Technique

From the archives: Voice vs. writing well

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This post originally appeared here in March 2010, but I’ve been thinking about these issues all over again.

A couple weeks ago, on two different editing blogs, professional editors gave some great tips on creating stronger sentences and more vivid writing. The tips were quite different, but I found something a little disturbing about the comments. Here’s an example (synthesized):

Yeah, that’s nice, but my characters have a ‘voice’ and that voice is more important than writing well.

I am all in favor of using character voice in writing narration. I’m sure we can all cite examples of memorable writing in a character’s voice that used incorrect grammar, etc.

But at the same time, there was something more to that character than just the fact that she used “ain’t” or no apostrophes or no perfective tenses. A character’s voice isn’t memorable because you break the rules, it’s memorable in spite of that.

A character’s voice might be memorable because of its conversational quality, but if you really look closely, it’s not memorable because of its ordinariness, its run-of-the-mill-ness. As editor Maryann Miller advised:

A writing instructor once told me to pay attention to how people interact when they talk, but don’t necessarily use exact words you hear in a conversation.

When it comes to working with a client, I try to encourage them to rise above the ordinary in what they are writing.

Would you want to sit through an opera with someone who can kinda sing? We might tolerate it, but if someone can really sing, it’s a pleasure to listen to them for three hours—or 300 pages. Heck, there’s beauty in untaught bluegrass—but that doesn’t mean everyone who tries it is worth hearing. (Animals make noise, too—does that make them all worth listening to?)

As author Don Carey pointed out in the comments two years ago:

Writing well is essential to giving a character a strong voice. To extend your music analogy, character voice is the tonal quality of the instrument – a saxophone sounds different than a cello, which sounds different than a banjo, and they all sound different than a slide whistle. Yet each can make compelling music – as long as they are played in tune.

And the literary equivalent of playing in tune is called writing well. It doesn’t detract from the voice – writing well makes the voice work.

Perhaps the objections were more philosophical than objections to the actual suggestions, because the practices that these writers claimed were “damaging to my voice” were anything but—one was to avoid limping to a conclusion in a sentence and one was to avoid five common cliches/repetitions. Personally, I don’t know anyone who feels that cliches and weak sentences express who they are in their writing. If anything, they undermine the message.

I said this in the comments to one of these posts: The more I think about it, the more I think “but that’s how my character would say it” can be an excuse not to revise. I should know, I use it too.

And, frankly, the changes discussed weren’t substantive. One example: “He took her to his childhood home” as stronger than “He took her to the house he grew up in.” Another was “he nodded” instead of “he nodded his head.” Really? We’re going to claim that those differences—insignificant in the actual word choices, not adding obscure vocabulary or jargon or imagery—are affecting how our character’s voice is expressed? If those defines your character’s voice, methinks this character—and by that, of course, I mean us, the writers—needs to try a bit harder.

That might be how the character would say it, but if the character got another chance (or ten) to look at it over again and revise it (for publication), is that how he’d still say it? No, he may not make it poetic and beautiful and use words and images he doesn’t know, but that doesn’t mean he’d leave a mushy sentence there and allow it to undercut his meaning or make him boring and ordinary.

Next week we’ll talk about the exact opposite: when writing well gets in the way of voice!

What do you think? Is “voice” a defense for mushy writing? Can prepositions and repetitions actually define character voice?

Photo credit: Cliff

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Marketing

SEO: Tracking your results

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Marketing: SEO

In marketing, we have to focus on delivering results. It can be very difficult to prove your return on your marketing time investment with SEO, especially for books, when you probably can’t point to the data to say “This person searched for [jelly beans], found our landing page and bought $67,028.26 of jelly beans.”

Google Analytics, which we covered a little while ago, does offer a little of that kind of information (though if you have a store on your site, be sure to read up on using Google Analytics for tracking). As you can see at right (click to expand), it does tell you what search queries people are using to find your site*.

But there’s something this report can’t tell you: how well you rank for those words. It can’t tell you if you got only 5 hits for “i lurve orange soda sumpin fierce” because only 5 people searched for it, or if it’s because your link is buried on the 57th page of results.

