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Are you thinking about how to start a book blog?
If you enjoy discussing books, and starting a book blog is a great way for you to share your recommendation, communicate with other readers, and share reviews.
No matter you are going to start it for fun, as a side hustle, or even as a career, it is just the right time to get into it.
First of all, Do People Still Read Books?
Do you know how many people keep reading books in American? In fact, there are around 72% of Americans read books, and an average of 5 books read each year.
While you may notice that physical book consumption is declining, however, the fact is Americans read as much as they have in the past, and readers are now consuming books in a variety of formats, including ebooks and audiobooks.
How to Start a Book Blog? Step By Step Guide For Beginners
You may think that starting a blog and become a successful blogger can seem a daunting task, but it’s not really if you read the guidelines below. I am going to break it down into really simple and easy steps.
Even you are not tech-savvy like me, you can just start your first book blog without any hassle.
Let’s Start!
Step 1. Set the goal and focus of your blog
The first step in starting a good book blog is to set a goal for your blog. You need to decide how you want to put your blog. Take your time and think carefully because the key idea you choose will be the one that will direct your blogging efforts in the future.
You may consider the following questions:
- What made me want to start a book blog in the first place?
- Is this something I’m doing as a hobby or something I’d like to do as a career?
- What do I hope to accomplish with my book blog?
- Who is your book blog audience?
- What type of books am I going to write?
- What kind of tone is my content going to have?
- Consider who you are, what you want to say on your blog, and which books you want to support.
Step 2. Choose Your Blog Name
When it comes to naming your blog, there are seemingly endless possibilities. Such as:
- You could use your own name (I have used my name to name my blog)
- Draw inspiration from your favorite genre
- Highlight the writers and books you want to read more of (like Literally Black).
- Or any creative name you like!
I will suggest you set aside an hour or two to complete this task. Wondering why? It’s because naming your book blog is so important, consider the following:
- First Impression – The first thing readers will notice is your blog name. A good blog name can leave a lasting positive impression on readers, while a poor one can send them fleeing or cause them to forget about your blog the moment they leave.
- Branding – Don’t you want people to know who you are and what you believe in? Your brand will be defined by the book blog domain name you choose.
ProTips: Before you decide on your blog name and brand, it is important to make sure that no one else is using the same name, snatched up all of its social media platforms, or has trademarked the words or phrase.
Step 3. Buy Your Blog Hosting (and Register Domain Name)
Ok, after you decided on your blog name, then you’ll need to purchase a domain name and choose WordPress web hosting.
All of the files and material associated with your blog will be stored on your new hosting company’s servers. Readers can see content, posts, and pictures hosted on your hosting company’s servers when they type your new domain name into their browser.
There are tons of blogging hosting companies to choose from. My advice is to take a look at Blue Host and Wealthy Affiliate:
- Blue Host – which is one of the few hosting providers that WordPress recommends, and at $2.49 a month (with the discount link here). It’s hard to compare their quality of hosting, customer service, and uptime reliability for the same low price. Bluehost will also issue you a full refund if you cancel within 30 days.
Read More:
How To Build A Website On Bluehost? 9 Simple Steps To Create Your Own Website
Is Bluehost A Good Hosting? 10 Reasons Why Use Bluehost
- Wealthy Affiliate – one of the biggest blogging platforms in the world and offers free starter membership. It is straightforward, simple, yet faster web hosting. Best of all, they offer different kinds of training and classes for you to learn how to be a professional blogger and build up your online business via blogging. (click here to learn more about Wealthy Affiliate)
Pro Tips: Both Blue Host and Wealthy Affiliate are hosting companies that have “one-click installs” for WordPress, and provide the domain name registration service. These will make your setup process much easier.
Step 4. Build Your Blog and Pick Your Blog Theme
Now, you are going to build up your new blog site once your blog hosting and the domain name are secured.
If you want to create an awesome, attractive, and professional-looking book blog site, you’ll need to choose a theme that looks fantastic.
In my opinion, take a look at other book blogs to get a sense of how they build their blog, and consider below:
- How do you want your content to display on your blog?
- What colors would you like your brand to have?
- Do you need the essentials items ( such as a search bar, recognizable social networking icons, or feeds) for your blog?
- Do you want any sidebar ( which aims to display the ad networks like Google Adsense and your popular posts)?
Pro Tips: Kadence Theme Builder is something I always recommend to my readers. What is the reason for this? Since it’s totally customizable, rather than hiring a developer, you can point and click to make your blog look exactly as you want it to.
