Maybe you noticed, maybe you didn’t, but I’m not located in Bohemia anymore. And my name isn’t “Lex from Bohemia.” I mean, it is Lex. But I do have a last name. Postcards from Preppy Bohemia was a title I loved for my blog, but if someone was looking for my writing, they were not going to find it under my name.
I have one piece of digital marketing advice for anyone looking to start their own platform:
If you’re going to put content somewhere on the interwebs, put your name on it.
For our tech-free folks, the domain is the URL (web address) for your site. It’s how people find your blog/site/store/whatever. If your name isn’t on it, people aren’t going to find it.
One of the best blog posts I’ve read in the past year is from Chad R. Allen (who has a great blog for anybody interested in Christian publishing, by the way.) on how he as an editor interacts with platform right off the bat. He discusses how he will google a writer’s name when he encounters their book proposal.
When I Google a writer’s name, what I hope to see at the top of the search results is the author’s blog or website. This tells me the author has an established location online that Google’s search engine considers worthy of top billing.
See, part of the publishing game is marketing. A lot of getting a book published is letting people know it’s out there. If you don’t have a platform, editors are more likely to move on because they are not willing to put in effort if you have not put in the effort.
The problem is, if you’re name isn’t on the platform you’ve built, how are editors or even readers going to find your work?
So I figured it was time I started practicing what I was preaching.
Welcome to AlexisDeWeese.com! I may not have top billing on google yet, but with some SEO work, we’ll get there. I’m excited to have the new site up and rolling. Pardon the dust as new features emerge.
Don’t forget to leave a comment and share with your friends!
