Deciding If Your Blog Will Be General Or Specific
The first thing you must focus on while starting a book blog is deciding if you want to focus on a particular genre like romance or thriller, or if you want to keep your blog open to all things possible.
Moreover, the following are some important questions you can ask yourself while deciding on the main foundation of your blog.
- Is the blog for personal book reviews?
- Do you want to focus on new releases and their popular responses from other people?
- Will the blog contain author interviews and general news about books and writers?
Therefore, by asking yourself these and similar questions, you can find the exact way you want to use your book blog. Your options are numerous, and you can even categorize your blog if you want.
Finally, after you have zeroed in on your main concept for the blog, do some competitive research. Have a look online to see if there are others doing the same thing you are.
This will give you an idea of how original your idea is and how you can get started with your work and provide general inspiration and understanding of the work you are taking on.
Focus On Branding Your Blog
The second step in this process is simple yet challenging — choosing a name. Your blog should have a name that is unique to you and your work. Therefore, think carefully when deciding upon its name.
Choose something that is memorable yet descriptive. A short, clever, catchy name will be easily remembered and therefore, easier to brand.
Again, some online research will help you in deciding. Look into names other bloggers are using and how it fits into their blogging.
In addition, when deciding upon a name, the following are some questions you might want to consider:
- Do you want a humorous or niche name?
- What is your audience? Will they understand and appreciate it?
- Does it describe you or your blog concept well enough?
This will inspire you and help you come up with more suitable names. However, if you still feel a little lost, you can always give our blog name generator a try.
Once you have settled upon a name for your blog that you feel describes your blog well and will be popular among your target audience, it is time to set up your blog page.
Designing And Setting Up Your Blog
If you are intimidated by the thought of setting up an online space, there is nothing you need to worry about! Blog set-up can be quick as well as fun.
WordPress is your best bet when deciding on a blog platform. It is easy to navigate and quick to learn. Here, you also get a free design template to work with.
However, if you want a more personalized look for your page, you can buy more template designs that may fit your blog better. Experiment with as much as you can to decide on the correct look and feel of your blog design. While choosing a design, here are some questions you can focus on
- Does it reflect my work well?
- Is it in tune with my audience’s preferences?
- Does it overshadow the content? (It should not)
In addition, we will suggest looking into Bluehost to host your website. They offer you a quick and simple one-click WordPress installation tool, and you can also get a free domain name here and 60% off hosting.
A secondary but equally important step in setting up your blog is to create a Goodreads profile. It is absolutely essential for your blog branding and promotions.
Once your blog is up and running, you can post about it on Goodreads. You can also add links to your blog for added information and for getting more traffic to your blog. This way, it will take far less time for your book blog to kick off.
The final step in this process is deciding on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your blog. This is the key element in making sure your blog gets not just a lot of traffic, but regular traffic.
Learning about essential SEO elements is helpful. However, your ultimate goal should be to generate high-quality content for your blog.
Content Ideas For Book Bloggers
As mentioned above, high-quality original content is essential for your blog. Therefore, when you are looking into starting your writing, you must remember that you are writing for book lovers.
Your own articles will have to be engaging, well-executed, and grammatically perfect for the best results. Moreover, you must ensure that your blog is not just interesting but also relevant to the audience you want to cater to.
Thankfully, as a book blogger, your world is open to infinite ideas. You can base your writing pieces on practically anything related to books. These include blogs on characters, genres, reviews, film adaptation, writers, backgrounds, quotes, and so much more.
You can add your personal touch to the blogs by mini infographic videos or short self-interviews about your own opinion. The more you personalize your work, the more likely it is to get attention. Your safest bet is to add personal twists and touches to every article you write, especially if they are in tune with trends or popular ideas.
Once you decide what kind of audience you are targeting, deciding on the content you want to post becomes easier. For example, if you wish to cater to a young readers’ group, you can delve into the vast world of Young Adult novels. Classics fans, however, will be interested in an entirely different type of blog.
While deciding on your content base, these are some questions you might want to ask yourself:
- Who am I catering to?
- What is the main focus of this content?
- Is the idea original or inspired?
How You Can Increase Traffic On Your Blog
“Traffic” refers to the number of people who visit your blog. The more traffic your blog receives, the better it is. Therefore, it is very important for you to focus on growing your traffic, that is, increasing the number of people who visit your blog, especially on a daily basis.
Though it might sound difficult, it is very simple and easy if you stick to the following steps.
