to the first page of search results or even to the very top spot. All that matters (in Google’s eyes) is that the website is extremely relevant to the terms of a given search. By having relevance to the subject and by using smart methods of helping the spiders see that relevance, anyone can do this.
The book talks at length on how to discover the keywords that will work best for a given website. Your very best keywords are relevant to your site, are being searched by lots of people and (hopefully) don’t have high competition from other advertisers. The book discusses in-depth how to use the Keyword Tool External program to really hone in on those best choices and then how to implement.
It’s just come out as an ebook for Amazon Kindle, so new the description isn’t currently listed yet (that takes up to 4 days though I can’t understand why). It’s also available as a pdf and epub formatted ebook at http://getongooglefrontpage.webs.com/, and also at Smashwords which will get it into Apple iBookstore and many other retailers. The paperback won’t be available for a few weeks, so watch for an update if that’s what you’d prefer.
For great 2011 SEO tips on keywords, meta data, direct submissions, alternative text, social media, creating thousands of back-links, building platform and visibility plus much more… this is a great guide. Please check out Get On Google Front Page if rising in search engine rankings is something you’d like to know more about.
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New Ebook, How to Make Your Own Free Website: And Your Free Blog Too

This ebook is brand new and scheduled for Amazon Kindle release on Sept 21st. If you want to learn how to make your own free website, then look no further. Especially designed for those without knowledge of HTML coding, the guide highlights free web hosting and blogging sites that come with easy to use site building software. See examples at http://your-own-free-website.webs.com/ and http://yourownfreewebsite.yolasite.com/.

Easy to follow and packed with no cost methods, tips and online programs that will help anyone make a free website. It's written by Jason Matthews, author of The Little Universe, Jim's Life and How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks All for Free.
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CreateSpace and the $39 Pro Plan

I get occasional emails from readers of my ebook with questions on CreateSpace like “Does this cost money?,” “Where's the $39 Pro Plan” and so on. per the free question; it all depends on you. It can be 100% free if you can do it yourself. Can you format a document to fill pages of a book? If so, then you can do it. You can also make a book cover with a graphics software like Gimp or Inkscape or use one of their custom templates. I opted to do it myself. and had major and minor hurdles with Microsoft Word for the interior files and Inkscape for the cover design, but I did get past them. I've done three books this way and now feel much more familiar and efficient with the process.
If anyone's interested, this is what I said to a friend recently about it;
CreateSpace is Amazon’s print on demand company. They offer a range of services for writers to make books in print. It can be a totally do-it-yourself and 100% free experience, or it can also be catered to your needs with a lot of bells and whistles (and far from free). I chose the free version and have done 3 books this way. But when it came time to actually order a proof copy (something required by them before your book goes live and usually costs me between $6 and $9 and includes shipping), I also chose the $39 Pro Plan which allows me a significant reduction on cost per books that I buy and a better royalty payment when others buy the paperback through Amazon or CreateSpace. But you won’t get prompted (or have any need) for the $39 Pro Plan until you’re at that stage of ordering your proof copy. This will only be necessary after you have filled in all the pertinent information about your book and after you have uploaded both the interior files and the cover file and submitted it for publishing (which is a review by them) and it has been accepted and a proof needs to be ordered. Then it makes sense to get the Pro Plan which they will give you prompts for.
First go to https://www.createspace.com/. Click on the link for Authors – Make your books available. Under Book, click Create One (or Learn More if you want to read it from them).
It will then ask you to either sign in with an existing Amazon account or to create one.
Afterward there will be a series of prompts and items to fill in which should be self-explanatory.
They also have an excellent community support forum that can do an even better job with instructions, and in some cases you’ll find detailed answers for the exact same questions that have been asked by others in the past. Here’s the link for the community support forum https://www.createspace.com/en/community/index.jspa
For much more information and advice on free methods to sell ebooks, please check out How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks All for Free. You can also contact me by email without any of the following spaces, jason @ the little universe (dot) com

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You Can Make Free Websites and Sell Ebooks Anywhere

I'm continually amazed how easy it is for anyone to sell ebooks these days. You can sell ebooks in so many ways: from your own sites with PayPal buttons, from online ebook stores like Amazon, Smashwords, Apple, Barnes&Noble and more. You can also sell ebooks via eBay and other auctioneers.

How much do you think this has to cost you? Zip, it's all 100% totally free. And if you want to sell physical print books, you can do that for free too with CreateSpace from Amazon. And the best part is this, you can now sell ebooks and make a name for yourself and hopefully make lots of money. You know the old saying, "you have to spend money to make money?" Well, it's just not true in this case.

