With hundreds and thousands of books being published each year, publishers can make their books far easier to find with just a few minor changes to the keywords in the title or description. They no longer have to be concerned about their books getting lost in a sea of information on the web.  Finding out which keywords people are searching for involves studying metadata. Metadata is the granular data that helps your book become more searchable. With enhanced metadata, books become more real, more discoverable, and easier for readers to explore, connect with, and share.

Discoverability and sales of a book are enhanced when the product is optimized with correct and relevant keywords. When the book’s metadata information is properly optimized with relevant keywords, the book description is more likely to show up in the search engine result page. Without good data, readers won’t discover your books online. It allows the book to be presented on search engines, bloggers, online book communities, media, and readers of all kinds.

Marketing is essential for the success of a book, but marketing and promotion can be very inefficient. Publishing houses are using book publishing automation to move towards automated marketing strategies and increase their sales and marketing analytics for superior ROI. The optimization process starts with understanding overall market forces.

Authors regularly build websites, lavish hours each week cultivating their Facebook fan groups, spend their hard-earned dollars on ads struggling to figure out that elusive perfect marketing strategy that would boost the sales numbers. Search engines rank pages around search terms and match the terms people key into the search box with what they know about billions of pages on the web.

Discoverable means everything in today’s digital world. It is more important than ever to have a presence online, as consumers are looking for instant results. For book and eBook publishers, the value of being easily found by searching online goes well beyond their own websites. Publishers can influence these results by optimizing book metadata.

Marketers recommend that book reviews will always give your work a boost and essential to gain audience attention. Yet another way to improvise discoverability is by having a website or a social media page. Enhancing searchability and discoverability with the use of keywords increases purchases from the primary targeted audience.

Earlier, it used to be a press release or catalogue information that was the foundation of a publisher’s book marketing plan.  Now it’s the metadata: the title information that publishers send into the world about their books. Every publisher has this rich content and information, but relatively few include it in their data feeds. Publishing houses and authors who adopt marketing automation strategies will have much higher chances of seeing great success.  Improving metadata alone will not magically increase book sales tenfold, it should be considered as a vital part of your book promotion strategies.

Sources:

• http://straussconsultants.com/the-power-of-keywords-how-to-make-your-book-discoverable-on-amazon-with-keywords/  
• https://www.writing.ie/resources/make-your-book-more-discoverable-on-amazon-with-keywords/
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/power-keywords-how-make-your-book-discoverable-amazon-karen-strauss
• https://ebooksuccess4free.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/7-tips-for-amazon-keywords-and-best-selling-books/
• Image Credit: Freepik/Pexels