- Frequent posting: one of the best ways to ensure you get more traffic is to write more. Make sure you update your blog frequently — minimum 3 times a week. If you have lots of time, you can even do it daily. The more you write, the more relevant it becomes, and the more people will be attracted to it.
- Social media promotions: make use of your social media accounts like Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Goodreads, etc., to promote your blog. Post about your blog with links so that people may find out about it quickly and can further share it on their social media pages.
- Titles: It is very important that your titles are catchy and interesting. This is because people will decide to visit your blog and read your post only if they find the title interesting and even captivating. Therefore, give special attention to your blog titles.
- Photos, keywords, and links: In order to make your blog visually appealing and interesting, make sure to add pictures. Moreover, using the right words is the foundation of SEO. So, make sure every blog post is keyword-strategized. This will lead an interested audience right to your blog. Finally, if you include other companies or blogs in your content, add their link to your work. This will help other people notice you while also ensuring good faith build-up.
How You Can Earn With Your Book Blog
Yes, you can actually make money with your book blog. Monetizing your book blog will be easy, though a little time-consuming.
You need to be patient while creating great content if you wish to earn through your blog. In addition, you can try out the following steps:
- Amazon affiliate links: People are most likely to buy through Amazon than most other places. Moreover, you will get the money for anything they buy in the 48 hours after clicking on your affiliate link.
- Sponsored posts: You can get sponsors who will pay you to create blog posts related to their specific services or products. This way, if you are lucky enough to find a sponsor that fits your blog’s general theme, you can actually get paid for blogging.
- Advertisement space: You can take advantage of the free space available on your blog in order to earn money. You can display advertisements for different companies in the form of banners or pop-ups. Depending on the model you select, you will get paid according to the number of people who visit your blog or click on the ad on your blog.
- Selling merchandise: Once your blog is not just up and running but fairly popular, you can use your branding to sell your own merchandise to make money. You can keep a good profit margin to make sure you are not losing out on the money in this process. Some popular items are mugs, hoodies, bookmarks, caps, and so on. This will also further help you with better branding.
Top #3 Book Bloggers
We would like to kick-start your inspiration for your blog with some popular book blogs.
Though there are several successful and popular ones out there, we will give you a list of three. Each is a different kind of critic, reviewer, or general thinker in the world of books and bases their blogging on a variety of concepts.
These should help you further articulate your own book blog better.
This is an exciting place with different categories to explore. You will find an updated reading list that has some of their most recommended works.
Moreover, Literary Hub also offers a diverse network of podcasts related to literature. And that is not all, you can also find news and culture updates on the blog to make sure you are up-to-date. One of the ways this blogger makes the blog popular is through daily giveaways and the weekly First Readers’ Club giveaway.
This ensures the audience is engaged and stands a chance of rewards for their loyalty. Other than that, you can find numerous interesting articles to read on a variety of literary contents and topics.
This blog primarily does book reviews that get published in libraries. However, they also publish these reviews on their website. Moreover, BookPage interviews authors from all genres, and they post them on their website for everyone to read.
Their reviews are focused on the best of the new releases, and they highlight their standout favorites with a star.
You will find Fiction, Non-Fiction, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Children’s and YA as categories on their website. In short, BookPages offers insight into not only the book itself, but also the workings behind the book, interesting tidbits, and musings by the author.
Author interviews have become a very popular part of Book Blogging in recent times and have a dedicated readership.
A Life in Books
This blog is by Susan Osborn, who has been in the book industry for a long time. A Life In Books is a more personalized blog that contains Osborn’s take on books in different categories.
Her blog is divided into Fiction, Non-Fiction, Six Degrees of Separation, Five Books I’ve Read, Random Thoughts, and Travel.
It’s obvious from the outset that the blog covers a lot more than book recommendations and reviews. Osborn has added her personal touch to almost all forms of book blogging in A Life in Books.
Moreover, through the blog, she tracks her current readings and her future ‘want to read’ lists as well.
In short, as the name suggests, A Life in Books covers Osborn’s life through books in detail, whether for travel, review, recommendations, or something else.
Conclusion
A blog about books is certainly an exciting way to not just dive into your passion for literature, but also earn through that passion.
Therefore, once you have decided upon your niche, name, and design, you can move straight to promotions and, ultimately, monetization.
The process is fun and entertaining and will give you a lot of creative freedom.
Moreover, if you are ever short of ideas, you can find tons of inspiration from other bloggers who have made this dream a reality.
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