Now is the best time ever to be an independent, self-published author. If you'd like to sell ebooks and do it with no cost methods, just contact me or read my ebook on selling ebooks, How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks All for Free.

What do you think? Comments?

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Google Alerts, an Invaluable Online Tool

 I seriously love this program and use it everyday.
 Google Alerts are simply wonderful. If you want to know about anything online that has to do with you, like your name, ebook, URL for a download page or something else, Google will tell you as soon as it’s online. It happens within a day of any posting. That goes for a blog entry, comment at some obscure forum, a written article or a page on somebody's site. It’s great tool and free of cost.
Here’s an alert I just got, and I was happy to know that someone posted this.
Or if there's an illegal sharing of my ebooks or download page, I can find out about that too.
To be aware of anyone online who could be talking about you or something you care about, Google Alerts are the way to find out about it.
For those who intend to sell ebooks, Google Alerts is a mandatory tool.
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Battle for Ebook Supremacy Rages On

Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, recently announced that sales figures for Kindle ebooks passed those figures for hardcovers. He commented for every 100 hardcover books sold, 143 Kindle ebooks were sold for a three-month period and 180 Kindle ebooks last month alone. He also said three times as many Kindles were sold in the first half of this year than for that of 2009. Some people question these numbers but it’s clear that ebook sales are accelerating much faster than paper sales.
It's also true that the iPad is selling by the hundreds of thousands. Steve Jobs has a hit with Apple fans as the iPad is capable of doing many things. Web-browsing, watching movies, checking email, playing games and other activities make the iPad the choice for people who want to do much more than just read.
Barnes & Noble slashed the price of its WiFi only Nook to $149 and the WiFi plus 3G Nook to $199. These prices are lower than the Kindle at $189 and Kindle DX for $379. Barnes & Noble may be forced to take drastic measures now that they’ve fully entered this battle. They are the largest physical space bookseller and may have finally recognized their survival depends on selling ebooks en masse.
Besides that, Borders has the Kobo, Sony's got the Reader, Google Editions unveils itself soon and many other devices like one from Sharp are in contention to sell ebooks. So with all these providers and gadgets in an ebook market, is there room for everyone?
Probably not. But at least some things are evident:
1. Apple has no real competition. Because the iPad does infinitely more than just read books and because their fans are loyal until death, that product is a guaranteed winner. I wonder whether Indie authors will do better by selling ebooks through their iBookstore or if it's necessary to create an App.
2. Amazon has been in this game for a long time. The Kindle is highly preferred by people who just want to read. One problem with the Kindle is its .mobi format, primarily unique to Amazon and not compatible with most other devices. Though Bezos is firmly committed to lowered costs for ebooks and since Amazon does much more than just sell ebooks; it seems that Amazon will surely be around for many years.
3. Barnes & Noble could easily lose the most as it must stay afloat in this ebook battle. Since they didn’t take charge early on, I’m curious if that hesitancy will cost them. Enormous physical stores are expensive to operate, and all B&N does is sell books. Perhaps they can stay afloat but it will more likely happen if the Nook is simply perfect and they continue to drop prices for ebooks. To me, theirs is the most precarious position.
4. As for everyone else, there may or may not be room for a dozen other sellers and devices. Google Editions will be a winner because… well, because they’re Google and they’ve got gillions to cushion any mistakes. For the others it may come down to who can make the best device that sells for the least amount of money. We saw Sony die in a battle with Betamax versus VHS many years ago, but we also know that Macintosh can comfortably exist next to the domination of the PC. Mergers and acquisitions also loom large here, so who might get in bed together? Google and Barnes & Noble? Seems possible.
5. The only absolute certainty… it’s never been a better time to be a writer, Indie author or a self-publisher. Of course the odds are against success, but with persistence and a good product the chances improve dramatically now that there are so many means of making a writing career into a reality.
To learn more about How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks All for FREE, please visit ebooksuccess4free.

You Can Make Free Websites with Webs.com

Not long ago I didn't realize one could have free websites with free hosting. While waiting for a design outfit to build a site for me, I started surfing online and searching terms like “free websites.” Soon I found Webs.com and began playing around with a design to sell my novels.

While expensive professionals were building my site thelittleuniverse.com, I started building a free version called thelittleuniverse.webs.com. I couldn’t believe how easy it came together and that it accomplished what I needed it to do, plus it was about as nice as the site the pros built.

Since then I’ve tried other free website hosting companies. I believe webs.com is the best and still recommend it to people looking to create their own site for both personal use and business use. There’s another free site of mine at ebooksuccess4free.webs.com.

