It began innocently enough… I was reading an article about Amazon’s latest strong armed tactics with POD publishers and saw a comment by an author who listed her web site as a contact in the comments section. Her words were thoughtful and well presented, so I clicked on the link to learn more about her at her web site which was included in the comment.
Because she didn’t ask for my advice, I’m not going to publish this author’s name or web address. This is NOT written to “shame” anyone. It’s just my web savvy opinion of her author website and what follows are “best practices” for any author’s website.
This author is doing one thing really, really, really well… she’s actively promoting her web site.
- She’s commenting on discussions and entering her URL wherever she can.
- She’s signing up for and using various author promotion services
- She’s participating in forum discussions and using her URL when possible.
I can’t place enough emphasis on how important these steps are for ANY author!!!! If it weren’t for the fact that this author is actively promoting her web site, I would have NEVER found her site. Which is why I was SHOCKED at what I found when I went to her site.
This author is “web savvy” enough to be promoting her web site by commenting on other people’s blogs but she’s not web savvy at all from the looks of her author website.
What alarmed me was the underlying structure of the web site. The author, in response to being “challenged” by the rigors of HTML had created each web page as an image. Every bit of content on the web site is contained within a single image.
For the human visitor, this is not a big problem. While some of the text is “fuzzy” (the result of using cheap graphics software) it is legible. However, looking at my “magic” tool bars I see she has ZERO PR (page rank) and N/A for an Alexa ranking. This doesn’t surprise me. Here’s why:
- Her domain name is comprised of her name… which is 20 characters long. There’s nothing wrong with this but she uses a combination of her first name, her maiden name and her husband’s last name as her domain name. Twenty characters in all and only one of them is a “common” name. THIS MEANS getting people to the site using off line methods is going to be a challenge and unfortunately, she won’t be getting much “Google love” because of #2….
- Every bit of content on her web site is HIDDEN inside the image files. When the search engines arrive and try to decide where to put this site in their index, all they have is her domain name and files names 01.gif, 02.gif, etc. So when she talks about writing for a tightly targeted niche market, the search engines don’t know what she’s doing. For all they know, these are dirty pictures posted on her web site.
Content contained within images is more common than you might imagine. It is very common for aesthetes (one who cultivates great sensitivity to beauty) to turn to the comfort of creating image based web sites because that is one way to ensure that the content is presented EXACTLY as intended. Because different users are using different computers, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to create a standard HTML web page that displays EXACTLY the same for everyone… because everyone’s computers are using different settings to display content.
By creating a web site with only images, she is essentially HIDING her words from the Search Engine robots that index the web.
What makes this so sad is this author has done a LOT of work promoting her web site on the web. As a matter of fact, I recently joined one of those resources because it appeared FIRST when searching for her by name via Google. Unfortunately, the only way her web site comes up in that search is when you search her name as it appears in her url… all three names as one separate word.
What’s really sad is – it doesn’t have to be this way. You can have a BEAUTIFUL flash website – one that is search engine friendly and easy to edit – thanks to recent advances in technology. Click here for a way to create a free flash website for your book.
Nice, informative article. I’ve found your page on Yahoo and I’m really glad about the information you provide in your articles. I’ve read some of your articles and subscribed to your site.
Niche marketing is a good way to promote your book.
I wish all posts were like this, interesting and concise. Without doubt given me food for thought. Thanks, looking forward to more like this.
I think people need to be able to separate design & content for the most part however you see this same thingmore and more with Flash.
I searched “image based web sites” on google and your article appeared in top ten. I am glad because I am creating a web page portfolio that will contain mostly images derived from ArcGIS software. Now I know to keep the text that I want to register in search engines seperate from the images that I compile. Thank you!
Oh and maybe the person you were referring to is spending so much time promoting her website because it wont come up on search engines… Maybe she should just take some of that time and redo her website….
By the way, as online dictionary for synonyms you can always use free thesaurus dictionary too.
Hi! Would you mind if I share your blog with my twitter group? There’s a lot of people that I think would really appreciate your content. Please let me know. Thank you
This site holds some rattling wonderful info for everyone : D.
For one reason or another, I cant see all of this content, it keeps disappearing? Are you utilising DHTML?
You may be having issues with your browser. Make sure you’re running the “latest and greatest” version for best web viewing EVERYWHERE – including this site. Go to Browse Happy to get the latest version of your favorite browser.
Nice post. Very useful information.