Building Your Author Platform: Beyond the Blog - How to Leverage Book Schema for Discoverability
Building Your Author Platform: Beyond the Blog - How to Leverage Book Schema for Discoverability
Part two of four: Security, backups, and schemas, oh my!
Last week, we explored the why and how of blogging for indie authors. This week, we delve into the not-so-glamorous but oh-so-important world of setting up the basic nuts and bolts of your blog including security, backups, and Schemas.
Let’s Start with My Personal Bias. I’m a WordPress Fan Girl.
It’s 2001. The World Wide Web is a lawless place, full of bad HTML, rogue flashing popups, visitor counters, and an endless loop of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” automatically playing when you land on any travel agent website. Which was probably built using Microsoft FrontPage.
To this day, I have no idea why a lot of travel agencies thought the theme from Titanic was a good idea when they were trying to sell cruises. #StillMysterious
Welcome to my personal hellscape as a webslinger.
I started a technology and training consultancy for the travel industry in 1999, mostly building websites for travel agencies around the world. I saw a lot of bad websites. And, to be fair, I also built a few.
I got better, and the business grew fast because everyone needed a website.
In 2001, in the span of two months, I landed a contract with two large consortiums to build 5000+ websites for their member agencies.
Yikes.
I had a team of six at that point.
We could do it one by one, or… (and I think you know where I’m going with this…)
I could automate it.
After 237 Code-Red Mountain Dews, and zero sleep, I landed on a solution using this really new database-based blogging software called WordPress, which was a fork off a software called b2/Cafeblog and we were off to the races.
WordPress wouldn’t formalize as a company until 2003, but we were able to create templates, starter content, and easy ways that agencies could keep their sites updated with specials and personalized content.
I’ll flex a little: I’ve built well over 10,000 WordPress websites at this point. Which is really to say, I’ve been around a while, and there’s reasons why I haven’t changed horses mid-race.
There’s nothing that comes close to having the stability and development team if you have a self-hosted WordPress site. It’s not subject to the whims of rogue owners, IPOs, or weird market conditions you don’t have any control over.
You own your content, and it’s open source, meaning it’s not going away. Even if Elon Musk decides he wants to buy it.
Does a WordPress site mean a little more technical work on your part? Yes. Specifically because you have to pay attention to security and backups.
But again, you can automate a lot of that.
Pro Tip: Don’t rely on website hosts for security and backups. Just trust me on this one. A lot of sales pages will tell you they have backups covered. They don’t. Not the way you need them if you need one. Chances are they’ll keep them in glacial storage that will take 48 hours to get to, and if your site is down no one needs a 48-hours long freakout.
So, if you’re on the fence about WordPress, read on. If you’ve been burned by WordPress and moved somewhere else, read on and some of this might translate to your situation, too. I don’t hate Wix, or Squarespace, or Ghost, or anything else. I’ve just clocked my 10,000+ hours on WordPress and we’re not breaking up anytime soon.
Here are my very best tried-and-tested recommendations for WordPress security and backups.
Security: Because Hackers Don't Deserve Your Blood, Sweat, and Pixels
Hackers and malicious bots are lurking around every corner, just waiting to pounce on a vulnerable website. Don’t let yours be one of them. I might have copied that from an old Facebook ads campaign I ran a while back—but I stand by it.
Wordfence: Your Digital Bodyguard
Think of the Wordfence plugin as a guard dog with a firewall, malware scanner, and live traffic monitoring system all rolled into one. Once you have it installed, do these quick things so you can sleep better at night:
From the “ALL OPTIONS” menu, tick the boxes for Hide WordPress version and Disable Code Execution for Uploads Directory. This takes down the flashing neon sign broadcasting you’re open for hacking business.
Enable Brute Force Protection with these minimum settings. You can go lower if you wish, but there shouldn’t be anyone logging into your site that can’t get their password after three tries. Even I’ve been able to get my password after a night of drinking gin and lemonade in Scotland with only two attempts.
This will lock out people trying to hack into your site.
Go to “LOGIN SECURITY” and enable two-factor authentication for anyone with admin access. Guard your credentials as you would your bank details. Especially if you upload any of your intellectual property to your site.