For any questions, contact me.
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Use StatCounter to Keep Track of Visitors

There’s so much value in knowing how much traffic your websites are experiencing and which online advertising efforts are working best. For some sites, like my WordPress blog, built-in stats are included that are relatively basic in what they tell me. For other sites, like my main site, I have terrific in-depth stats through cpanel, stats that show exact IP addresses of visitors, countries of origin, time spent at site, etc. And for the rest of my sites I have nothing and all, no built-in stat monitoring.  That’s when alternative means are needed to figure out how the traffic is doing.
In those cases, I use a free service called StatCounter. What is StatCounter? A free yet reliable invisible web tracker, highly configurable hit counter and real-time detailed web stats. Insert a simple piece of code on your web page or blog and you will be able to analyze and monitor all the visitors to your website in real-time.
Most of my sites, this one too, have a little StatCounter icon somewhere on the page. That tells how many visitors per day/week/year are visiting. Then I can do experiments to see what helps boost traffic the most. Maybe one week it’s concentrating on promoting my books on Facebook. The next week utilizing Twitter or Ezine articles or forums on my subjects. Then it’s time to watch the response from traffic, whether it’s staying flat or experiencing sharp spikes, and I get a sense for which efforts are paying off with increased traffic.
For example, as soon as a blog post goes through with WordPress or Blogger, a quick rise in visits are almost guaranteed as people around the world get a glimpse of any post. Conversely, if I spend a bunch of time on Authonomy (a writer’s forum) and get little results at a webpage I’ve attempted to bring traffic to, then that says Authonomy forum isn’t a great place to spend time and effort.
How to use StatCounter? Visit the site and follow the prompts to create an icon widget for your desired URL. Also make sure to check the box that excludes your own IP address so it doesn’t count your own visits. Then insert the widget with its code somewhere on your desired webpage. You can make it invisible or visible, allow people to see your stats or not; all choices are up to you.
It’s also fun, especially when more people start showing up.
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Sell Ebooks Everywhere, Sell POD Books with CreateSpace

Okay, if you’re going to print some physical copies of a book, it’s tough to beat CreateSpace. They’re a free experience and owned by Amazon so you automatically get placement on Amazon.com (the world’s largest bookstore). Even though I sell ebooks and even teach others to sell ebooks, it does make sense to have physical copies available for reviewers, on display when speaking, or just out there in case someone from Zimbabwe really wants my print version book. With CreateSpace, there is the matter of needing to be a do-it-yourself type of person. I definitely ran into painful stumbling blocks with both interior formatting and cover design, but now that those are in the background I’ve just published my first book with CreateSpace and am about to do 2 more. Feels good holding the printed version!
Now, even though it’s free there are a few ways to spend money with them. I upgraded to the Pro Plan for $39 a year. It allows the author to get better royalties on sales and also buy his/her own book a bit cheaper. I just bought 15 copies for reviewers and think I already almost made my 39 bucks back. Wouldn’t surprise me if I order more soon. I got 15 books delivered for $46. Amazing. The only other cost is that they require you to order and approve a proof copy before your book goes live. That means physically producing a book and mailing it to me. That cost 6 bucks. Okay, so I’m in for 45 required bucks which is certainly something I can live with. Beats the hell out of the thousands I spent back in 2004 with Authorhouse.
Fortunately the first couple of reviews have come in at Amazon Kindle for How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks – All for FREE. I was glad to see both reviewers got good info from the book and have since contacted me. Part of selling books is networking and being active in the whole writer/reader/information forum.
Just yesterday this page at CreateSpace appeared. Another nice perk to going POD with them, and it costs nothing.
The Amazon page is still under construction. I have no idea why the CreateSpace page instantly appears when the proof has been approved, but the Amazon page takes 10 to 15 days to appear (and it comes in stages). Great, can I wait ’til all the stages are complete before I start sending people the Amazon link? Maybe.

Such a Thing as Too Many Websites?