Google has another free product that can help you find out. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Jordan, can’t I just Google my own keywords and see how I’m doing?” Yes. And no. Mostly no.

Google instituted personalized search five years ago. If you’re signed into your Google account, Google keeps track of a lot of things, possibly including what sites are yours (especially if you’ve ever claimed them), what sites you click on in search results, what subjects you search for, even who your friends are and what they like and recommend. It factors that information to the best of its ability in delivering your results. So your results and my results could be very different—including your ranking, or even appearing on the page at all. (Additionally, some more random variation occurs due to geography, what data centers you’re hitting, etc.)

However, being Google, they do keep track of your average ranking position on search pages, and they’ll share that with you through Google Webmaster Tools. If you’re on Blogger, you’re already signed up! If not, the sign up process is fairly easy. Visit the Google Webmaster Tools site (and create or sign into your Google account, if necessary), and click on the red “Add A Site” Button.

Enter the URL.

And use one of their verification methods.

Voila! It will take some time for them to build up a good set of data (a month, for the standard view), but they’ll start collecting data on what queries people are using to find your site. Here’s what you see when you sign in:

Note that it also gives you a list of URLs that aren’t working in the first column. These might be missing posts on your blog that you pulled down, or mistyped links from other blogs. (If it’s the latter, go to Blogger’s Settings > Custom Redirects. Click Edit and add a permanent redirect from the mistyped link to the correct one.)

For our purposes today, we’re going to focus on the queries report. Click on Queries and you’ll see something like this:

Or for a closeup:

This report (sorted by clicks) shows us impressions, clicks, CTR and Avg. position.

Impressions tells us how many times your link appeared on an actual search results page for that query. Clicks tells us . . . how many times someone clicked on your link. Duh. Clearly, the numbers for Impressions and Clicks are rounded, and numbers below 10 are not displayed. CTR stands for Clickthrough Rate (or Choose the Right, but come on, one of those makes more sense than the other here). This is basically clicks/impressions, telling us what percent of people who saw your link actually clicked on it. Finally, Avg. position tells you your average ranking.

In general, a higher clickthrough rate is better. Years ago, the industry standard for the paid ad links on the top and sides of a search engine results page (SERP) hovered around 2%. Organic results like these generally have better click through rates, but once you get out of the prime positioning on the first screen of results (“above the fold”), those CTRs tend to fall off.

If your CTR is lower than you’d like, take a look at what “snippet” Google displays for those keywords. Can you try to work in some sentences using those keywords that would be more enticing to your potential readers? Maybe make your title more engaging (while still using the keyword)?

In general, CTR is correlated with your ranking—sort by CTR and you’ll probably see this as a general trend—so improving your ranking can also help your CTR. Probably the easiest (ha) way to work on your rankings are to get more links. You might need to go link hunting! (As always, guest posts are my favorite way to come get links, sometimes with an anchor text that you specify.)

Another important aspect of the Queries page is the Top Pages tab at the top. It sorts all the same information as the Top Queries tab, but this time the info is grouped by the landing page on your site instead of the keyword people type in. (People can find the same page using different keywords, and if you’ve got multiple search engine results, they might look at the different pages for the same keyword.) (To get to the similar report in Google Analytics, go to Traffic Sources > Search > Organic. Just below the graph and big data chart, you’ll see a line that says Primary Dimension. Select Landing Page.)

If you want to get a little more advanced in your tracking, you can also go back to Google Analytics for Goal Tracking. My goals include having someone download one of my PDF guides or subscribe to my blog, so I’ve added special Google Analytics Event Tracking code into my links for those actions. I put an arbitrary monetary value on those goals (like $10 or something, but if it makes you feel good, say $1,000,000 or something 😉 ), and occasionally take a peek at my goals to see how I’m doing.

It’s also good to look at your “funnels” or paths in Google Analytics to see how people find your site and if they’re following the route you’d like them to.

Not comfortable sharing all this information with Google? I understand. I really do.

What do you think? How would you use all this cool information?

*Except when the searcher is signed in to Google, when Google Analytics reports the keyword as (not provided). Up to 40% of my search queries are (not provided) in GA. This is not my happy face. As you were.