Backups: A Little Digital Melatonin to Help You Sleep
Bad things happen. Hackers. Hiccups. Mercury Retrograde. I mean, that’s just a typical week in any month. I don’t like thinking about the 372,491 ways I would need to bring my website back online. So I don’t. And you shouldn’t either.
UpdraftPlus: Your Backup Buddy
I use Updraft for one simple reason. When I had a catastrophic incident, I had several sites that were backed up (I thought) by a reputable host which turned out weren’t. I also had a few sites that used a different plugin that wanted me to use quantum physics and some kind of dark magic ritual to get the sites back from the dead. Normally I’m not opposed to that, but time was of the essence.
I also had sites backed up with Updraft and those little suckers were back up in about 45 minutes—and they were MASSIVE e-commerce sites. Lesson learned. With the pro version you can save them to Dropbox or Google Drive, which is an easy button of a setup, although I prefer to save them to Amazon S3 Storage since it’s cheaper and a little more secure.
Pro Tip: Get the paid version of the plugin and setup your site to backup the database every night and the files every week. Keep enough copies of them to go back a couple weeks in case you need to. I keep 21 days of database copies and 4 weeks of files.
One More WordPress Superpower: Machine Readable Content
Last week I mentioned RSS Feeds, which let you syndicate or share your content easily. I’ll delve into that more next time, but let’s talk about what else WordPress has up its sleeve.
Schemas: tiny translators that help search engines understand your content better.
Every post on your website has some underlying data that tells the other machines what the post is about. Some of that comes from meta data: keywords, categories, authors, dates, etc.
And some from Schemas, which on WordPress websites act like translator tools for search engines. They provide a standardized way to communicate the specific type of content you have on your site. And WordPress “pings” the search engines with the content, so you don’t have to wait for the engines to crawl—it’s like using the back door to get your content indexed ASAP.
Why do you care? Imagine you craft a post about your new fantasy novel. Without modifying the default schema, a search engine might just see it as a generic blog entry or an article. But with Book Schema applied, you can tell the search engine it's a book, including details like title, genre, and author.
Book Schema is a superpower waiting to be unleashed. It allows you to provide search engines with clear, concise information about your book, making it stand out on the library shelves (aka search results) and attracting more readers.
Think of it this way: with Book Schema, your book gets a fancy library card with all the details – title, author, genre, ISBN number, and even reviews. This makes it easier for search engines to understand what your book is about and who it's for, leading to:
Rich Snippets that Shine: Book schema can help search engines display rich snippets in search results like the ones above. These snippets might include your book cover, ratings, and even purchase or library lending options, making your book a beacon of brilliance compared to plain text entries.
🛑 HEY. READ THIS:
If you sell direct, these rich snippets brings them to your site to purchase.SEO Supercharge: By using Book Schema, you're essentially speaking the search engine's language. This can improve your book's visibility and ranking in search results, leading to more organic traffic and potential readers.
If you want a more in-depth look at how schemas work, I have a tutorial on IndieAuthorTraining.com, because of course I do.
Here’s a short version of how you can use my favorite tool for Schemas, RankMath:
Once you’ve installed RankMath and written a post, click the RankMath tab, then click on Schemas.
Then you can use the Schema Generator to choose “BOOK” and fill in the details.
Questions about schemas? Drop me a note! But also:
Quick Reminder, There’s Bonuses for Subscribers:
As a thank you for upgrading your subscription you'll receive exclusive content this week:
Technical Audit: Get a personalized audit of your website or blog to ensure it's optimized for search engines and ready to showcase your work.
Step-by-Step Setup Videos: Conquer your tech fears with step-by-step video tutorials on setting up RankMath, Wordfence, and UpdraftPlus. Consider it your personal tech assistant in video form!
Whew. I know that’s a lot. And honestly, that’s the bare minimum of the technical part of your blog. Next time we’ll talk about how to syndicate your content everywhere so you can claw back that time you’re investing in setting everything up.
Working on a cooler sign off,
Chelle
Where I’ll Be in 2024:
Self Publishing Show, London, June 25 & 26, 2024
FinnConn - Finland, July 7-9, 2024
NINC - St. Pete’s Beach, Florida September 18-21, 2024
Orlando Reads Books - Orlando, Florida October 10-12, 2024
Author Nation - Las Vegas, November 11-15, 2024