Frappuccinos & Blogs 2007 (Photo credit: Oscar J Baeza)

There you sit in your favorite chair pensively sipping on your Frappuccino, gazing out the window not noticing the people coming and going. You dream about your bestseller. Just as in years gone by, you imagine Casey Kasem announce, “and topping the charts this week is . . . your book.“ Then suddenly reality sets in: OMG, blogging, tweeting, article writing, advertising, etc., etc. All the things I need to do to expose my book to climb the charts. Sigh!

What was that you are telling yourself?

I don’t blog, I’m too old to twitter, I don’t know what to blog or tweet about, I don’t know about this SEO thing, I can’t afford to advertise, yada yada yada . . .

Let’s get real for a moment and jump out of the box. Don’t blog, don’t twitter, don’t advertise, don’t know SEO . . . as the terminator once said, “no problemo”. For little more than the cost of your Frappuccino you could:

• Get a 400 – 500 word article (or blog post) written for you.

• Have someone write 10 awesome tweets for you.

• Have your promo message tweeted to 250,000 people 4x on twitter.

• Have a Facebook Fan Page created.

• Have your message posted for over 300,000 Facebook followers to see.

• Submit a press release to 35+ press release sites.

• Get a video made to promote your book or website.

• And so much more.

Fiverr.com is it. You can find all sorts of services on Fiverr.com for a mere $5. Just a little more than the cost of Frappuccino each day, you can do book promotion. This site is nothing short of faaaaantastic! Don’t blog, don’t twitter, don’t advertise, don’t know SEO . . . “no problemo.”

Also, for a little more than the cost of your Frappuccino each day, you could do promo activities with a paid search or display network ad campaign.

• Advertise your video on YouTube and get up to 500 views of your video from searches on YouTube.

• Have your book seen each day thousands of times on a number of websites like FanFiction.net.

• Get up to 30 clicks per day to your book page from organic searches.

Also, for little more than a couple Frappuccino’s you can get an author interview or do a guest post at @IndieBookPromos (indiebookpromo.com).

You are in a global marketplace. Whether you can or can’t do any of the above is of no consequence. It is so easy to find others who can do it for you, which will free you up to do what you want and like to do, write.

So, tomorrow as you sit in your favorite chair pensively sipping on your Frappuccino, gazing out the window and dreaming about your bestseller, that great coffee aroma swirling around you enticing the senses, the coffee slowly vanishing from your cup — remember, so too are vanishing readers.

No more excuses! You can do it all for little more than the cost of your Frappuccino. EXPOSE yourself, NOW!

Until next time…

“Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.” Casey Kasem

AdWords, as simple as 1-2-3. Get your ad campaign going in minutes! J.P. the AdWords Guy can help you with a task that will seem like you are in a cognitive learning experiment. If you are looking to GET EXPOSED and drive traffic to your Amazon page or book web site, the AdWords Guy can help you. Call, NOW!

949-431-3841

J.P. Thompson

TheAdWordsGuy.com

If you are thinking that a bunch of ghosts of famous writers are going to show up on your site, and droves of readers are going to flock to see them to help promote your book…that’s not going to happen. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

If you search on Google for let’s say “romance novels,” it will return over 38 million results. There are about 10 results showing per page . . . well, let’s just say you are a penguin in a sea of penguins.

Let’s quickly do a reality check.

• Google research indicates that there are approximately 130 million published books.
• Amazon has approximately 1.7 million titles listed. Type in “romance novels” at Amazon/books and it will return approximately 38K results.
• 2011: about 3 million books published.
• 2012: is estimated to hit about 12 million books published.
• Alison Flood of the Guardian points out that a DIY study suggests that self-published authors make less than $500.00.

The hard reality . . . books are easy to find; buyers are not.

If you are interested in selling your book, it’s now time to take off your author hat. You need to think like a marketer. You now need buyers…so, how do you get buyers?

1. First and foremost is EXPOSURE
2. ENGAGE your potential buyer
   1. Offer them interesting or helpful content

GOT FANS? Sometimes we are our own worst enemy when it comes to selling. I know; I am a master sales trainer of 34 years. What I hear from authors:

I don’t blog.