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Marketing

SEO: Keywords, Research and Links, oh my!

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This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Marketing: SEO

Last week, we looked at whether SEO is right for authors and book marketing. My background in Internet marketing focuses on SEO, but I’m largely NOT convinced that aggressively targeting search engine rankings is right for authors and book marketing beyond a very basic level. I tend to agree with author Roberta Trahan:

One last caveat—and this is a pet peeve of mine: NO AUTHOR NEEDS SEO services (aka Search Engine Optimization). It is an absolute waste of your money. Readers simply DO NOT do a search for “book,” or “spy novel” or “memoir” or “historical fiction,” and then shop the first 10 titles that show up. Don’t let anyone tell you they do—it’s an out and out lie. [Or an author doing market research. *sheepishly raising a hand.*] Readers shop for books in BOOKSTORES — whether they be brick-and-mortar shops or online retailers like Amazon. The one and only possible exception to this would be some non-fiction books, largely business or self-help titles.

search enginesBut, as I sang in the fourth-grade school play, “I give myself very good advice, and I very seldom follow it.” My blog already ranks well for my name and even my book’s title—but I’m still pursuing a little SEO (weeeell, okay, not so much pursuing as tracking, but that’s next week), and it’s not to sell books. (I don’t have any out yet, so it really doesn’t help.)

There are basically three good reasons to do SEO for an author or book:

  • You do not rank for your name or your book title
  • Your book title or your name is already searched for quite a bit, and there’s some competition for good rankings. (Depending on the term, it might be easier to change your title or get a pen name.)
  • You’re stubborn not (just) trying to sell books, but attract a blog audience.

So if you’re as bullheaded like me—and if you PROMISE to take shelve any schemes to sell tons of books with SEO—read on to learn a little more about how to do SEO.

But first, time for our weekly announcements!

Enjoy my free writing guides? I’m giving away a full set of writing guides—plus some never-before-released, extra special and/or expanded guides—this week on Julie Coulter Bellon’s blog. Go set a goal and get to work for your chance to win!

Looking for a writers conference in Utah? iWriteNetwork and the Alpine School District are putting on an inexpensive writers’ conference July 27-28 in American Fork, and I’m teaching a class on HTML! Learn more on the iWriteNetwork blog (in the sidebar).

Wait, what? It’s Tuesday? Gasp! Marketing Mondays are all mixed up! Sorry, folks—I had a sick weekend that spilled over into my family and my week. We’re moving on!

The Nuts and Bolts of SEO

Once you’ve gotten through the most basic levels of SEO—understanding your website visitors, etc.—you can start looking at attracting more visitors with awesome search engine rankings.

There are two very simple pieces that make up a whole lot of the SEO puzzle: keywords and links. Keywords are the terms people type into search engines, and if you’re targeting certain terms, you’ll want to use them on your site. Links are important for regular users, because, hey, people can click them and get to your site, but they’re also nice because search engines view them like a vote for your site’s content.

Keyword Research

Just like you need to understand what people are doing on your site, you need to understand how people interact with search engines. We don’t go to Google (or even Ask Jeeves *ha*) and type in, “Excuse me, but could you please direct me to the best websites about writing,and also, do you have any Grey Poupon?” No, we’re more likely to type in “best writing websites” or “best websites about writing” or “writing resource websites.”

Unfortunately, what occurs to first us isn’t necessarily the most popular phrasing of the keyword. You don’t have to repeat the keyword exactly verbatim on your website/blog, but if you don’t use the word “resources” and most people search for “resources,” they’re probably going to end up at sites that do use the word “resources.”

(Believe it or not, I’m not actively trying to target “resources,” but we’ll see what happens with the post, LOL.)

Search engines provide tools to help us figure out what terms people really use. Granted, they’re really targeted at people trying to place search engine ads (the results along the sidebar and sometimes listed in a shaded box first—the people who buy those ads pay per click or 1000 views), but they’ve very useful for “organic” SEO (the “natural” results).