How many websites does one really need? I’ve somehow become a website-aholic when just a few years ago I had none. Surprisingly I have 10 sites: 7 active, 1 inactive and 2 domain names with goof-around pages just in case I ever actually work on them. 10 sites? Whoa, how did that happen?
3 sites are examples of my ebook on how to sell ebooks: How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks – All for FREE. There’s ebooksuccess4free.webs.com, ebooksuccess4free.viviti.com and ebooksuccess4free.wordpress.com.
Then there are 2 sites to sell ebooks and soon regular books of the novels, The Little Universe and Jim’s Life. Those are thelittleuniverse.com and thelittleuniverse.webs.com (that free one was built by moi for shits and giggles while waiting as the pros built the other.)
Then there’s the original site for the novels, cosmicforceproductions.com and the first blog site, thebigbangauthor.com before the novel had a name change.
Then there’s vote4mystory.com which was slated to be a promotional tool for writers but became a gigantic hole in the ground for dollars (mine) and is currently out of order and awaiting a massive overhaul. (Imagine the joy of spending ten grand on something that doesn’t work. Fun.)
Then we have helpingidea.com and thebigbangbook.com which have not yet helped anybody or really been built but just fiddled with when I was learning how to use Kompozer site-building software. Both domains may have been purchased under the influence of a few too many margaritas. Actually much of my life reflects certain similar influences and lapses in judgment.
The good news is that only 3 of these actually cost monthly money and not much. But I’m wondering, is there a word for “addicted to creating websites?” And if so, looks like I can chalk up another addiction.
How abnormal is this?

Hooray, it's Get Away from the Computer Day!

Just did the morning routine which begins with checking emails from three accounts. Then I contact buyers of my ebooks (on good mornings when orders came in) to thank and remind them to contact me with questions. Then it’s time to peruse my Google Alerts (just love those things) for where I can find other people’s blog posts and learn from them and make helpful comments. That is such a great way to network and get URL links out there. Then I check my website cpanel and statcounters for visits from certain links and find out where people are re-posting my posts and now videos (that’s cool to see people quoting me) and perhaps contact and thank them.
Now’s the time when I usually either start some writing, editing or computer searching for new info for learning or blog posts or whatever… but today is one of those days… just feel like I need a break… out of my cave (my wife’s loving term for my office)… out of the house (feels like a cave this time of the year)… and perhaps to go skiing.
While it’s probably glorious and warm where many of you reside, we live in the N. Cali mountains and had a few inches of snow. Squaw Valley is 20 minutes away and I’ve only got 7 lousy days on my season pass because all I do is hang out in this cave. (Hate it when my wife’s right.) So today is an example of something I need to do and recommend more often…
Writers, for the sake of your sanity, the sanity of those around you and the sanity of the world in general… every now and then you absolutely must schedule a get-away-from-the-computer-day.

This photo from April 09 at Homewood CA with Lake Tahoe in the background. Anyone have other great suggestions for when the snow melts?

Results after 1 month of Uploading to Ebook Retailers

Okay, it’s been one month since I uploaded How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks – All for FREE to several different online retailers. Let’s go through a quick summary of how that’s going.

Smashwords.com. There have been 42 sample downloads and 3 sales. One customer has already reviewed the book with 4 out of 5 stars, so that was cool. I wish the sales were higher, but maybe that’ll come in time. Fortunately the ebook was accepted into their Premium Program which means it’s being distributed to Barnes&Noble, Sony, Kobo, Amazon and Apple this week. That’s the best reason to publish with Smashwords! Thank you, Mark Coker. I sure hope someone reads my ebook on an Apple iPad soon.

Scribd.com. The sample 35% of the ebook has been viewed 265 times. Just last week I was notified of 1 sale, which actually was a surprise because I thought scribd readers were die-hard freebie types. I’m also happy with the views since I’ve had samples of my novels on scribd for 6 months and they’ve received only a hundred more views. Perhaps the latest How to book will surpass them next month in less than 30% of the time.

MyEbook.com. Supposedly, the ebook there has been viewed 643 times (the sample 35% anyway). There have yet to be any sales. A part of me is highly skeptical of the views number because it seems to gain around 20 views every single day even though it’s been 4 weeks removed from the top pages of latest released. How could it keep getting so many daily views without ever generating a reader comment or a sale? I have to say, I suspect there may be something going on at myebook.com and so I’ll keep an eye on this.

Amazon.com. It took a while before it went live so this is the only site where it’s probably been closer to 4 weeks than a month. The only stat they provide is for sales (and returns) so I can only report 6 sales so far in 4 weeks. Not horrible but not nearly what I was hoping for. One of the problems might be because there are no reviews yet. I wanted to do this entirely with strangers which means not asking friends, family or associates to leave any reviews anywhere. (That’s actually a great way to jump-start some sales but I thought my customers might appreciate this approach). So perhaps in the following months if good reviews come the sales might rise. We’ll see.

Youpublish.com. This site was actually a second thought, but I’m glad I put it there. It still has no ratings though the sample has been viewed 227 times and 1 sale has resulted. Not bad. Again, perhaps if some good reviews came in it would help with sales.