I’ll never guest post.

I don’t know what to blog about.

My book is not selling; can you recommend a top agent for me in NYC?

I will advertise when book sales are better.

I am too old to use twitter.

I hate Facebook.

I don’t want people to find me.

I won’t sell a book on twitter.

“Hello, McFly!” Where do you think your buyers are going to come from?

• A search on Google? You’re 1 in 38M!
• A search on Amazon? You’re 1 in 38K!

Get active! It’s all about getting your book or yourself out there as an author so potential buyers see you and what you write. There is a reason approximately $80B was spent last year on business to consumer advertising. EXPOSURE!

Here are 10 things you can do right NOW to EXPOSE YOURSELF:

1. Create a blog

70% of the millions surveyed buy due to reading a blog.

50% of those people read a blog once daily.

• Then drive traffic to your blog:

• Get Reviews
• Guest Blogging
• Twitter
• Face Book Fan Page
• Google +1
• Pintest
• LinkedIn
• GoodReads
• YouTube Video
• Use a book promo service
• Advertise

2. Create a book webpage
   1. Create a book website with a blog (e.g., humanbodydetectives.com)
   2. Create a blog with a link to a book webpage (e.g., rachelintheoc.com)
   3. Make the book webpage visually interesting and enticing

3. Be sure to have a buying page or a link to where they can buy your book on your blog and book webpage with a strong call to action.

4. Set up a Facebook fan page

5. Set up a Twitter account
   1. You can tweet about your blog posts or book subject matter (just learn how to use the site properly so you don’t spam or self-promo exclusively).

6. Reviews: Get beta readers to read your book.

Visit badredhedmedia.com for more information

• Minimum of 10 reviews
• Minimum 25 likes

7. Set up a Google+1 account, LinkedIn account, GoodReads, and Pintrest account

8. Set up a YouTube account.
   1. Create a video

• You can have a video created for as little as $5 on Fiverr.com (e,g., $45 video example at http://youtu.be/KHRj8kfbzRI)

2. You can also advertise your video on YouTube for as little as $.01 per view

9. Use a service to promote your book
   1. BadRedHeadMedia.com
   2. BookBuzzr.com
   3. IndieBookPromo.com

10. Advertise
    1. Use AdWords (Google)
    2. or AdCentral (Bing and Yahoo)

Until next week, expose yourself!
J.P. Thompson

theadwordsguy.com

Also, visit my blog on selling at Salescafe

For your final preparation before running off and setting up your AdWords campaign I wanted to revisit your keyword phrases you developed from the earlier post on The Secret of Selecting Keywords for AdWords.

When you finally setup your campaign, one of the final activities will be to choose and enter your keywords and phrases for your ad. Beyond that you will need to decide what search criteria (keywords and phrases) will actually trigger your ad. Not all search criteria are created equal!

The key question is:

 

How closely do you want a potential buyer’s search criteria to match your keyword phrase in order to trigger your ad?

This can be a challenging task. So, it is a good idea to think about it now. You will have a choice of the type of search criteria that could trigger your ad. You will need to decide if you want a “broad match,” “broad match with modifier,” “phrase match,” “exact match,” and/or a “negative match” for each keyword phrase. To keep it simple, below is an example of a term and the different types of attributes you can add to your keyword phrase to determine when a search term will trigger your ad to show. Keep in mind that as you move down the list, although you are using the same keyword phrase you narrow and make more specific as to what type of search criteria can trigger your ad to show.

For example: If you ad the keyword phrase:

Humorous Books

This is a broad match. Your ad can be triggered by synonyms or a search related to humorous books: E.g., Humorous books, funny stories, jokes funny stories, motivational stories, funny books, fun books.

+Humorous +Books – use of the +

This is a broad match with a modifier. Your ad can be triggered by close variants in any order of the words humorous books, just has to have those two words or variants of those two words in the search criteria. E.g., humorous books, best humorous 2012 books, humorous joke books, books on humor and jokes.

