LizzieChantree

SEO tips for your website.

/ lizziechantree / 16 Comments

Lizzie Chantree SEO Tips.jpg

Welcome to my blog. Today I thought I’d share 3 quick ideas about how you can improve the SEO on your website or blog. SEO is important as in ensures the visibility of your website and helps your content discoverability by search engines. This means that if someone puts a word in the search engine to find a topic, that your page is higher on the list than other peoples pages.

1.  You need SEO to provide clear navigation for the search engines to find your site. Make your articles relevant to your page and don’t veer too far off of subject. Too many terms on one site become confusing and don’t rank your site.

2 .  Write content that will keep visitors on your page and use internal links to interest them enough to stay on your site for longer. If they enjoy one article, they may like another you have written.

3.  Don’t load too many photos onto one page or have too much content. If a page is slow to load, people will rapidly click off of the page and find another website with quick loading times. Always name photos what they are and not pic 1,2,3,5, or 5! The picture for this article is called Lizzie Chantree SEO tips.

 

View Lizzie’s Books Here: Click link.

SaveSave

Book launch tips.

/ lizziechantree / 10 Comments

Lizzie Chantree book quote 7.jpg

Happy new week everyone! Today’s Monday Marketing is about book launches. I’m currently working on my own new book launch for Ninja School Mum and thought i’d share some of the tips i’d learnt with you.

1.  Set up a blog tour team three months before your launch date. This is a great way to find people who want to support your launch and keeps them updated on the progress of your plans.

2.  Set up a document with all of the information you will need to send to the launch team. This should include blog posts, Q&A’s, promo information, book cover art, book blurb, author photo etc. Make the document easily accessible, so that the tour hosts can grab the details they need, with minimal fuss or extra work.

3.  Create a page on your blog about the blogs/websites of your tour hosts. Make a page for them on your website and add their site links. This is a great way to say thank you and to let others know about their blogs/websites.

 

If you would like to check out or join my tour team, the link is here:

Ninja School Mum Tour Team.

 

Planning a book launch.

/ lizziechantree / 9 Comments

Lizzie Chantree blog 7

I have begun planning my book launch, which is in Jan next year. It seems so far away, but it will be here before I realise, probably. I’m trying to learn what to do, as i’ve never held a virtual launch before.

So far, I have set up a launch group for anyone who would like to join in with the launch and have designed a tour page, which I have put on this blog for bloggers to sign up to join my tour. It’s been a really interesting to try and find out the best way to approach this. After I had set my launch group up, I read it’s best to set it up 3 months before at the earliest …oops! I did mine a little before that. I have been posting all the tips about book launches I have learnt there to help other authors. I’ve also decided to do shout outs and posts about the bloggers who are supporting my tour across social media by way of a big thank you for their hard work.

If any of you would like to join my tour, or the Facebook tour group, here are the links:

Facebook Tour for Ninja School Mum.

Tour sign up page for Ninja School Mum.

My Twitter page for shout outs for my tour hosts. 

First Draft. #AmWriting

/ lizziechantree / 24 Comments

Lizzie Chantree blog 6

I’m currently working on the first draft of my new novel, which is about two women who are both completely misunderstood by their families. It’s great fun to write, but I as I have now signed a publishing deal, which could possibly include a sequel to the book they are publishing, I need to make my workflow easier.

I’m not very good at writing lists, as I often forget where they are. This is what should be on my list during the time my publisher is editing my upcoming novel.

Marketing schedule for new book.

Complete 20,000 words for current manuscript.

Edit/proof current work.

Cover design ideas.

Book blurb.

Keep up with social media commitments, including hosting #CreativeBizHour on Twitter.

Start sequel for soon to be published book.

Write 2 blog posts a week.

Newsletters.

Obviously this includes family commitments and household chores. But by this time I’m scared of my list and have hidden it somewhere I will never look again. A good idea today seemed to be under the dog’s bed!

As with most jobs, we all have to multi-task and the kitchen timer on my writing desk does beep and tell me to get on with it, but as a bit of a dreamer (which helps with my job), it means better planning needs to creep into my day and the usual ‘make it up as I go along’ vibe might have to take a back seat for a while.

I’ll let you know how I get on:)

Pepper

 

Your vibe.

/ lizziechantree / 16 Comments

Your vibe attracts your tribe. This made me smile. I think my tribe would be full of slightly zany creatives, or people who enjoy creativity and unusual books!

Lizzie Chantree blog 2

The vibe you give off and the person that you are, attracts like minded people. You can often tell what a person is like by those around them. Surround yourself with people who will lift you up and enjoy your individuality. Most of my family and friends think I’m a bit eccentric, but they encourage me anyway. Thank goodness for that!

#BeYou 

Monday Marketing. #3QuickTips

/ lizziechantree / 8 Comments

This week I’m going to tell you about visibility and loading times for a WordPress website. Most of my Monday Marketing tips are ones I’ve discovered on my journey as an author, but I have been in the retail and wholesale business for over 20 years and studied design, marketing and advertising at college and university, so the #3QuickTips may be helpful to other businesses too.

Lizzie Chantree blog. WordPress

 

1.  Some wordpress themes contain code that slows them down. Some of the content you add can also slow the site down. By visiting a site called GTMetrix.com and typing in your site address, you will be shown a report on how well your site is loading for users.  Ideally you want an A or B rating.

2.  You will be shown Page speed, YSlow, Timeline and History tabs. Click on these to be shown elements of your site and how they preform. Here you can check if the theme of your site is slowing it down. If the theme is causing problems, then you might want to think about changing the theme.

