How To Increase Your Book Blog’s Traffic : 7 Easy Ways To Grow

When I celebrated 7 years of book blogging, a lot of people have asked me to write a blog post about growing your blog and increase your blog’s traffic, so here I am, hoping that these little tips will help you out!

I’ll be completely transparent with you: book blogging is a tiny niche and it’s not one that will make you gain thousandth of pageviews. At least, that hasn’t worked for me.

That being said, I do believe that there are ways to grow, to gain followers, interaction, traffic and most of it all, to see progress with your book blog, even if it might not be the one thing that will make you go viral, quit your job and become a full-time book blogger. (At least, I never heard of that ever happening, but hey, who knows!)

Today, I’m sharing some of these easy tips to increase your book blog’s traffic. They’re easy, they’re, for most of them, completely free as well. Growing your blog doesn’t have to be tough and I’m happy to prove it to you today, starting here!

This blog post contains affiliate links. If you buy something on my recommendation, I will receive a small commission. Purchasing via these links will not cost you any extra and will help me cover the costs of book blogging. You will find more info on my privacy policy and disclaimer pages. Thank you!

7 Easy Ways To Increase Your Book Blog’s Traffic

Table of Contents

1. Self-Host Your Blog
2. Make Your Blog Pretty To Look At
3. Learn about SEO
4. Write the right kind of content
5. Use social media
6. Join bookish challenges & memes
7. Create genuine connections

Self-Host Your Blog

I’m starting with a big one, but it has to be said: self-hosting your blog can have a certain amount of benefits and a lovely gain in traffic is one of them.

I’m not here to paint you an all-fun-and-rainbows kind of picture here. I always aim to be as honest as possible as I can with my blogging experience, so, here goes.

When I self-hosted my blog, my traffic dropped. I had less pageviews for about a month or so. YES, this happened and it was REALLY annoying, thinking that I took that terrifying jump only to lose part of my audience.

This was just a small setback, though, the time for my audience to find me through my new self-hosted blog, the time for me to get settled properly and so on.

I don’t regret self-hosting, because thanks to it, my blog is more professional and recognized more by search engines, as well. Which means it ranks easier, quicker on Google, for instance. It took a bit of time, but it helped me gain more traffic!

With self-hosting, I was also able to do more with my blog’s theme, I was able to add plugins, allowing more accessiblity for everyone, allowing me to grow my blog, too. More on these if you continue reading this blog post!

I chose Lyrical Host as my blog host and I don’t regret one thing. Their customer service is THE best, they handled my blog’s migration for free and they share so many incredible resources to help you out, as well. 200% recommending them. Check them out here!

☂️ Read more: How To Self Host Your Book Blog: Sharing My Exciting (and Stressful) Experience

Make your blog pretty to look at

I’m not going to lie: if a website hurts my eyes, I’m closing my tab right away. If there are way too many bright colors, if I can’t read because the font of the website is unreadable, if there’s too much different formatting, too many things going on on one page: I’ll quit.

If you have a strong looking blog, this WILL help you gain AND increase your blog’s traffic. Let’s break down what I mean by “strong-looking”.

First of all, always try to keep in mind that your theme needs to be one that you love, of course, but also one that is READABLE.

Anyone should be able to find your latest blog posts easily. They should find a menu easily, leading to your main pages about you, how to contact you and more.

If you don’t have that, if your blog’s main page isn’t clear, people won’t know how to navigate your blog. Therefore, they might not visit more than one page… and well, that won’t work if you want to gain traffic, will it?

Second of all: make it ALL yours. It’s easy to see a theme you like on a blog, choose the same one and that’s it. It’s not personal, then and if someone is a regular blog visitor, after a while, they might feel like they just stumbled on yet one another look-a-like and leave. Play with the colors, try new fonts, work with Canva to create unique, original featured image and more.

I always recommend Kat’s blog post about branding/rebranding, which is very helpful in order to find your identity AND, therefore, make your blog a lovely, memorable place that drives people in… and drives them back, too.

Last, but not least: DON’T be afraid to ask your readers, your sister, fellow bloggers what they think if you’re uncertain about something. It’s always good to have feedback!

I’m using a 17th Avenue Designs Theme and I adore it. Easily customizable, SEO-friendly, responsive, so beautiful and easy to set up. I highly recommend their themes if you’re looking for a new/fresh look!

Learn about SEO

As of today, Google is my biggest traffic source. What does this mean, you ask? For the sake of transparency, I’ll tell you two things:

• In the year 2021, 70% of my total traffic came from Google.
• I have blog posts appearing on the 1st position on Google and blog posts appearing on the 1st results page.