“Humorous Books” – use of “ ”

This is a phrase match. Your ad can be triggered by a search with the phrase humorous books in it. That means any term can come before or after this phrase. Will include close variant of each keyword. E.g., humorous books, jokes humorous books, motivational humorous books, humorous books of 2012, award winning humorous book.

(Humorous Books) – use of ( )

This is an exact match. Your ad can be triggered by an exact match for humorous books in it but will not show if someone adds words before or after the phrase. It will include close variant of each word. E.g., humorous books, humor books, humorous book.

Humorous Books – Jokes – use of the -

This is a negative keyword. Your ad will not be triggered if your keyword phrase is accompanied by the negative term in the search criteria. E.g., Humorous joke books, books on humor and jokes. This is very specific to the search criteria of humorous books.

There is an option to add a negative keyword globally. So, anytime that negative keyword is used with any of your keywords your ad will not be shown.

Typically if I use a broad match on a keyword, after a week I will check the “key word details” to see what the actual search criteria was that triggered the ad and received clicks. It can help to determine if there are any negative keywords that need adding or change a broad match to a more specific type of match. Also, it could give you additional keywords to use that you may not have thought to use and can add to your keyword list. The cons to this approach is that you can get a lot of non-target clicks and too specific search criteria can minimize your ad showing and a loss of potential targeted clicks.

So, it is a real art to managing your keyword phrases. You should review the “key word details” regularly and adjust keyword phrases accordingly to help you to manage and maximize your Clicks, Click Through Rate (CTR), and Cost Per Click (CPC) for your ad campaign.

You can also have a combination of the different types of matching options. Some of your keyword phrases might be broad matches where as others may be phrase matches and so forth. You decide.

This week, go through your keyword phrases and determine what type of matching option you want for each of your keyword phrases. Also, think about potential negative key words you might want to add. To make insertion into AdWords easy, I like to list them in note pad or textedit. Then just do a copy and paste when setting up the ad. Also, you can use an Excel Spread sheet and import the list to AdWords.

Next week, the campaign!

J.P. Thompson

theadwordsguy.com

Also, visit my blog on selling at Salescafe.

AdWords, as simple as 1-2-3. Get your ad campaign going in minutes! J.P. the AdWords Guy can help you with a task that will seem like you are in a cognitive learning experiment. If you are looking to GET EXPOSED fast and drive traffic to your Amazon page or book web site, J.P. the AdWords Guy can help you. Call, NOW!

949-431-3841

The landing page is where your potential buyer will end up (land) when they click on your ad. It can make or break you! A killer page or killer page.

It’s now time to take off your author hat. You need to think like a marketer. You are now selling a book, NOT writing one.

When running an AdWords ad campaign or any other online promotion, it is important that your landing page is optimized to SELL! Let me repeat that . . . is optimized to SELL!

As discussed in the previous two articles, The Secret to Selecting Keywords for AdWords and AdWords: How to Influence with 95 Characters or Less, it is important to think like a potential buyer of your book. You discovered your need to optimize your keyword phrases and your ads to increase the probability that the person who clicks on your ad is a potential buyer of your book. So, our final task before running off and setting up an AdWords ad campaign is to look very seriously at your landing page.

Think of your ad campaign this way: The ad is your cold call on a prospect to get the opportunity to get in front of them to persuade them. Your landing page is the actual sales call to sell them. You can get a lot of clicks on your ad and drive a lot of traffic to your landing page, but does your landing page sell them once they arrive?

Here are three key questions to answer:

1) Does my landing page deliver on what I promised?

Again, it is important that your keywords > ad > landing page are relevant and congruent to each other. You want to ensure that when a potential buyer lands on your page it is what they expected to find.

2) Why should I, as a potential buyer, buy your book?

You are in competition with other books and authors for a buyer’s book purchases. So, it is important to differentiate your book from other similar books in your categories. How is your book different or unique from other similar choices I have as a buyer?

People buy because of the benefit(s) (what it does for them) they will realize with the purchase. So, tell them the benefits of buying your book. What will your book do for me if I buy it? Will it make them laugh, feel good about themselves, help them solve a problem, to mention a few.

