I have been asked multiple times for that magic trick as to how to get people to visit your blog and stay. Well unfortunately there is no magic trick. It all comes down to personal taste buuuut there are a few COMMON MISTAKES THAT MAKE ME personally WANT TO SKIP BLOGS and that is what I will discuss today.
• CONTENT
There is no arguing that book blogs should be about books. But some people might think that book BLITZ is equal to book reviews or discussions. If I see two - three book blitzes on your first page there is now way I am staying. Blizes are book promotion, promotional companies send you all material and you just need to copy paste it, I bet most bloggers don't even read what they post in blitz. So nope, big no to too many BLITZs.
• OVERCROWDED SIDEBARS
There is a bit blurry line between too much and too little. We all want to know who you are, be able to find following button and go through your recent reviews. However, nobody is really interested in 10 book countdowns or 50 banners of other blogs. I am not saying you should not use them, some people really think it is important to share these things but then please use your footer instead. Having your blog crowded by both sides sidebars is a lot, the actual text you have written in posts gets pushed behind. So, please, when you design your sidebar(s) really think if your initial posts still stand out.
• TOO MANY FOLLOW BUTTONS
Now I know different options are important, you want to give as many choices for people to follow your blog as possible. But I personally would advise to stick with only one or two. We use both bloglovin and feed because these are the only ones I ever subscribe to myself. Plus, if you really like the blog you end up bookmarking it anyways. Having a big selection of following options is not the key to many followers, trust me.
• UNSTRUCTURED LONG REVIEWS
I think this is pretty much the worst thing ever. You see a title you want to read about, click on it and end up with super long text. Who is ever going to read it? Paragraphs and titles exist for a reason. I don't know how many times I still attempted to read this big chunk of text, ended up losing my line and just clicking the X button.
• TOO MANY ADS
Now we all want to earn something for our hard work and often it is ads that help us. However, we all have come upon at least one blog where ads were just everywhere and we very fast ended up just skipping the blog. So what is an acceptable number of ads not to scare away your readers? I would say use one ad on the sidebar and one in the footer or header. It does not get in a way and you still end up earning a little commission.
• TONE
Now let me start with an example here, in Germany where I live we have a political party called Greens. They are the only ones who point out serious problems like city pollution, overcrowded schools and so on. But when election comes nobody votes for them. Why? Because they say it straight forward, it is a problem with city pollution so people need to stop using old cars. But not everybody can afford to buy a new car or use public transport. We even have a special word 'pendeln' in Germany which literary means far travel to work place. So the same thing applies to the blogs too. There are many problematic topics in books and we all want to make sure our readers are aware of that but it really comes down to how you phrase it and your tone doing it. If you go too harsh people will leave, not because they don't want to see these problems but because it is everywhere on daily basis, everybody is constantly trying to tell what you have to think. I personally believe book community is gentle and pretty friendly and that is what I expect when I go to blogs. After all if I wanted harsh screaming I would just google 'popular' youtube videos. So yeah, why not try to explain and reason in a calm tone? Address the problems but do it smart, don't be Donal Trump.
I hope it was helpful and I will see you next time!