The tool I usually turn to first is Google AdWords’ External Keyword Tool. You can type in several keywords (or enter your website address to see what keywords Google sees there), and it gives you back a list of the real terms people type into search engines related to that term, along with their relative popularity and competition.

And then you get:

The competition column tells us how hard it is to get a well-placed ad. (If you’re wondering, to get a well-placed ad for a highly competitive term, you’ll need some combination of a high quality ad, a good site and a good price per click.) The competition level might not be identical in the organic results, but typically they’re strongly correlated.

If you really want to dig into SEO and keyword research, check out this article on keyword research by SEOmoz, and Neil Patel’s 3-Step Process to Creating an Effective and Profitable Keyword Plan for more tools and ways to expand your keyword research reach!

Using keywords on your site

keyword stuffing. This is not the way you do it.Don’t kill yourself to cram as many uses of the keyword into as many pages of your site as you can! This is called “keyword stuffing” and it’s not good for your visitors, of the human or search engine spider variety.

While we can’t really tell exactly how search engines operate, search engine gurus these days tell us there is no “ideal keyword density.” (When I started working in the industry we sought to use keywords at least 5 times in 300-word articles. Load. Of. Crap.)

Of course, using the keyword on the page does help the search engine know that the page is about that subject, but too much just looks unnatural. So, how should you use the keyword on the page?

  • In the name of your page or blog post: if the post is really about this subject, it belongs here! This typically displays it in a “header” tag, indicating to search engines that it’s an important topic on the page
  • In the URL: most blog platforms automatically generate this from the post name, so you’re set if you’ve done it above
  • In the text: some tests have shown that using a keyword more than 2-3 times in the text of an article really does nothing to improve your rankings. You can certainly use it more if it’s more natural, but don’t worry about it if it’s not.
  • Internal links: when it makes sense, you link to the page from other pages of your site, using that keyword at the “anchor text” of the link.
  • In the ALT tag of images: look at the HTML code for one of your images. Do you see an alt=””? Use the keyword there to help your image rank in image searches.

If the keyword is a major focus of your blog, you might put it in your tagline, and maybe in the META description element for your blog. (Self-hosted WordPress allows you to set these on a by-page basis, but most platforms only customize the main description tag)—this doesn’t change your rankings, but it might be displayed as the “snippet” below your site name in the search results (which can be more appealing to potential visitors than the random snippet of text they usually use).

Of course, using it even this minimum means that you usually only focus on one, maybe two, keywords per page. It’s honestly difficult to do well with more than that because the page itself can be less focused, and thus less appealing to search engines and visitors.

This is called “on-page SEO,” because it’s (mostly) things you do on the page itself to try to help it rank well. But the page itself isn’t the only way to influence search engines.

Links!

Links are really important in search engine optimization. In fact, they’re important in almost all aspects of the web. Links are often likened to Internet currency. You link, for the most part, to sites you like and links!trust and want to refer people to.

Search engines know this, and take advantage of this fact. They view links as a ‘vote’ for the content of that site. The actual linked text, the “anchor text” of the link, is another indicator of the page’s content, and helps the page to rank for that term.

So, if you really like a page’s content, try to think about how you write your links. “Click here” as the anchor text doesn’t tell a search engine what kind of vote you’re casting with that link. The “best writing guides” does, and will help out that page a lot more than a generic link.

You can also use this to your advantage when you have an opportunity to get your own links. Whether a friend has offered you a link, or you’re writing a guest post and get to write your own biography, when you get the chance to write your own link anchor text, make sure it counts!

Join in the conversation!

That’s a quick guide to SEO! What do you think? What terms make sense for you to target for SEO?

Want to learn more about SEO? An excellent, comprehensive beginner’s guide to SEO is available (totally free, totally online—you don’t even have to give up your email address) from the good folks at SEOmoz. (Sorry, no magic beans to make it so you can sell books with it.)

