How To Start a Blog About Books

Since you’ve already chosen what to blog about, you’re well on your way to defining your book blog’s purpose. The next step is to determine the primary objective of your book blog – in other words, what exactly you want it to accomplish.

This could be:

• Promoting products
• Building authority
• Connecting with readers

Once you have a clear purpose in mind, you can set specific goals and use them to track your blog’s success.

If you’re wondering how to start a reading blog, choosing a platform is an important step! 94% of first impressions about a website relate to its design, so you want to choose a high-quality blogging platform to present your content in the best possible light.

We’ve done our fair share of research on this matter, and we can confidently say that the top three blogging platforms are:

• Wix for its built-in blogging features
• Squarespace for its uniquely designed templates
• WordPress.org for its ability to manage lots of content

There are countless different genres of books, from sci-fi to self-help – and if you can narrow your book blog down to just one of these niches, then you’ll attract a more specific audience to your content.

Your blog name will likely become the most recognizable part of your digital brand, so you’ll want to choose it wisely! Make sure to pick a name that showcases your personality. If you’re stuck for ideas, try to think of names that are relevant to your niche.

It’s also a good idea to have your blog name either be identical or very similar to your domain name. Your domain name is the website address that readers will enter to reach your blog – ours is WebsiteBuilderExpert, for example.

The cost of a domain name will differ depending on the extension you choose (.com, .net, and so on). If you want to take extra steps to secure your website, you can also purchase an SSL certificate.

Now is your chance to let even more of your personality shine through! If you’re using a website builder like Wix or Squarespace to design your blog, you can customize elements like the color scheme, fonts, and positioning without any knowledge of code. In fact, you can literally drag and drop text boxes and images wherever you want them to go!

Now that you’ve chosen your niche, you’ll be able to hone in on the specific interests and preferences of your audience – and you can tailor your content accordingly.

To conduct some good research on your audience, it’s worth looking into the target demographics of the genre your book blog is about.

For example, those aged 65 and over are 46% more likely to read historical fiction, while those aged 15 to 24 are two-thirds more likely to read fantasy and adventure books.

As you plan your blog content, identify potential topics that are relevant to your niche and of interest to your readers. For example, if your audience are big horror fans, then you’ll want to schedule some timely content in the lead-up to Halloween every year. It doesn’t have to be holiday-specific, of course – if you’re running a romance blog, you can write a list of the summer’s best beach reads, and so on.

It also helps to have your finger on the pulse in terms of the latest bestsellers and popular authors in your chosen genre. You could write a review of a hot new release, or rank a successful author’s books from your favorite to your least favorite.

You want to make sure to get as many eyes as possible on your book blog content, and keyword research is a great way to accomplish that. It might even give you some trending topic ideas, too!

Keyword research is a search engine optimization strategy, meaning it’s one way you can help your blog rank higher in Google search results. 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine, so appearing on the results pages can help grow your audience massively.

You can use online tools like WordStream or AnswerThePublic to find out which book-related keywords have a high search volume – or in other words, which keywords have the most people searching them in Google!

It’s important to write attention-grabbing headlines for your blog post since these will be the first clue people get as to what you’ve written about, and whether or not it’s something they’ll want to read.

We’ve written our fair share of headlines here at WBE, so here’s a short list of the most important qualities of a successful one:

• Keep it short and sweet to avoid any text getting cut off in previews.
• Make it memorable and intriguing so that readers will click.
• Make it specific so that people can tell right away if your content is relevant to them.

It goes without saying that to write a quality book blog, you’ve got to actually read the books you discuss! But other factors contribute here too. For example, you can make your content more relatable by including some personal anecdotes, like how you first got interested in a particular genre.

You also want to make sure you keep the quality content coming on a steady schedule. Online content calendar tools like CoSchedule and Trello can help with this, as can content batching!

Making sure readers engage with your content is important for your blog’s success, especially if you want to monetize it further down the line. It’s also really satisfying to get feedback on what you’ve created!

Below are some ways you can foster reader interaction:

• Ask questions that they can respond to in the comments section.
• Link to social media platforms where they can follow you.
• Let them vote on what your next blog post should cover.

If you follow some of the tips above about fostering reader interaction, then you’ll be sure to build a sense of community on your blog.

You can take this a step further by hosting book-related webinars, Q&As, or book clubs to further connect with your audience in real time!

Blogging is a great marketing tool for small businesses, and it’s also a great passion project for anyone looking to share a personal interest with the world. Some of the clearest benefits of starting a book blog are:

• Connecting with like-minded readers
• Growing your online audience
• Creating your personal brand
• Making money through your blog

If you’ve read this far, you now know how to start a blog about books and make it a success. If you have any additional tips and tricks of your own, share them in the comments below – after all, we’d love some reader engagement!