So, after a lot of rumours and behind the scenes testing, Google has come out and made it official – the speed of your website is now one of the (over 200) factors taken into account when ranking your site in the search results.

Cue widespread panic and a lot of shark-like activity on the part of shadier SEO companies – but reading the details, both on google’s official webmaster blog and a reflection by Matt Cutts should put your average site owner’s nerves at ease. Speed is a factor, but it’s a very,very small factor (less than 1% of search results are affected). In fact, this new development has already been rolled out, without any widespread outcry across the net about sites falling down dramatically in the serps (search engine results pages).

So don’t panic, but do take note. Now is as good a time as any to check up how your site is actually doing speed-wise, and to consider making changes to improve the performance. It will certainly be a plus for your visitors, and may have the added bonus now of helping you gain an advantage on your competitors online – because all things being equal (which, given the amount of factors involved in ranking, is never the case – but you get the point), if the only difference between your sites is speed, the faster one will now be ranked higher.

How to go about checking the speed of your site:

There are plenty of free tools out there to benchmark the speed of your site. A good starting point is  Google webmaster tools itself, which now includes a section (under google labs / site performance), which will give you a rough idea of how fast your site is, and make recommendations on how to increase the speed.

If you’re using firefox you can download a page  speed checking add-on tool.

You can get some tips on speeding up performance here (at the yahoo developers network), or here (at Nettuts+)

But above all else, remember, it’s the content on your site that is the #1 factor. Making sure that it’s delivered in a quick and attractive manner makes sense, but if you’re content is crap it doesn’t matter how fast it loads.

There’s a interesting, though flawed, marketing campaign going on for Philip Pullman’s latest book, The Good Man Jesus, The Scoundrel Christ. It takes full advantage of social networking and technology to promote the book, and is worth looking at a little more in detail for other novelists promoting their books online – with or without the help of an established publishing house.

How I stumbled upon the book was, like many others, through two great videos up on youtube, where Pullman talks about the book. The first video sees Pullman give an intelligent and strong response to a question posed during a public reading.  In turn this was tweeted and re-tweeted (look at the sharing stats at bit.ly alone http://bit.ly/info/c8wUyZ) .

This is a great lesson for authors – who often, reasonably enough are somewhat reticent about ‘promoting’ their work. In this case Pullman is saying something interesting, and his marketing team have taken full advantage of technology to let people know about it. It’s a far-cry from a simple ‘buy this book’ plea. It’s also something that you don’t need a publisher or marketing team to do, though you do need to put in effort and research.

The second video is a straight-forward promotional one, where Pullman talks about the enhanced version of the book (the book is being sold as an app for the i-phone, where you get an ebook, audiobook and video content all wrapped up together – a format that Canongate have already experimented with, ahead of the pack,  when publishing Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Monroe). This video is a straight promotional tool, but because it takes an interesting angle it’s more likely to be shared (and sharing is the name of the game if you’re going to put material up on youtube).

Now the technique of doing a simple but engaging video, putting it up on youtube, and getting people to share it is not beyond the means of a small self-publishing author either. The essential thing is to have something interesting to say, and to have already built up a reasonable following on the various social networks. Then you’re going to need to be inventive when tweeting, but hey – if you’re a writer that shouldn’t be so hard. So there’s a lot to learn from the Pullman campaign.

Where the campaign falls down though, is on the seo front. The video does have a screen at the end linking to the book’s dedicated site (http://www.thegoodmanjesusandthescoundrelchrist.co.uk), but do a search for ‘the good man jesus and the scoundrel christ’ and you’ll get press coverage and links to a wide variety of sites but not the official site (i’ve gone four pages in without finding it), which is a shame because the site is a very nice one indeed. One problem it has is that its front page is a fancy flash screen which does no favours whatsoever for search engine indexing on what should be the most important page on the site. Add to this the fact that if you go to Pullman’s official site you have to delve deep before you get a mention of the new book – go to the links page and there’s no link to the dedicated site etc.

Another questionable choice is the youtube route in this case. If you’re going to set up a dedicated site for a book, and you know you already have a following, why wouldn’t you set up a dedicated video player (with the option for people to embed on their own sites) with seo’d video, so that when your must-be-talked-about content starts ranking you pull people not into a youtube page (where you can’t buy the book directly), but directly to your own site where you can offer your visitors various calls to action (and monitor more accurately the traffic and stats).

None of which is to take away from the marketing of Pullman’s book – the people at Canongate are doing a great job, and the audience that Pullman already has means that these seo issues will probably have little impact on their overall sales. If you’re a self-publishing or unknown author though they could have a huge impact.

So, to sum up – take the lead from this campaign, in terms of creating interesting and shareable content to promote your work.  Use as many avenues as possible to distribute that content, but never lose site of the end-goal which, for you, will be to grab people’s attention and pull them into your site, where you have control and can benefit directly from your hard work.

We’ve already pointed out one horrendous experience had by a self-publishing author (who paid his publisher over ten-times the going rate to register his preferred domain name, and then found that they had actually registered it to themselves). Browsing about we’ve come across another mistake that authors/novelists using self-publishing companies can make.

They presume that, because their book is published to a high standard, their self-publishing company is the best place to go to when setting up a website for their book.

