Best Practices for Metadata Management for Publishers

[Approximate Reading Time : 4 mins]

Ten years ago, terms such as “SEO,” “HTML” and “metadata” were far removed from the publishing sector. Today, however, a publisher’s understanding of these terms, or, at the very least, understanding of the terms’ import, is key to a piece of content’s overall success. This is especially true of metadata. Metadata management in the publishing industry is necessary for two essential reasons:

1. It helps a book get discovered in the online sector.
2. It makes the book appealing to potential customers.

If a book doesn’t have metadata, or if its metadata is poorly done, it risks getting lost in the cyber sphere for all eternity. As a publisher, you can’t let this happen to your writers’ works. Help them get discovered by implementing metadata management best practices:

1. Train Your Editorial Staff: No one knows a writer’s work as well as your editorial staff, save for the writers themselves. Take advantage of your team’s knowledge and train editors on metadata. Develop training sessions, digestible guidelines and useful reports to help editorial resolve smaller issues on its own.
2. Create Vendor-Specific Metadata: Vendor requirements are bound to vary, so it is a huge mistake to create generalized metadata. Customize your data to meet vendor-specific requirements and achieve higher rankings.
3. Test, Review and Refine Metadata: Gather feedback from retail and sales channels and refine your metadata based on the results.

Amnet’s solutions are designed to help publishers more easily promote publications in saturated marketplace.  To manage your metadata better, reach out to Amnet.