There are four decision factors that people use when making any decision. One or a combination of each decision factor can influence people to decide. They are: does the decision looks right, sound right, feel right, or seem right. Below are the four decision factors and a sample of the keywords (predicates) for appealing to each decision factor.

Does this book look right for me?

• Use visual words in your description like see, look, view, or observe.

*These buyers are heavily influenced by the “look” of your landing page. How visually appealing it is.

Does this book sound right for me?

• Use auditory words in your description like tell, hear,

Does this book feel right for me?

• Use kinesthetic words in your description like feel, warm, cool, touch.

Does this book seem right for me?

• Use auditory digital words in your description like think, fact, know, or make sense.

Since you don’t know a potential buyer’s decision factors, you should incorporate all four types of keywords (predicates) in your description.

Recommended resource: Make a Killing On Kindle

3) Does your landing page have a strong call to action?

There needs to be a strong call to action on your landing page.

• Buy, Now!
• Read this book!
• Subscribe today!
• Purchase your copy, Now!

Further, you can have calls to action throughout your description. For example:

• As you read this book, you will . . .
• When you buy this book, you can . . .
• Purchase/Read this book to . . .
• Buy/Read it to . . .

Always have a statement of what I, as a buyer, should do next after viewing your landing page content.

Remember, you can lead a buyer to your landing page, but you can’t make them buy. You can only entice and persuade them to do so. Does your landing page SELL?

J.P. Thompson

theadwordsguy.com

Also, visit my blog on selling at Salescafe.

AdWords, as simple as 1-2-3. Get your ad campaign going in minutes! J.P. the AdWords Guy can help you with a task that will seem like you are in a cognitive learning experiment. If you are looking to GET EXPOSED fast and drive traffic to your Amazon page or book web site, J.P. the AdWords Guy can help you. Call, NOW!

949-431-3841

Other Resources:

AdWords: landing page

AdWords: landing page Experience

So, you’re back for more.

A neutron walks into a bar and asks how much for a drink. The bartender replies “for you, no charge” ~ Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory.

In last week’s post, The Secret of Selecting Keywords for AdWords, you learned a few techniques for selecting your keyword phrases for your AdWords campaign. As a recap:

• Select “phrases” rather than a single key word.
• Select 5-10 Keyword Phrases (20 maximum).
• Select Keyword Phrases that have 10K – 100k searches per month.
• Use Amazon’s search bar and Google’s Keyword Tool to help you select your keyword phrases.

Now that you have your keyword phrases, let’s turn our attention to the ad itself. Again, before you go running off to set up an AdWords account, there are a few questions you should think about beforehand. This is so when it is time to set up your AdWords account and campaign you are prepared.

The next question is: what will your ad say?

1. Headline: This is the attention grabber.

• You have 25 characters for your headline (including spaces).
• Make it interesting and enticing.
• It is a good idea to put a key search term in your heading. What your prospective buyer of your book is searching on.
• Example: Let’s say one of your keyword phrases is “teen books.” Your headline might read: “Powerful Teen Book”

2. Text Lines: This is your description.

• You only have two lines for your text to inform and sell.
• You have 35 characters for each line of text (including spaces).
• Again, include a key search term in the text.
• Make the text enticing (a teaser).
  • Why should I want to read your book?
  • Write one sentence about what makes your book so interesting or important to the buyer.
• Example: Let’s say another one of your keyword phrases is “award winning books.” Your text might read:
  • Line 1: Award Winner. What happens when
  • Line 2: family love just isn’t enough? Look
• Also, include a call to action. E.g., buy, look, read, view, and etc.

*Note: You should also let the prospective buyer know this is an ad for a book or eBook. Otherwise you might get unnecessary clicks.

3. URLs:
   1. You are going to enter two URLs. URLs are webpage addresses you enter in the address bar in a web browser to take you to a certain website or web page.
   2. The two types of URLs you will enter are a Display URL and a Destination URL.

4. Display URL:
   1. It is not necessarily a functioning URL. Meaning it is like a signpost that let’s the buyer know where they will go (website or web page) if they click on your ad.
   2. This address appears in your ad.
   3. You only have 35 characters for the display URL.
   4. It does not need to be the exact URL (web address) of the landing page. The exact URL of your landing page is the “Destination URL.”

