In an age where more and more people are writing books, you can't just sit back and hope that yours will sell on its own. So how do you drive traffic to the right people and get your book into the hands of readers?
The answer is analytics—tools that help you measure what's working and what isn't so you can make educated decisions and make changes to maximize your book sales and visibility. In this post, we'll talk about some of the best analytic tools for authors and why they matter.
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Why use analytics tools?
When you're putting your book on Amazon, how you set up your book's metadata makes a huge difference in organic traffic. This is called SEO or Search Engine Optimization and just as it's important for websites, optimization is important for books listed in online retail stores.
Amazon Ranking
This is a ranking that Amazon uses to determine the popularity of an author's books. It's calculated using the number of sales and reviews a book has had over a period of time. The best way to improve your Amazon author rank is by getting more sales and positive reviews on your existing titles--and this can be done by promoting them with your marketing plan and optimizing your product listing.
So without further ado, these analytics tools for authors will help you make well-researched decisions about your keywords, categories, and other metadata. This combined with your marketing efforts will improve your author ranking, help you earn Amazon banners, and increase your visibility, and by extension, your sales.
Amazon SEO Tools for Authors
Publisher Rocket is an analytics tool for authors created by an author!
It tracks your book's performance on the Amazon platform, including how your book is ranked Amazon, average monthly sales, competition, and more. It also allows you to research your competition by looking at their books' page rank as well as their reviews and star ratings.
It's a one-time payment of $97 but there are rumors that it will be a subscription soon. And yes, you read that right - one payment and the program is yours forever! That's just one of many aspects that sets Publisher Rocket apart from other tools for authors. While some people get deterred by the price, I assure you that it's one of the best tools out there - personally, I use it for my own books several times per month, if not more!
Want a sneak peek into Publisher Rocket and what it is capable of? Check out this video. ⬇️
K-Lytics is a paid analytics tool for authors that helps you find the best genres and categories for your self published book, maximize your chances of getting on the Amazon bestseller list and more. It does tend to focus more on ebook data, specifically.
What sets it apart is that it operates more like a membership than actual software. You get access to specialized reports, an exclusive Facebook group, as well as other perks. From a data standpoint, K-Lytics claims to be more accurate than other tools for authors because it tracks data trends and analyzes hundreds of thousands of ebook titles every month.
Their Premium plan is $37/month and the Elite is $97/month. You can also pay annually instead and save over 50%.
Helium10 is a powerful program designed to help Amazon sellers optimize their business operations. It offers a suite of tools that can help sellers with everything from product research to keyword optimization, making it an essential tool for anyone looking to succeed on the world's largest online marketplace.
It also offers several tools designed to help sellers optimize their listings and increase visibility on Amazon. These tools include a keyword research tool, which can help sellers identify the most relevant and effective keywords to use in their product listings, as well as a listing optimization tool, which provides actionable suggestions for improving product titles, descriptions, and other key elements of a listing.
Helium10 is by far one of the most powerful analytics tools out there but since it's designed for Amazon sellers in general, there are more features than most authors need. If you're planning on selling offset print books via Seller Central, however, this is exactly what you need.
They do have a limited free trial and you can learn more about the program features here.
Amazon Suggestion Expander is a free Chrome extension that will find new keywords for your book. It can also help you discover keywords that are not being used by other authors, or even ones relevant to the topic of your book.
The Amazon Suggestion Expander plugin works by searching Amazon's database with each word in turn and checking to see if any other author has used it as part of their title or subtitle. If no results are found, then it adds this as an additional keyword suggestion for titles or subtitles on your own site!
If you're looking for a keyword research tool that can help you find the best keywords for your book, KDP Miner is one of the most popular options. It's a free chrome extension that searches for keywords related to your book and shows them on an easy-to-read graph.
KDP Miner also provides information about how much money each keyword makes per month, which allows authors to prioritize their search efforts accordingly.
Website SEO Tools for Authors
Google Analytics is a free tool that helps you track and analyze your website traffic. Analyzing your data can help you improve your marketing, content, and user experience by understanding how people are using your site. It's also great for authors because it allows us to see which web pages are most popular among readers, as well as where they come from (social media or search engines, etc).
SemRush is a popular online all-in-one platform that offers various tools for search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, content marketing, and social media management.
With SemRush, you can analyze your website's performance, track competitors, and identify opportunities for growth. The platform also offers insights into keyword research, backlink analysis, and site audit, which can help you optimize your website for search engines.
Keywords Everywhere is a browser extension that shows keyword search volume, competition, and cost-per-click data on various websites. It is useful for SEO and digital marketing professionals who want to optimize their content for search engines and improve their website's performance.
I personally use this analytics tool to help me research great keywords for blog posts and SEO optimization on my website. It's relatively inexpensive ($10 for 10,000 search credits) so it doesn't require a subscription like some other tools for authors.
I hope that this article has helped you decide which analytic tools are right for you. The key is finding the one that works best with your needs and budget. Have a favorite or love ❤️ a tool that you don't see on this list? Leave a comment below!
Disclaimer: This blog post may contain affiliate links to products we enjoy using ourselves. Should you choose to use these links, At Home Author may earn affiliate commissions at no additional cost to you.
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