The Importance Of Google

Since my book came out, people often ask me how I managed to get my book published and how I managed to get into the Dummies brand. In fact I've just given a talk this morning to my local Chamber on the whole book publishing process.

Well, it was pretty much down to Google. A few years ago, I attended a PR course and there are two things that have stuck with me from that course:

1) Journalists like to take the easy option and when up against a deadline to produce an article or do research, where do they go? Google.

2) If they contact you - get back to them immediately.

I'm often contacted by journalists - for the last couple of years I probably get half a dozen calls each year. How do they find me? They search for time management expert/coach and my name comes up on Google - either my website or my Ecademy profile. So they contact me and of course, I get back to them as soon as I receive their email or pick up their phone message, if I'm not able to answer it at the time.

When Wiley publishing were looking to commission the UK Edition of their Time Management book they googled and found me, read my articles and sent me an email to see if I might be interested in writing the book. The result of that initial contact is now up on Amazon and hopefully hitting the bookshelves soon.

Now, I'm no SEO expert and I've learnt an awful lot from many of the SEO experts I have in my network. My website is not necessarily going to win any prizes and there's always room for improvement but it's been enough to get me noticed and after all that's what's important.

I had a call yesterday morning from another journalist - she's calling me back on Monday for input into an article she's writing for December.

I was called in July by a journalist writing an article for BT Upload magazine - I'm in October's edition.

If you have an area of expertise - write articles, be seen, get noticed and Google is definitely going to help.