Writing this feels so awkward and like I’m boasting, but I wanted to write this with complete honesty. Both self-hosting and writing my blog posts with SEO in mind helped me in reaching those results and, therefore, helped me grow my book blog’s traffic.

What is SEO ?

SEO means Search Engine Optimization. It’s a set of practices, “made to improve the appearance and positioning of web pages in organic results”, according to Moz. Basically: it’s something that you do to improve your blog’s position whenever someone’s looking for something on search engines. Therefore: it’s something that can help you grow!

While it might seem really complicated, or like something you don’t want to bother with, let me reassure you: it’s not that hard to optimize your blog posts.

Quick tips to write a SEO-optimized blog post

• Use Google, Answerthepublic, Ubersuggest, Pinterest or even SemRUSH to find content ideas = what people are searching for.
• Write a GREAT, compelling blog post title with your keywords (example : “grow your book blog”).
• Structurate your content with titles (H2, H3…), paragraphs and use your keywords in your post’s content.
• Optimize your images : make sure they’re not too heavy and don’t forget to fill out the ALT text!)
• Add links to your other blog posts within the post you’re writing.
• Use a plugin to help you out! I’m using Yoast SEO, but Rank Math is also lovely.

If you want me to write a more detailed guide about SEO for your book blog, feel free to let me know in comments!

Write the right kind of content

Before I launch into this part, let me say one thing.

The right kind of content is the one that makes you happy.

It’s the blog post you’re excited to write, it’s the one you can’t WAIT to publish, it’s the one you’ve been thinking about for ages. If you’re forcing yourself to write something, just for the sake of it… well. You can, I’m not here to judge anyone, but content written with passion always shines through, I truly believe that.

Okay, now that’s out there, let’s get to it. I have 3 different tips for you.

Tip n°1: write a blog post people want to read

I have an in-depth blog post about this topic. If you ask me, in order to gain traffic, keep it and for it to keep on growing, your content needs to be attractive enough. Just like your blog’s design, it needs to make people want to stay, read one blog post, maybe want to read another one and so on.

For that to happen, you need to catch your reader’s attention with a catchy title. You need to keep them reading with interesting content. One that is well written, well-structured and, most of it all, one that you write with your own heart.

☂️ Read more : How to write a blog post people will read

Tip n°2: see what already works on your blog

This is a tip that works for both new and long-time bloggers, as long as you have at least some content on your blog. Once you’ve written and published a couple blog post or a thousand, you’ll slowly, but surely, be able to see that works.

How can you see what’s working, you ask?

1. Head to your Google Analytics account, or watch your stats wherever you watch them.
2. Take a long-time period – for instance, a couple months or hell, even an entire year.
3. See the blog posts that brought you the most:
   1. Traffic
   2. Comments
   3. Likes

You can also take a deep dive on your social media accounts and see what blog post was shared the most on Twitter or Pinterest, for instance.

Once you did this, try and analyze these blog posts and what they have in common. Is it a discussion post, a review? Is it on a specific topic? Are there tips, are you writing in a more personal way, is the blog post formatted differently?

You can gather some really useful info when trying to audit your blog’s content quickly, this way. You’ll learn what works, what your audience likes, what your audience likes to comment on and so on. Learn from this to do more of these kind of content!

Want to know what your audience loves? Why don’t you try doing a little survey to ask them?

Tip n°3: write seasonal and Evergreen content

Evergreen content is content that remains relevant. To quickly share an example: a blog post about growing your blog’s traffic will stay relevant a year from now, while a blog post about, let’s say, your time at the 2017 Book Expo, won’t.

The same goes for seasonal content. If you write a blog post about winter book recommendations, it might help you gain a lot of traffic in the winter season and a bit less while it’s summer.

Though, you can argue that, while it’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere, the lucky Southern Hemisphere is experiencing winter.

ANYWAY! What I’m saying here is that, seasonal content, meaning, content that works with the season: Christmas reads, Spring Reads, Black History Month Book Recommendations, for instance, WILL work the same way as evergreen content. It will remain relevant, year after year, as the season starts again.

Unless we’re getting rid of winter someday. I wouldn’t mind, if you ask me.

Having a solid amount of seasonal, evergreen content can help you consistently gain traffic over so many years.

☂️ Read more: Kal @ Reader Voracious wrote a great blog post about evergreen content.

Use social media

I have a love/hate relationship with social media, but I’m not going to deny it: it’s a great tool to promote your blog.

Whether you’re on twitter, instagram, facebook, tiktok or wherever, don’t forget to promote your work. A tweet, a story with a link to your latest blog post: SHARE what you do proudly.

I know some bloggers gain MOST of their traffic thanks to social media. What do they do, you ask? They’re not afraid to share and re-share their content on these platforms.

