I’m going to begin this post with a bit of information you may find startling.

The web does not operate fairly.

(Mock gasp) It’s true. The author who works the hardest doesn’t necessarily get the bulk of his or her publisher’s promotional dollars. The best book doesn’t necessarily get a better website with more traffic. The author who writes the best book isn’t rewarded with more book sales. The author who has written the best book doesn’t automatically “win” the top place on any bestseller list. If you think about it… it really isn’t fair.

If you didn’t know it already… life isn’t fair... especially when it comes to book marketing and promotion.

Writing a great book is the FIRST step, but it’s far from the only step. The next step is to promote your book with everything you’ve got. With that in mind, many authors have found that the web is a POWERFUL promotional tool for their book’s marketing efforts.

One of my “goals” for this blog is to help authors create a successful web presence. It’s tough enough to sell books when you’ve dotted all your i’s and crossed all of your t’s when it comes to creating your web presence. As an author, you DEFINITELY don’t need your web site working against you as well.

Your log files are an essential tool in discovering how many people are visiting your web site, what keywords they’re using to get there and even what sites are sending visitors to you.

Without this vital information, you’re operating your web site in the dark.

Your log files truly hold the key to your website promotion success! When you go digging through your website log files, you can find GREAT information you need to promote your book successfully.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently joined a writer’s forum because it ranked #1 when I searched for an author by name on Google. I went through the rigors of registration and upon successful registration, was given access to the forums.

One author/editor is offering a LOT of advice on the forums, so once again, I click on a link to a web site in this helpful gentleman’s signature. Again, this is another example of someone who is doing SO MANY THINGS RIGHT when it comes to promoting his web presence and because of the mechanics behind his web site, he’s not seeing the full benefit of the hard work he’s doing. Because he didn’t ask for my advice, I’m not going to share his contact information. This information is presented so that you can know what mistakes to avoid with your own web site.

It turns out that this author has written 7 books. It’s obvious, not only through the number of titles he’s offering but also by his work in the forums that he’s not afraid of a little hard work. He’s also demonstrated that by keeping his web site up for 6 years, that he’s a never say die person.

Unlike my reviews of previous author sites, I don’t have to guess about how active this web site is because there is link on his web site so anyone can go and look at his web site statistics. His web site statistics service is a “free” service and as a result, this author is (hopefully inadvertently) opening up his log files for the world to see. The provider of the web statistics also provides lots of other freebies for your web site which I wouldn’t advise you use.

According to the web statistics I am one of 2 visitors today… and one of 5,978 visitors since 2002. Of those, 5,005 are “unique” visitors. Roughly six thousand visitors in six years is truly tragic in terms of website traffic. 5978 divided by 6 (years) divided by 12 (months per year) comes to 83 visitors per month. By the way, there is a serious “skew” to this as this type of “visitor traffic” doesn’t filter out visits from the web site owner. So it’s possible that the “repeat” visitor is merely the web site owner checking on his site. (82 visitors X 16% = 13 repeat visitors)

No matter how you slice it, the cruel fact is that most people arrive at his web site and never come back. UGH! Here’s a lovely graphic included on the stat program to illustrate the “problem” with the web site:

The repeat visitors are the ONLY ones you stand a chance of selling a copy of your book.
First time visitors aren’t very likely to buy your book. They’re visiting to learn more about you… more about what you have to say. If they won’t bother to come back, why would they spend money to buy your book?

It’s not fair. I’m here to tell you right now… IT IS NOT FAIR!!!! The author above should be selling LOADS more books than he is.  His web site should be getting THOUSANDS of visitors a day because of all the hard work he’s done just in the forums!!! Unfortunately, that hard work has done more for the forum owner than it has for him from a web statistics analysis point of view.

By the way, the “free” statistics program the author above is using doesn’t give him ANY information about how people are coming to his site. Again, he’s operating in the dark.

So I confess…it’s not fair. If you didn’t know it already… life isn’t fair. Writing a great book is the FIRST step. The next step is to promote it and the web can be a POWERFUL promotional tool for your book’s marketing efforts.

Filed under: Author Web Sites, Blog Basics, DIY Web Site Disasters, author book marketing, author web sites, book blog, statistics explained, web site statistics, web statistics for book websites, website traffic for author web sites