Any decent self-publishing company has various extra services available for their authors, ranging from business cards through to marketing, and inevitably web design. But are they taking advantage of their client’s inexperience to offer them an over-priced deal?

Let’s take a look at one of the bigger self-publishing site’s web design offer for their authors. They offer 3pages, graphic design, 2 rounds of revision, and html javascript for a whopping $600 . If you want .php or .asp you need to pay an extra $100.

That’s $600 or $700 dollars for a small static website, and one in which the design will probably feature your novel’s dust-jacket heavily, which is something you’ve already paid for elsewhere.

If you want to market your book using a website, you’re going to need a number of things that aren’t included above:

The ability to add content. Sites that regularly add/update material are – for obvious reasons – more attractive to both search engines and visitors. Having three pages online might work o.k if you’re already world famous, but if you’re a struggling author you’ll need to use your website as a tool to gain an audience, and three static pages is not going to do you any favours. You’ll get as much attention that way as you would leaving a single copy of your novel on the upper deck of the bus home – i.e not much.

The ability to integrate with social networks: The above package doesn’t stop you from setting up social networking accounts, but it doesn’t include them or integrate them with your eventual site. Trying to market your book online without using facebook, twitter, myspace etc is like entering the ring with your hands-tied.

Search Engine Optimisation: The description of the services on offer focusses heavily on the visual, but there’s no mention of working with you to ensure that your site is optimised for search engines. The deal offers you a pretty web-site, that will most likely end up hidden under a bushel as no-one will find it. Search Engine Optimisation should be an equally important part of any web design

And that’s all just for starters.

The Bodu Writers standard package offers the following:

• Customised installation of wordpress
  We’ll set up the super-easy-to-use free software WordPress, but customise it to your needs to make it more of a content management system rather than the simple blogging tool it’s usually used for. You’ll be able to add pages and blog posts whenever you like, and as your website grows so will the possibility of reaching out to a new audience for your book.
• Graphic Design
  As a self-published author you’ve already got the main design element paid for – the book cover. We’ll design a site template that shows off your cover to its full advantage. We do a number of sample site designs, getting feedback from the client on each one in order to work out what their tastes are. Based on that feedback we do the final design.
• Search Engine Optimisation
  We know that a happy client is one who can see his/her website performing well in the search engines, and one which is getting visited. With that in mind, we’ll ensure that the design follows the best practice guidelines issued by the major search engines. We’ll also explain to you what you need to do to improve your site’s visibility – remember, the code and structure of any site is important in s.e.o but a huge part of it is also the content created by the website owner (you).
• Social Networking Sites
  We’ll set you up on Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace, with profiles customised to compliment your main site. We’ll also give you our own tips and guidelines on how to use these social networks to good effect. [We can also set you up on other social networks of your choosing, though this is subject to additional cost to be negotiated.]
• Tech Support for a year
  We design your site for you to be able to manage it on your own, but we won’t leave you stranded. We realise it can take a bit of time, particularly if you’re not technically minded, to get up and running and feel comfortable with your site. We offer free tech support for one year as part of the package.

And the cost? Our websites for authors costs just €200

That’s a whole lot more for a whole lot less!

What about hosting/domain name etc?
These aren’t included in the price, for the simple reason that they are annual recurring costs. We can advise you on where to go, how to register a domain, or set up a hosting account – but the annual cost remains for you to pay. It’s worth pointing out that the self-publishing example provided above has the same conditions regarding hosting and domain registration – so the difference in price between our package and theirs remains the same.

How long does it take to get set up?
Typically we can get you up and running within a week – that includes time to do different draft designs, to consult with you to choose the design which suits you best, and to ensure the site is set up correctly. We’ll then help you over a week or two to get used to the site structure and ensure that you’re comfortable updating it.

Interested? Get in touch with us for a no-obligation discussion about how we can meet your website needs as an author

We’ve started work on a site for a self-publishing author recently, who already had a basic site setup at one of the more prominent free website networks for authors. He has his own domain name, and – frustrated at how poorly his site has worked thus far, in terms of search engines in particular – decided to take the plunge and set up a more robust and sophisticated site to promote his book.

First problem to encounter – transferring his domain name to a new server. He registered the domain name through this self-same prominent network, paying a whopping $99! Had he registered the name himself, using any accredited domain registration service he would have paid under $10 for the same thing.

But that’s not all. On closer inspection, the network have registered his domain using their company as the official registrant – making them, not him, the legal owners! It’s an old and dirty trick. It remains to be seen whether they’ll transfer the domain name back to him without a fee. In this case, if he kicks up enough fuss, there shouldn’t be a problem, but imagine that his book had already taken off and his name was getting well known. In that case the network would have every possibility of holding onto the name, and exploiting it for their own purpose. It’s a recipe for a marketing disaster and perhaps costly legal battle.

If you’re an author, and you’re setting up a website, get informed before you sign up for things like domain registration, or website design. Don’t think that because the company you’ve chosen to print and package your novel have done a good job in that field that it automatically makes them the people to trust with your online presence.

Our unfortunate author did, and he ended up

Paying over ten times the market value for his domain
And effectively handed over his online presence at the same time

So, how to avoid it? Ask questions. Shop around. There are plenty of sites that give free advice. We, at Bodu Web, for example are happy to explain technical issues like domain registration, free of charge and with no obligations.