5. Destination URL:
   1. This is the actual functioning web page address. It takes the buyer to the landing page (web page) you want them to go to when they click on your ad.
   2. It does not appear in your ad.
   3. You can use the actual URL or a shortened link, like a bit.ly link.

6. URL examples:
   1. Display URL: www.amazon.com>kindle>BookName

This URL uses what Google calls “bread crumbs” (>). It gives the buyer an idea of where they are going, a signpost. Whether an Amazon book page or your book’s website. This is not a functioning link (URL).

2. Destination URL: http://www.amazon.com/The-Mancode-Exposed-Collection-ebook/dp/B006G5EMCK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344220861&sr=8-1&keywords=man+code+exposed

This is a functioning link (URL). It will take a buyer to an actual landing page.

Here is what your ad looks like:

Powerful Teen Book

Award Winner! What happens when

family love just isn’t enough? Look

www.amazon.com>kindle>BookName

*Note: Remember, ad relevance is very important. Be sure that your keywords > ad > landing page are all relevant to each other.

So, far I have been focusing on a search network campaign (most basic). I will discuss the display network ad campaign in a later post.

Until next week, take the time to write out three ads to begin your campaign. Once your campaign is running you will find that some ads get a better response than others.

J.P. Thompson

theadwordsguy.com

Also, visit my blog on selling at Salescafe.

AdWords, as simple as 1-2-3. Get your ad campaign going in minutes! J.P. the AdWords Guy can help you with a task that will seem like you are in a cognitive learning experiment. If you are looking to GET EXPOSED fast and drive traffic to your Amazon page or book web site, J.P. the AdWords Guy can help you. Call, NOW!

949-431-3841

J.P. Can be reached by email at emailme@jpthompson.us or emailme@theadwordsguy.com

So, you are thinking about an AdWords ad campaign, are you?

Let me begin.

“Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock, Spock vaporizes rock, and as it always has, rock crushes scissors.” – Sheldon ‘Big Bang Theory’

Setting up an AdWords campaign can, at times, seem like you trying to follow a discussion with Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory. Over the next few posts I will be assisting you in setting up your AdWords ad campaign.

Before you go running off to set up an AdWords account, there are a few questions you should think about beforehand.

So, I wanted to start with one of the most important questions you will have to think about and answer when setting up your ad campaign:

What are the key words and phrases you want to use?

This is a very critical step. Really think about your key words or phrases.

1. Select between 5 to 10 key words or phrases (Maximum of 20).

• Typically, authors new to AdWords have a tendency to laundry list a whole host of key words hoping to cover all the bases to get lots of clicks. Wrong! It has been my experience that only about two or three key words or phrases will receive the vast majority of clicks.

2. When selecting your key words, take two things into consideration:
   • What are the terms or phrases a book buyer of your book will search on?
   • What is the relevance of your key words or phrases to your book, your eventual ads, and landing page (The webpage people who click on your ad end up on.)?

The secret to selecting key words and phrases is AMAZON! Amazon is the SECOND largest search engine on the planet. The really neat thing about it is that everyone there is a BUYER! So, a great place to start to identify your key words and phrases is Amazon’s search bar.

Typing in a key word for your book will produce a list of the most entered search terms or phrases that book buyers are searching on for books like yours to buy. For example, let’s say you wrote a humorous story. You type in humor and up pops a list of the most searched on terms, of which humorous is number five on the list. Humorous story is nowhere to be found. If your book is a work of fiction you might consider using a key word phrase like humorous fiction rather than humorous story.

Let’s take it further and use one of the phrases that came up “humorous books for” to refine and/or add to our options. Here we have the most common phrases that buyers are searching on to find books they are interested in:

Play around with Amazon’s search bar with different terms. Also, click on a term that looks promising to see what type of books actually come up. Are they relevant to your type of book?

Now open up another window in your browser and navigate to AdWords’ Keyword Tool:

https://adwords.google.com/KeywordTool

Now type in the terms or phrases you think your potential book buyers will search on in the “word or phrases” box at the top (#1) and click search.

