Selling Books With Social Networking: #6, Google

I'm posting a series on using social networking to promote books,

based on material from my new book,

499 Essential Publishing Tips for a Penny Apiece.

Google operates the Internet’s dominant search engine and the service responds to about one billion search requests daily in multiple languages from all over the world.

Its stated objective is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Google’s “bots” (computer robots) constantly scan websites so the site’s content is available to searchers.

While it is likely that your own website and blogs will be Googled, Google also allows you to post a “Profile” so you can “decide what the world sees when it searches for you.” This can help if you have a very limited presence on Google, or if you want to try to counteract bad online publicity. In the past, Google profiles were text-only, but now the feature has been merged with Google+ (more later) and allows photos as well. Here’s part of my profile:

(below) Like LinkedIn and Yahoo, Google hosts groups dealing with many subjects. Unfortunately, when I checked, they were filled with spam and there was little worth reading.

Search engines provide what I like to call "passive social networking." Google will make your information available without you doing any work.

Some people will find your website or blog by searching for terms that are within the site, and others may search for the name of your company (which may be your publishing company), a book or your personal name. If Google thinks your  blog or your company is important, it will provide links to interior pages—not just the home page.

My Silver Sands Books site gets treated just as well as book giant Simon & Schuster, which is part of CBS. Simon publishes about 2,000 book titles each year. In our best year, we did eight (and we’re cutting back)—but Google makes us look important.  

Here's how Google treats this blog:

One of my less important blogs has multiple links, but shows no details:

Google+ (pronounced “Google Plus”) is Google’s effort to build a social network to rival Facebook. You can set up a “profile” with basic information. “Circles” make it easy to share specific information, photos, videos, links, etc. There are “share boxes” on Google sites and +1 buttons elsewhere on the web which make it easy to share with your circles. You get to decide who sees what.

Mick Rooney’s profile is below. He’s an author, and also publishes the online Independent Publishing Magazine.