I am often introduced to an author weeks before their book is due to launch and they need a website, assistance with their social media, or both.
At this point, we are behind the eight ball because while we can get that done, that new site won’t have any traffic or social media any following yet to support a book launch. I love it when I can begin the process with an author before the book is even finished – but, what if that didn’t happen?
The problem:
Authors want to sell books. Therefore, targeted traffic from people who want to know about their topic is important. The second part of the equation is website conversion, which is the ability to guide website visitors into your marketing funnel so they become book buyers. In addition to making sure a website is set up to do that, one of the biggest issues that an author deals with is getting targeted traffic to their website and acquiring social shares with active readers and followers. Conversion of that traffic means that a percentage of traffic will convert to sales.
Getting ranked in the search engines for keyword terms takes a heroic effort utilizing link building procedures with press releases, content marketing and general SEO practices – which is time consuming and expensive.
My solution to the problem – Visual Content:
I had already tested my first infographic, Social Sharing Traffic Map and got some great traffic from it. The post was made on May 14th and the stats shown in the screenshot below is the traffic from May 14 – May 31, 2013 showing page views of 133, unique views or 117 and 4:14 minutes on the site.
The traffic has continued as seen from these stats, May – Sept, 2013:
You’ll notice that the time on the site has stayed at a nice 4 minutes or so consistently which is great.
Next step – let’s try it with a book:
I was releasing a kindle book on Klout, and planned on using this website for exposure when it dawned on me that using a new website would give me the opportunity to test out some things.
The key point would be that we wouldn’t ask viewers to commit to reading an entire book, or even an article – instead, we would give them an easy and interactive way to broaden their knowledge on an important subject. This appeal to people’s sense of curiosity (along with a timely topic) would be important to the infographic’s success.
Case Study
I launched www.KloutScoreBook.com a month before the release of the kindle book so I could replicate the common scenerio of a book release closely paired to a website launch.
Looking at the analytics you will notice that on June 26th the site launched and my book promotion was scheduled for July 11th which where you see the highest spike in traffic:
No SEO or special traffic programs were done – I wanted to see what would happen in a more common author website situation.
Only 74 Unique Visitors, 2.35 page views and with 2:53 minute stay on the site. Looking at the traffic over the next couple of months shows similar stats from July to mid September:
The Results:
Now let’s see what happens with we introduce a Klout Score Book Infographic that we had created and promoted it across social sharing sites – stats are for one month. It didn’t take long for viewers to notice our infographic, or for its promotion to take on a life of its own.
Bingo! 358 Visitors with 7:33 minutes on the infographic page.
We got as much traffic in one month on the infographic page as we had for three months site wide while doubling the average time on the page. While it would be great to add another zero to the visitor number, keep in mind that most new websites are lucky to get 50 or even 100 visitors. We have started submitting the infographic and expect to see an ongoing traffic stream from it.
Benefits gained through infographic marketing a book:
- Increased traffic to the website
- Increased time on the site (the search engines love this)
- Infographic marketing introduces new visitors who might not otherwise have know about a book
- Oh, and last but not least – book sales
Have you taken a look at our Infographic Creation and Promotion plans?
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