The Keyword Tool will display the results. Focus on the “Global Monthly Searches.” It will show you the total number of searches for each term for the previous @30 days. I look for words and phrases that return search numbers between 10,000 and 100,000, the sweet spot. So, in our example, humorous books and humor books look promising as key words/phrases for the ad campaign. Humorous novels is right on the threshold and could include it as one of the key phrases if the book is considered a novel. Humorous fiction may not be a good keyword phrase due to too low of a search volume. Also, it says that there is low competition for those terms that could lead to lower CPC (cost per click), more clicks based on budget, and better ROI (return on investment).

Below the search results are other suggestion for key words and phrases to use. Review those suggestion for additional insight and also may provide you with terms to avoid (negative keywords) which can cost $$$ with unqualified buyer clicks. For example, the term Humorous Books may trigger your ad and subsequent clicks in an organic Google search for Humorous Joke Books where your book has nothing to do with jokes.

Remember, when choosing keywords for your AdWords ad campaign, you are looking to drive book buyers to your landing page. So, use both Amazon’s search bar and AdWords Keyword Tool together to help you choose your keywords and phrases.

Until next week, take time to determine your keywords and phrases.

J.P. Thompson

theadwordsguy.com

AdWords, as simple as 1-2-3. Get your ad campaign going in minutes! J.P. the AdWords Guy can help you with a task that will seem like you are in a cognitive learning experiment. If you are looking to GET EXPOSED and drive traffic to your Amazon page or book web site, the AdWords Guy can help you. Call, NOW!

949-431-3841

JP Can be reached by email at emailme@jpthompson.us or emailme@theadwordsguy.com

What’s a beta reader?

A beta reader is someone who reads a book that is either not quite finished, or someone that serves as a test audience for a newly finished book.

Where do you find beta readers?

You cultivate them. They are found amongst your friends and fans. They are people who want to help you with your career. They are people who are somewhat predisposed to like your book for one reason or another. They read the same genre that you write in, they have read other books that you have written, or they follow your blog and enjoy your posts on your blog. They are “friendlies.”

Why do you need beta readers?

Beta readers are the first readers/reviewers of your new book. They post reviews on Amazon and Goodreads and help you create a buzz when your book is released. If they have blogs, they post about your book and maybe invite you to guest post about your new book.

Can your book be published without beta readers?

Yes, but don’t you want to do everything you can to launch your book to a rousing round of enthusiasm? Don’t you want your book jump-started to the top of the Amazon rankings and lists? Don’t you want your book released into a pond filled with friendly fish instead of into the ocean filled with sharks?

Do authors innately know that they need beta readers?

In my experience, no. I think a lot of authors assume that the first person to read their new book (other than their mother) is the first paying customer. This can be true, but don’t you want the initial response to your book to be a positive one? Wouldn’t that be soothing on your ego – after the stress of writing, editing and formatting your book – to be told for the first little bit, how wonderful you and your book are?

One of our team members can help you get some beta readers – for help contact Babs Hightower at Author Services at the Bistro.

Go find yourself some Beta Readers!
Make some friends!

Today is a short tutorial on putting a Favicon on a Blogger Blog.  For those of you who have a WordPress Blog, click HERE to see a tutorial on how to do the Favicon on WordPress!

Why do we go to this trouble?

Simple.

Branding.

It’s a simple way of adding more personalization and branding to your blog.  It places an identifiable graphic on the tab holding your blog on everyone’s browser.  You can reinforce your brand in multiple subtle ways.  This is just one example.

Installing a Favicon on a Blogger blog is actually quite an easy job.  It seems to be one of the  things that Google has made quite straight forward!

The first thing that you are going  to do is to create your graphic.

I’m not very good with graphics, so I tend to create simple icons.  Keep in mind that this graphic will be really small and not much detail will be visible.  Because of this, I have created a graphic that is simply a set of initials on a colored background.  This graphic should be square and small.  Mine is 50pxX50px and saved as either a .jpg or .png and it needs to be less than 100 kb

Next, you need to open your dashboard for your Blogger blog and click on the “design” tab.  This will bring up a screen like below.

