As a UK Kindle author and a professional SEO copywriter, author blogs are vital for SEO on a website. Here’s how to use author blogs online in 2020.

 

In this Author Blogs article, you will find information on how:

• Author blogs can be incredibly helpful to develop your online footprint, meaning your author profile grows,
• Learning from the best can help you see how the better author bloggers compose pieces, allowing you to choose the ‘best bits’,
• Preparation is key with blogging as creating a content plan allows you to see what you’re covering, meaning you have a clear focus for blogs,
• Providing relevant and useful information is vital for visitors to your site, so they can learn and then retweet or share the blog on social media,
• Building links with other writers helps to forge connections with the writing community, so you are not alone in a hobby or profession that is very insular.

Read the rest of the Author Blogs article to see how you can best use a blog to improve your online profile.

Are Author Blogs Useful?

Are author blogs useful? If I were to be extremely blunt, I could answer this question in one word – extremely. However, that wouldn’t be of use to any writers reading this who may be considering a fiction author blog of their own.

In order for you to fully create and compile an effective list of creative writing blogs, you need to apply a number of principles that are central to writing for the internet. Online writing is not only for the reader to learn from, be entertained, or to spark debate. Blogs and online literature need to be written for machines and Google’s algorithms that scan your content for context and meaning.

When I started writing blogs for my previous WIX website, I simply thought it was a case of writing my thoughts onto a ‘page’ and firing them out onto social media. Of course, people didn’t read them, and they were largely a waste of time. Other than a handful of blogs, I know the vast majority weren’t well read.

The birth of the Type Cast Young Writers’ blogs, Tomorrow’s Worlds, and The Pied Pipers Of Instagram, were the highest read blogs. Again, I would like to express my thanks to the ladies who were part of my Type Cast blogs in 2019. I would love 10 more for 2020. Email me at scott@sgfiction.co.uk to enquire.

When a writer considers putting together a fiction author blog, it is imperative that they follow a number of specific steps. Here are a few outlined below and, if you live within driving distance of Belfast, I will be announcing a fiction author blog course for the New Year. Watch this space.

As for now, read these basic steps for planning and writing your own fiction author blog. Take these points on board and make 2020 the year where you start something new.

 

Step 1: Learn From The Best

As with many areas of literature and writing, in order to develop your own skills you should learn from the best.

Online, there are many creative writing blogs that offer excellent advice for those who have a desire to write a fiction author blog or a creative writing advice or tips blog for amateur or young writers. By researching the top contributors and bloggers in this field, you are able to look at the topics they cover and also the style in which they write.

Take notes on how they write, what they write, and how it is structured. This opportunity to understand why the best are where they are is vital. The process of writing for publication within a novel or poetry collection compared to that of preparing a text appropriately for Google and search engine rankings.

The fact is, those who have successful fiction author blogs or creative writing advice blogs are there because they have the perfect marriage of useful creative writing tips, user readability, and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Without one of those vital factors, a creative writing or fiction author blog will not be as successful as it could be online.

Step 2: It’s All In The Preparation

Let’s say you have gathered your notes and researched the best creative writing advice or fiction author blog out there. You are looking at a multitude of notes and pages of research. What do we do now?

Now, we prepare.

When I worked in education, I was always considered to be the most organised member of staff. I was someone who had strategies implemented by management across an entire school, like how I planned and the level of detail into which my plans were written.

As I move into a new career of being a professional SEO blog writer and copywriter, I have used the preparatory skills that I was praised for in teaching to ensure I plan and develop an online Search Engine Optimisation strategy for my fiction author blog and SG Fiction in general.

By putting together a spreadsheet of information about each creative writing advice or tips blog you research, you can:

• Weigh up the pros and cons,
• List the topics covered,
• List the popular topics (by number of people who read it),
• List the unpopular topics,
• Note structure,
• Record word count, and,
• Whether it was engaging and useful to you as a fiction author and reader.

All of the points above are viable when considering how to approach a fiction author blog of your own in 2020. However the last point is vital. Along with the perfect marriage, I spoke about earlier, the need for the content to be engaging and useful to those who read it is a point that you need to have as an overarching theme.

Everything you write and put online has to be reader-friendly, useful, and engaging. If not, visitors to your fiction author blog will leave without feeling fulfilled.

Step 3: Relevant & Useful Information

Every writer, poet, and screenwriter can feel as though they need a pick-me-up from time to time and will flood to Google or YouTube to find a nugget of inspiration from another creative person or writer.

It is clear that the online blogs have become an incredibly valuable market for monetisation as well as general information. As someone who writes these for a living, I can understand the value of having free information out there for people to access. On the other hand, if information is not well research or misleading, there is a massive danger that readers can me misinformed and be at risk, especially if they read a health-related blog.

As the creator of a fiction author blog, and an author who may well have published novels out in the world to buy, you need to ensure you promote yourself as a business person and consider the information that you publish on your blog carefully. You want to develop a relationship with your readership and help it to grow over time. The links and bridges that you may build will be torn down if you do not take care when compiling the blogs ahead of publication online.

 

Step 4: Build Links & Build Bridges

Out there in the online world, there are tens of thousands of authors and bloggers who you can strike up a relationship with as a writer. Yes, there are professional bloggers who will charge you for the privilege of getting a link or sharing your content. However, others, like myself, enjoy learning about young authors and their processes. I also love sharing their stories with the wider world.

This was why I started the Type Cast Young Writers’ blog. I know as an almost thirty-six-year-old Belfast author and novelist, how it felt as a young author and playwright trying to get recognition from those fellow writers around me.

With a fiction author blog, you are able to build links with fellow writers and build bridges to reach out to those when it comes to book reviews, creative writing advice, and general author chat. The online writing community is a place that can be incredibly rewarding to be a part of and your blog can be a vehicle to achieve just that.

 

The Final Fiction Author Blog Step: Book A Place On My Course in 2020

If you are an author within driving distance of Belfast and the Ormeau Road, I am looking to compile a course for writers who would like to develop a fiction author blog in 2020.

At the minute, the course will run for four weeks and will be a practical experience for those who attend. When I run a training event, the fees are £15 per week and this includes course notes as well as the 90 minute course. It also covers the important items like tea, coffee, and biscuits!

My fiction author blog course will include areas of digital marketing and writing for the internet to ensure that your blog is able to be found online. It will also include structural knowledge that is best practice for writing online in order to envelop aspects of SEO for Google.

 

Author Blogs: How Relevant Is A Fiction Author Blog in 2020?

The fiction author blog is something we can all use for a plethora of reasons. I could write thousands of words on the topic, but I doubt you would read them all, dear reader.

Every fiction author, poet, or playwright could utilise a blog to enhance their online profile. There is no doubt that my profile has increased greatly since I learned how to blog and what was required to get my blogs read by the right people.

As I said in my last point, I am compiling a fiction author blog course to be delivered off the Ormeau Road in Belfast. As I am a qualified teacher, author, and digital marketing trainer, I will deliver relevant, usable information to authors of all ages and abilities in 2020.

Once I get Anna’s Awakening finalised, I will announce the dates along with an Eventbrite link to book tickets. I already have a Creative Writing Course called ‘Start At The Beginning’ for those looking to develop their writing ability further in 2020. Those tickets are available now.

If you are interested in either of my events, please email me at scott@sgfiction.co.uk and I can let you in on some of the details ahead of the official ticket launch.

Make 2020 the year where you start your fiction author blog. Start now and see where the year ahead takes you.