How Virtual Book Tours Can Get You and Your Book Into the #1 Ranking at Google

People ask me if my work is all fun and games and I tell them there’s an incredible amount of work that goes behind putting together a virtual book tour including fielding emails from the author and the blog hosts, making sure the stops show up on the scheduled dates, and a million other things too numerous to mention; however, 99% of the work I do for these authors can be called fun and games.

Let me explain.

It is my job to get my authors into the #1 spot in the search engines for their key search words. The reason this is so important is that long after their tour is over, someone is going to be using those search words and come upon one of my authors’ interviews, guest posts, podcasts, book spotlights or reviews. In order for all this to happen, it takes a highly trained eye to zero in on just the right set of words to bring those people to my clients’ door and it’s not just one key set of search words we use, but sometimes three, four or more.

It’s been researched that it’s a known fact that people stop their searches after the first 3 pages of the search engines. By that time, they have found what they wanted. To get my authors in that #1 spot on that first page is a game I play to see if my efforts are paying off and when I find out that it’s happened, it’s like the best thing in the world that could happen for me and my company.

Today, one of my authors’ sets of key search words came in at #1 in Google. But, it didn’t stop there. She came in at #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #8 and #9 and that’s just on the first page.

And this is just one author and her tour is only half way finished. I’ve known it to happen firsthand in 24 hours.

How did I do it?

Ah…closely guarded secret but since you asked, I can give you a hint of how you can do this, too.

It’s called the power of multitudes and having your interviews, guest posts, reviews, book spotlights, podcasts hosted on a blog that is well established in the search engines for your key search words.

It’s not rocket scientist, but if you book a blog that isn’t updated frequently and doesn’t have a full set of archives, it’s not going to happen. But, if the blogger understands SEO, it can happen and has happened.

I would like to quote from a blog I frequent occasionally called I’m Blogging That!:

Why smaller bloggers?

It’s over rated that if you comment on the popular blogger posts that you’ll get traffic. Indeed you will but you’ll be one comment in the sea of many. Networking and reading blogs from those less known will enable you to become part of the community from the beginning, build a networking relationship, and still will provide you with great information.

While it mainly concentrates on commenting, it brings up a good point about popular blogs over smaller blogs. Smaller blogs can be advantageous if all parties (the blogger, the author and the tour coordinator) all understand how important those key search words are. When they have figured out their “game plan,” those smaller bloggers can become just as important as the popular ones and in 9 out of 10 cases, they’re the ones who will help you establish high ranking in the search engines.

I know it sounds crazy, but it works. And it’s the only way it will work.

When you are concentrating online for your book sales, you have to play the game. If you understand the rules, you can have your book come in at #1, too. And it can happen in 24 hours.