Towards the upper left of the print screen above you can see the word Favicon and the word Edit beside it.  See screen shot below.

Click on the word Edit and you will see the following screen.

Click on the browse button and choose the graphic file that you have saved on your hard drive.  Click on Save.  This will put your little graphic in place.  Your screen should show the Favicon in place as below.

Let’s look at a before and after so that you can see the difference.

Before:

After:

Now it’s time for you to do this on your blog!  Easy!  Drop me a note if you have questions or if you are interested in getting a little more help!

Today’s lesson is about how to install a Favicon for your WordPress Blog.  If you have a Blogger blog, I’ll be posting a tutorial on how to do this on a Blogger blog in a few days.

Are you staring at your computer trying to figure out WHAT the &*^% a Favicon is? and why you would want on on your blog?

I was like that also – until I realized how important the favicon is in branding.  Branding is so important these days – to you – to me – to anyone trying to sell something! A Favicon is the little graphic at the corner of the tab on your browser.  Depending on which browser you use, if there isn’t a favicon present, an empty box outlined by dotted lines is present.

Here’s a test Identify the following four favicons.

How did you do?  Hopefully 4 out of 4!  I don’t know if you are like me, but I tend to have tons of tabs open on my browser when I’m working.  I’m sure I’m not supposed to…..but it is pretty easy to click between tabs using the favicons!

So let’s learn how to do this for your WordPress blog.

The first thing you want to do is to create a graphic.

This is the graphic that I created for this blog.  Nothing fancy.  I created it with the graphics program that I have, Art Text.  You can use photoshop or any graphics program that you have.  Things to keep in mind:

• Keep it small – I set the size at 50px X 50px when creating mine
• Keep it simple – as it will be really small,  I suggest some initials and some colors from your blog.
• Save it as a PNG, ICO or GIF file type

Now you need the “plug-in” that will facilitate the installation of your Favicon.  If you look at the graphic below, look on the left hand side to see the highlighted word “Plugins”.

Just below that is the “Add New” button.  Click on that and bring up the following screen.

Type in the word “Favicon” and then click on “Search Plugins”.

The above graphic shows the result of the search.  We are going to use “All in One Favicon”.  (There are several plugins that you can use, but I prefer this one.) Click on “Install Now” below the title and you will get the following screen.

The above screen tells you that the plugin has been successfully installed.  You now need to click on  “Activate Plugin” and you should see:

Once you have the plugin activated you need to tell it which graphics to use.

In the above graphic you can see the title of the plugin (All in one Favicon) under “Settings” on the left hand side of your blog back end.   Click on it.

This gives you the ability to upload your favicon to your blog.  If you know the URL, enter it, or click on “Upload Favicon” to find it from your computer or some other site (photoshop, etc.)

Please note: use the field for the type of file you have.  If you saved your graphic as a PNG, use the PNG field.  Once entered, click on “Save Changes” and you should see:

You will notice that your favicon now appears beside your address in the address  bar and it also appears at the corner of the tab!

Congratulations!  You have moved one more step towards having a branded blog!

Welcome to Bakerview Consulting!

I guide authors through the technological swamp known as social media!

I want to use this blog to talk about blogging and social media tips.  I’ve learned alot of things over the last few years and I want to help authors be the best they can be!  In my experience, the blogging world is an intimidating one and can be a costly one.  When I think back to what my blog looked like when I ran out of money to pay my blog designer……

The blog should be part of an author’s “platform”.

What is a platform?

It is the place that you launch from with your book

Just picture that…..

In all seriousness, the author’s platform is their storefront.  It represents them to their fellow authors and to their readers.  It is the point of “first impression”.  Would you walk into a store that was covered in graffiti, the door was hanging off it’s hinges and the windows were too big for the frames?

Using that analogy, why is it acceptable to have a messy blog filled with images that don’t fit their frames.  Although I’m the worst housekeeper on the face of the earth, I do understand that I need to clean when company is coming.  I’m here to help you do those little things that help you clean up you blog (and the rest of the social media platform) and make it ready for company!