Not going to lie: a lot of these people have a LOT of followers on social media and, therefore, a lot of eyes on each of their stories, tweets or whatever. Which means: more potential visitors and, as their social media presence and accounts grow, so do the eyes on their content.

That being said, if you don’t have a lot of followers, social media is still a great tool to use. To connect with people (more on that later!), to promote your blog post and give your blog a little boost, too. So, don’t forget it!

Share your new blog posts, but don’t forget to re-share your old blog posts, as well.

You can have fun with it, too! Repurpose your blog’s content on social media AND drive people back to your blog to read more. Wrote a book list? Share a couple books on twitter/instagram and invite people to read more on your blog, for instance!

Also… while it’s not really quantifiable, it’s been proven that sharing your content on social media helps your SEO, so… one more reason to try to get out there!

☂️ Related blog post : Blogging VS. Social Media: why having a book blog still matters

Join bookish challenges & memes

If you’re a newbie book blogger and trying to get out there, gain traffic, followers, interactions and find new content to write: try joining reading, bookish challenges or book blog memes.

What the hell is a meme, you ask? It’s an idea that is spreading, blog to blog. It’s a regular feature on a lot of blogs, shared every week or every month. Usually, there is a prompt, and people can easily join by posting their own answers to each prompt.

You can find a great Book Blog Meme Directory right here!

You can also participate in some reading or blogging challenges. I’m a big fan of the Discussion Challenge, hosted by Shannon and Nicole.

What do these things can do for my blog’s traffic? Well, let me list the ways!

• You will be linking your own blog post, acknowledging your participation, on the host’s page. A link to your blog, yay!
• A lot of people are using these book memes or challenges as a starting page for their blog-hopping sessions. Which means: a lot of people appreciate these kind of posts and will be clicking on them to check them out, read them, hell, even maybe comment! YAY, more traffic and comments!
• YOU can do exactly the same. In fact, that’s the goal of these memes and challenges: participate yourself and encourage people to see others’ blog posts. Visit your fellow bloggers’ posts, comment genuinely, meet new people and they might comment back, too!

Create genuine connections

I’m keeping the best for last.

If there is ONE THING that helped me grow my blog and gain traffic, ever since I started, it’s this. In the 7 years I spend blogging, I managed to connect with so many incredible people and created so many lovely, genuine connections. I’m honestly so grateful.

I’m grateful because one of the most beautiful things about blogging is also one that helped me gain traffic, which is kind of extraordinarily awesome, when you think about it.

In order to attain that lovely goal, I do two things.

Blog-hopping

I used to be SO big on blog-hopping, reading my WordPress feed every single day, constantly on the look-out for new book bloggers to follow and support.

I know this has helped me tremendously in growing my blog’s traffic over the years.

I also know it wasn’t a rhythm I was able to follow for a long time.

While I don’t blog-hop every day now, I still do it regularly, both because it’s wonderful to support book bloggers and because, yes, of course, it’s truly beneficial to both you and the blog you visit. Why, you ask? By visiting your fellow book bloggers’ platforms and taking some time to read their blog posts and comment on them genuinely, you’re putting yourself out there. You’re making people aware of your book blog and, from it, you might gain comments back, you might be able to grow your traffic and, even more amazingly, you might have lovely conversations!

☂️ Read more : Why I don’t believe in fake engagement in blogging (+ tips and tricks to engage and build genuine connections!)

Would you like a full blog post on how I blog-hop now? Feel free to let me know in comments!

Acknowledging your comments

I reply to every single comment I get on my blog.

It sometimes takes me a couple of days or more, but, for, me it’s so important to acknowledge your comments and the time people spent writing them. I love starting a conversation, I love hearing what people have to say and for me, it matters to tell them that I do. Moreover, it creates a lasting impression of you, something that both can help you forge lovely connections AND make people want to come back to talk to you, more. Win-win, I’d say!

Not writing it here, but creating connections also happen, of course, on social media.

☂️ Read more : My top 5 tips to interact with the book blogging community

If you try and do both of these, before you know it, you’ll have a little community of bloggers and friends surrounding you. For me, it’s worth all the traffic.

If you want to read more about blogging, check out these blog posts:

• 10 Essential and Free Blogging Tools To Grow Your Blog
• How To Make Your Blog Stand Out: 5 Ways To Be Memorable
• Time Management as a Book Blogger: my Top 5 Tips

📌 Pin How To Grow Your Book Blog’s Traffic on Pinterest!

Do you have any tips to grow your blog and gain more traffic? Do you do any of those things?

Would you like me to write a detailed guide about anything I mentioned here? Feel free to let me know in comments!

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