Photo credits: search engines—Danard Vincente;
keyword stuffing—Muhammad Rafizeldi; links—Will Lion

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Reading

Book review: Rearview Mirror by Stephanie Black

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I actually read this book a while ago when I received a free copy from the author, who happens to be one of the first people I met at my very first LDStorymakers conference a few years ago. Her second novel was up for a prestigious Whitney Award at the gala immediately following the conference, and to my chagrin, I had never heard of her. When she won the Whitney for Best Mystery/Suspense, I immediately tracked down her novels, and loved them. I’ve read everything of hers sense, and they’ve never disappointed. (They’ve never disappointed the Whitney Committee, either, since this novel received her fourth Mystery/Suspense Whitney in a row last month!)

Rearview Mirror (aff) is the story of Fiona Claridge, a New England college professor. Several years before the novel, a car accident killed her roommate. As the back cover copy states, “Fiona’s guilt and grief come flooding back after opening a gift-wrapped box left outside her office that contains car keys and a malicious note.”

Shaken, Fiona travels to her hometown to attend a funeral but is followed by vivid nightmares as well as her unknown enemy, who leaves another sinister gift on her doorstep. She assumes the stalker is Kimbery Bailey, a disgruntled former student, and enlists the help of fellow professor James Hampton. But when Fiona encounters an old flame at the funeral, it’s clear her student isn’t the only one with an eye for revenge. Soon, through the maneuverings of her unknown enemy, Fiona faces criminal charges as well as continuing threats. As past and present become horribly entangled, Fiona unravels the truth about a determined killer—and finds herself on the wrong end of a knife.

I actually read Rearview Mirror on Halloween—the perfect time to read a dark psychological suspense novel, right? Stephanie Black is the queen of the (LDS) suspense genre (though you certainly don’t have to be Mormon to enjoy her books!), and she did it again with this novel. I love her evocative writing and her plot twists and turns. She always keeps me guessing, and that’s hard to do!

When I’m reading her novels, I suspect everyone . . . fictional and not. Fortunately for me and my family, Stephanie’s novels are such fast reads that my paranoia subsides quickly 😉 . I actually undertook reading this novel the day before Nano—oy! But this was a perfect Halloween read!

I received a copy of this book from the author, but let’s face it. I’m her biggest fan. I’d pay full price time and again.

What good books have you read lately?

News & Contests

The Wall of Honor

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In case you haven’t noticed around these parts, I’m doing a lot of research on the CIA. My husband saw the word CIA in a recent headline and immediately tore out the article to give to me.

CIA memorial wall with 83 starsIn the lobby of the CIA’s Langley headquarters, there is one wall dedicated as a memorial to those officers who have been killed in the line of duty. Last month, the marble wall received its 103rd star commemorating a CIA officer. Along with the stars carved into the marble, the Book of Honor is displayed, listing the names of those killed.

Well, some of the names. Because CIA officers in the Clandestine Service work with such sensitive and classified materials, sometimes even their names become national secrets, and for years after their death, they are only commemorated in the book with a gold star. More than a third of the entries in the book were blank like this.

Recently, the CIA has declassified 15 names to add to the Book of Honor (leaving 26 blank now). Dating back to the Beirut Embassy bombing in 1983, some of these names were already publicly known, but this marks the first official recognition of these individuals’ sacrifices from the agency that employed them.

The CIA is in a dirty business, but I think it’s only fitting to acknowledge the ultimate sacrifices these individuals made in trying to protect our liberties in whatever way the agency can.

Photo credit: employee work product of CIA; public domain; via Wikipedia

Marketing

SEO: Yes or no?

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This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Marketing: SEO

Is search engine optimization right for your blog or writer’s website?

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the (totally legit, Google-approved) way to make sure your site ranks well in search engines when people look for terms that are relevant to your site. I cut my Internet marketing seo signteeth in the world of SEO, writing copy designed to draw in those rankings—but is it the best fit for a writer’s blog or website?

Let’s dig in—but first, some announcements:

Hey! May is over—tomorrow I’ll announce the winner of a 15-page edit from me. Missed out on commenting last month? No worries—I’ll give away another 15-page edit to one lucky commentator this month! Winner will be drawn at random; each comment from June 1 to June 30 counts as one entry; winner to be announced on the blog in July. So come join in the conversation!

We’re done discussing tracking your blog—but if you have any questions about getting more from Google Analytics, feel free to pop in and ask!

