[Rimmo]

Hi

How often do you review the keywords for your books?

What are your main tools for doing it?

A lot of people say the key to steady sales is Cover, Blurb and Keywords. I'm confident in my cover and my blurb, but I feel keywords are still so very uncertain. I set up my keywords about 6 months ago, using a few online guides (it's a mix of some autocomplete terms, sub genre categories, some frequently searched terms from KDP rocket), but in the time since I've just not had any good ideas for changing them. I feel like I should probably review them... but I'm not actually sure how to come up with any better ideas for keywords!

Thanks for any help

 

[Kathy Dee]

I use both Publisher Rocket and KDSpy for all kinds of research including keywords. I used to change them quite frequently and track the results, but I really don't think that approach was at all productive. Essentially, keywords may get you indexed for the terms you select, but not necessarily found; you also need sales for the Amazon A9 algo to take notice. These days, I pick the ones I think that I stand a good chance at ranking for (based on Rocket data) and then leave them alone.

 

[robert eggleton]

how do you change key words?

 

[NikOK]

how do you change key words?

On your kdp bookshelf go to the "..." that's to the right of "promote and advertise" then go to edit ebook details, and there is a section where you can add or change your keywords. Then you need to go through the other pages and hit publish again at the end. After that it will go into review for a day or two and then you're all set.

 

[NikOK]

As far as how often, pretty often.  At least once a month.  But I also like to play around with things and see what happens.  I've found it very useful to keep a spreadsheet of what keywords I used and when and just a + or - whether my book did better or worse.  Then I can mix and match some of them and maybe someday nail down a good list that works.  So far it has helped at least keep things moving in the right direction.

And I think it's good to think about what people might be searching.  I've been doing books with a lot of LGBTQ romances and I think it's good to keep something like that in the keywords because it's something someone might be searching for on amazon or goodreads or something.

 

[Carol (was Dara)]

I use keywords to get into my preferred categories, so once I've set them I don't change them.

 

[Kathy Dee]

As far as how often, pretty often. At least once a month. But I also like to play around with things and see what happens. I've found it very useful to keep a spreadsheet of what keywords I used and when and just a + or - whether my book did better or worse. Then I can mix and match some of them and maybe someday nail down a good list that works. So far it has helped at least keep things moving in the right direction.

That's exactly what I used to do Nik, even down to the spreadsheet. But eventually, I managed to kick the habit

 

[NikOK]

That's exactly what I used to do Nik, even down to the spreadsheet. But eventually, I managed to kick the habit

Ha, nice. I'll get past the point of fretting over things someday