3. Creating fresh content for your blog or website is a great way to make it load quicker. If text is copied from the internet, it can have hidden links and code inside from the originator which shows search engines that it’s not new and should be ignored.

 

Writing news!

/ lizziechantree / 26 Comments

I have some great news to share with you all. I have just signed my first book contract! I am thrilled to join the team at Crooked Cat Publishers and can’t wait to see my latest book, Ninja School Mum, in print in early 2018.

newspaper-Lizzie Chantree

I am very lucky to have been offered other book contracts over the years, from wonderful publishers, but this is the right one for me. As soon as I have more news about the exact date of my new book release, I will let you all know. Thank you for your continuing support of my writing journey and for popping by, as it’s very much appreciated. Writing can be an isolating process, but with all of the fabulous authors and readers I have met since I wrote my first book, Babe Driven, it feels like there is such a wealth of support out there. #Total #Stars 

Making the most of Pinterest.

/ lizziechantree / 27 Comments

Pinterest can be a great tool for authors. Here are 3 tips for making the most of your Pinterest page as a writer.

Pinterest. Lizzie Chantree

1.  Create new boards with #keywords in the title. This makes them easier for others to discover and helps boost your rankings. You can also use keywords in your pin descriptions. For example, the pin above would be in Books by author Lizzie Chantree, with the descriptive keywords, BeachReads, Babe Driven, Love’s Child, Finding Gina.

2.  Post original content. Write your own content, or search the web for interesting quotes, photos, or book writing related news.

3.  Add a Pinterest widget to your blog or website. This means that every time you write an article, the widget will take the most interesting pieces and form pins for you to easily add to your Pinterest page.

 

Monday marketing. #3QuickTips

/ lizziechantree / 21 Comments

Today’s marketing tips are about finding new categories to place your books in if the current ones aren’t working for you.

Lizzie Chantree blog 3

1.   Go to Amazon.com and type Kindle store into the search box.

Click on the Kindle Ebook tab under the search bar.

Click on the genre for your book (for example Romance) and look at the sub categories.

Click on a sub genre for your book (for example Contemporary).

Underneath are sections to refine by. If you choose one from the top and one from the bottom section, or two from a section, it will tell you along the top how many books are in this category. The lower the number, the less books there are in that category to compete with. For example in Contemporary Romance, with sub categories Wealthy and Beaches, there are 898 other books. If your chosen category for your book was Contemporary Romance, you could use the keywords, Wealthy and Beaches for a romantic book about an exotic wedding on a beach with gorgeous men. Alternatively, for the same book, Wealthy and Wedding as keywords would result in 1,450 competing titles.

Try lots of combinations and see which are the best selection of keywords for your work.

If you chose Cowboys and Amnesia in this genre, you would only have 38 competing titles! Remember you need a strong main category or no one will find you anyway, unless you are well promoted or well known. Don’t pick random categories, as they must fit within the context of your book.

2.  Pick your two book categories very carefully, but if they don’t work, change them!

3.  You have up to seven optional extra keywords. These keywords can be more than one word. For a book about Book marketing, you could use: Books on marketing, Marketing & Promotion, Making more sales, PR & sales, How to sell books, Books on marketing, Publishing success. These would be one keyword each. Check out possible combinations first and see how many competing titles there are. 

I’ve just changed all of the categories for my own books, so I’ll let you know how I get on in the coming months.

 

 

Guest post by E. Rachel Hardcastle.

/ lizziechantree / 1 Comment

I have started inviting guest posts to my blog and it’s my pleasure to introduce you to author E. Rachel Hardcastle. Here she shares details of her latest work and I hope that if you live nearby, that you manage to visit her book signing event to find out more about her writing.

MEET THE AUTHOR!(1)

Book Signing Event with Bradford Author E. Rachael Hardcastle.

Date – July 1st 2017

Time – 1100-1430 hours

Location – Wrose Library, Wrose Road, Shipley, West Yorkshire, UK, BD181HX

 

In November 2016, local Bradford author E. Rachael Hardcastle visited Low Ash Primary School in Wrose, Shipley to deliver a creative writing workshop to their Year 6 pupils. At no charge to the school, E. Rachael Hardcastle ran several hours of idea-generating activities tailored to their topic of study, which resulted in the children writing short stories of their own.

Later that month having received and compiled the children’s finished work, two independently published books titled ‘Children of War’ were published and delivered for the school’s library, creating over 50 young authors in less than eight weeks.

At the end of January 2017, E. Rachael Hardcastle returned to the school with further copies of ‘Children Of War’ for the children to take home. It wasn’t long before their story was picked up by a local television station, Made In Leeds, who interviewed E. Rachael Hardcastle and the children on The Lowdown Leeds show in February 2017.

To meet her local readers and aspiring writers, E. Rachael Hardcastle recently contacted Wrose Library, Wrose, Shipley to arrange a book signing event. She hopes to encourage the community to visit the library more often and to meet the hard-working volunteers there.

The event will take place on July 1st 2017 between 1100-1430 hours to celebrate both Wrose Carnival and Bradford Literary Festival. E. Rachael Hardcastle will be taking along copies of her brand new high fantasy release ‘Finding Pandora’ and her post-apocalyptic novel ‘Aeon Infinitum: Run For Your Life’ to personalise and sign for her guests.

Entry to this events will be free of charge. For more information about E. Rachael Hardcastle, her books and her workshops, please visit www.erachaelhardcastle.com.

Social Media:

www.facebook.com/ERHInspired

www.twitter.com/ERHardcastle

Library Website:

www.wroseparishcouncil.gov.uk/wrose-library.html