Have you joined Julie Coulter Bellon’s Jump Start WriMo yet? I’ve got a quick pep talk post on her blog today, o if you need a pick me up, read & join in!

What is SEO? (And what isn’t?)

Good “white hat” SEO is NOT using tricks, hidden text, redirects or cloaking to show search engines one thing and your website visitors another. Search engines like Google don’t like to be manipulated that way, and when they catch you, they’ll dock your rankings.

Good “white hat” SEO IS about making sure your site is designed to attract both search engines and, even more importantly, visitors. It’s also designing your site so as to not impede search engine “crawlers” that read it. Above all, it’s understanding what your visitors want and how they’re trying to find it, and making sure your site is there when they look for it.

Oh man, I love this stuff.

I like that idea. So how do I do SEO?

Ooh. This answer’s going to be a little circular, but the basic way to do what I just said is to understand what your visitors want and how they’re trying to find it, and then making it easier for them.

Helpful, I know. Let’s break it down.

Understanding what your visitors want & how they’re trying to find it

A very, very basic way to understand what your visitors are looking for is to flat-out ask them. You might or might not get a good response from a poll (and often, if open-ended questions aren’t an option with your software, you might be giving people the wrong options), but it could be worth a shot.

Short of asking your visitors what they want, you can look at how people are interacting with your site to try to understand what they’re looking for, and if they’re finding it. One of my favorite ways to look at this is to look at the analytics data, especially focusing on what search terms (“keywords”) people are using to find your site, and what pages or posts are the most popular.

However, this is only reflective of what your website is currently performing well (or maybe not so much) with. If we’re looking to expand on that, we’ll need to do a little research and a little legwork. But that’s for next week. First, we’re going to talk about whether all this work is worth it.

Yes, is all this SEO work worth it for a writer’s website or blog?

Good question; I’m so glad you asked.

The answer for what we’ve discussed so far is a resounding YES. How often do you go on a website looking for something specific and can’t find it? How often do you turn to Google for an answer instead? How often do you use Google? I’m guessing the answer is lots.

We want to minimize the frustration of not being able to find something on our site. We want to keep our visitors from wandering away empty-handed, sad and dejected. We want to be there (if we have the answer!) when someone turns to Google.

SEO is all about making it easier on your visitors

We want to make our visitors happy. And that should be the #1 rule of optimizing any website: Fulfill your visitors’ needs. SEO is really about making it easier for your potential visitors to find you, and for them to find what they’re looking for on your site.

In this market, SEO is probably NOT about driving direct sales. If someone is Googling the name of your book—or even your name—then they’re probably already in the mode to buy, and yes, you’ll want to capture and help those visitors (or hope they go right to Amazon or B&N or what have you). But frankly, you should be ranking well for those terms already.

SEO stands to help you improve your ranking for other terms, especially more generic ones—but when’s the last time you typed in “good sweet romance novel” at Google? Perhaps never? Do other people search for those terms, and if they do, are they likely to buy your book? Although it definitely can and does happen from time to time, odds aren’t great—but SEO can help to expose your name, your books and your writing to a greater audience.

Next week, we’ll dig into the hows of doing SEO, including “how can I make this work for me?”, especially in light of the last paragraph.

What do you think? Do you search for books? What are the top searches that find your site? What does that tell you?

Photo credits: Seo sign—Superboreen; SEO shirt & LOLkitteh—H Vasco

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News & Contests

JumpStartWriMo!

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Every once in a while, we need a jump start for our projects, and one of my favorite ways to do that is to get together with other writers. We see this a lot at NaNoWriMo, but who can wait for November? Plus not everyone wants to write 50,000 words in a month.

JumpStartWriMo, June 2012, photo by arbyreed from FlickrThis month, my friend Julie Coulter Bellon is hosting a “JumpStartWriMo” to jump start whatever you’re working on. You get to set your own goals—challenge yourself and get a move on your project no matter what phase you’re in.

In addition to working on my goals—finish revising this MS and get it ready to go, and take an online class—I’ll be helping Julie out with some pep talks and maybe some other incentives (hint hint). Head on over to her blog to grab the badge, sign up and subscribe to keep up with the awesomeness!