My Own Websites. (Here and at Webs.com, Wordpress.com and at Viviti.com) I like it when sales happen directly through these because I get 100% of any profit, even though most of the other venues are pretty good at 70% or more (Amazon currently at 35% but going to 70% in July 2010). I don’t know exactly how many visitors have been to the sites since the stat keeping is a bit rough, but I estimate approximately 750 visitors resulting in 6 sales.

Google Rankings. It appears I erroneously reported a page one Google ranking earlier this month. Perhaps my surprise helped me overlook the fact that Google must have keyed in my IP address and sites that I had previously visited. I swear my mentions were true for page one, but after I cleared my browser of cookies, temporary files and visited pages etc, I lost the page one ranking and currently don’t show up until page 8 (yikes) for a search term of “sell ebooks.” It’s the Amazon listing of my ebook, then followed by Myebook’s listing on page 9 and PRLog’s free press release. It’s okay because “sell ebooks” is a highly common search term with massive competition, averaging 12,000 search inputs per month and high advertiser competition. Plus I’m the new kid on the block. As long as I keep doing this program, that page ranking should drop each month slowly and surely. This isn’t a get rich quick thing, more of a pacing with persistence wins the race.

Just in the past few days I uploaded several videos on Youtube (see one of them here), so next month I’ll have some comments on how that’s going.

So what are the final monthly numbers? 17 sales which isn’t what I wanted but an okay start. Only one review so far so perhaps more to report next month.

The best thing that’s happened is that I’ve received 2 thoughtful emails from customers who told me how much insight and helpful information they found in the book. That they were just starting out with marketing their own books and the info really helped. That’s really the best reward of all.

Sell Ebooks on Youtube - Market Ebooks and Websites for Free

Well, you won't make the ebook sale on YouTube but you'll show the world what you have to offer and where they can get it. I'm no video pro but I'm not convinced you have to be. If people are looking for information and you demonstrate that you can help them, then it's likely they'll visit your site.


See if a YouTube video helps you sell ebooks or drive traffic to your webpage. Why not? It's free and not that difficult.
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Sell Ebooks, Search Term in Google lists How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks All for FREE in top spots in Just 2 Weeks!

It's only been about 2 weeks, and somehow a Google Search currently shows links to my ebook on page 1 when the term "sell ebooks" is typed into Google. (However, I admit for some reason it doesn't work every time, and it could be due to the fact that it's recognizing my IP address. Maybe give it a few more days in case it doesn't work for you on the first try. Even so, at least I definitely am on fairly close following pages in little time.)
"Sell ebooks" is a highly competitive search term. It averages between 12,000 and 18,000 searches per month. That's between 400 and 600 times every day. The results come up with over 5 million entries spread out over enormous amounts of pages. To think that my ebook, How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks - All for FREE is already in the top references on page 1 of Google - that's amazing! And remember, I haven't spent one penny in the process. Don't ever think you need to spend marketing money to get results fast!
Here are the top 3 (non-paid for) search results for this term:

• Amazon.com: Make Money Online-Write and Sell EBooks Guide: A Work ... You can write, publish, and sell ebooks, even without lifting a finger, and earn $10000/month in only 30 days. This ultimate guide to starting and running ... www.amazon.com › ... › Business & Culture › Web Marketing - Cached
  

Although this is not a direct reference for my ebook but for someone else's, How to Make, Market and Sell ebooks still comes up in the top left corner of the page, and it's way less expensive!

• How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks - All for Free Teaches Online ... Mar 26, 2010 ... How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks - All for Free Teaches Online Tools and Methods to Create and Sell at No Cost - on PR.com. www.pr.com/press-release/222364 - Cached

This is great because this PR.com press release has been out for less than a week and already it has my book on the first page of Google for a highly competitive search term! And it was free. I guess this advice works better than I realized.

• Myebook - How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks - All for FREE Mar 16, 2010 ... Have you written a book? Are you weighing options of what to do next? Then con.. www.myebook.com/index.php?option=ebook&id=30081 - Cached

I've really been surprised and impressed with myebook.com for the number of views and the Google results that it's had for my ebook.  To think I almost didn't include them in my retailer list because they were a newer outfit and I didn't know much about them. Just goes to show that this entire field is new and clearly some people are doing it better than others. (Now if I could just see the sales there picking up we'd have a real tri-fecta.)
So who are the winners here? I'm super impressed with PR.com, Myebook.com. I'm still really happy with Smashwords and Amazon. But honestly, and I know this sounds like tooting my own horn, I'm delighted by the results that can be had with very little effort and no money in a short period of time by simply following the advice in my ebook.
Please check out How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks - All for FREE by Jason Matthews if you want success in this business or any related business.
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