(In fact, Kadence Theme Builder was used to create this blog, and I’m really pleased with the outcome. This is, in my opinion, the most cost-effective theme available.)
To learn more about KadenceTheme Builder, click the image below to watch a tutorial.
However, if you don’t think Thrive Theme Builder is right for you, here are some other book blog-friendly themes for your consideration:
Step 5. Create Your Brand Logo
A logo on the top of your blog tells the readers who you are, and will help to distinguish your blog.
There are different kind of logos you may consider for your blogs:
- Nice images (for example, a nice book photo),
- Beautiful text
- A creative artwork (for example Bookshelves and Paperbacks).
(Related Reading: Where To Get Royalty-Free Images For Commercial Use: 7 Best Sites You Should Know)
Pro Tips: You can build any logo that perfectly suits your blog using a free Canva account, which includes graphics and photographs as well as design templates. You may also upload your own files to Canva, just make sure that any photos you use in your design or on your website are either free to use or have permission from the artist.
Step 6. Build up the “Must-Need” Pages of your blog
After setting up your blog theme and blog logo, it’s almost time to get started blogging about books.
But….
Before you start with your first book review posts, there are some essential blogging pages you need to add to your blog.
Those posts are static pages that don’t include them in your blog roll:
- About Me Page – Don’t forget to have an About page on your website so that your readers can learn more about you. Remember to tell people a little bit about yourself in a professional yet personal way. You may also talk about the types of content you’ll be posting so that your followers know what to expect.
- Contact Page – Your contact page should ideally contain both an email address and a contact form for visitors to fill out. You may also include your company’s address(if have it) and phone number, as well as any other details you think your audience may find useful. Moreover, publicists also contact book bloggers directly to see if they’d like to collaborate. Thus, setting up a contact page on your blog allows them to contact you directly.
- Legal Pages (The Privacy Policy, Disclaimer, and Terms & Conditions) – No matter you are creating your book blog for fun, or plan to run it as a business to make money online, set up the legal pages on your blog are critical. Also, if you don’t have a strong privacy policy in place when you start monetizing your website, some ad programs won’t accept you. There are numerous free online resources available to assist you in creating the legal pages (such as privacypolicies.com,) so I suggest that you study them to determine exactly what is required.
Step 7. Plan for your content and Start To Write
Yeah, finally comes to the fun part you are looking for – start writing your blog!
But before you start writing, I would suggest you plan your content and figure out what kind of post you’ll write about on your blog.
So, what should be included in a book blog? Here are some suggestions:
- Single book reviews
- Booklists
- Book recommendations
- Roundups of the latest publications
- Review bestselling books
- Will you interview authors?
- Create a book rating system
- Suggestions for books for a specific audience
- Are you going to accept guest posts?
- Provide a forum for young and talented writers to share their work with your audience.
… and bring up your creatives and make the list goes on and on!
If you want to know more about How to Write A Perfect Blog Post That Gets Reads, click here to learn.
Pro Tips: If you’re a newbie and want to start book blogging right away, I would suggest you to making more book lists with mini book reviews and a rating system. If one of your goals is to increase your book blogging traffic, book lists are the way to go.
Step 8. Schedule your blog post
Now it’s time to consider how much you’ll post once you’ve started the writing and decided on the type of content you want to share.
Do you want to make a weekly post?
Do you mean twice?
How about three days a week?
Make sure you choose a frequency that you will be able to maintain.
For example, book reviews can be published once or twice a week, and do the bestselling roundups once a month.
It’s critical to maintain a regular publishing schedule so that your readers know when to expect new content from your blog.
Pro Tips: If you have trouble meeting deadlines, then write your posts ahead of time and save them as drafts. When the time comes, publish them as your planned schedule. Using calendar apps such as CoSchedule to help you stay on track if you need it.
Step 9. Promoting and Share Your Book Blog
Your blog is up and running, and all you have to do now is grow your blog and let more people read it!
Grow your book blog with SEO
The primary driver for book blog traffic is Search Engine Optimization (SEO.)
In other words, SEO is the way that search engine, like Google/Bing/Yahoo, displays your blog in their search results and direct the readers to your book blog and start to read your content.
The good news is that most search engines will reward you by putting your blog in the top positions of the search pages when you concentrate on high-quality content consistently.
However, the bad news is that it sometimes needs up to 6-12 months of hard work to climb up to the first page in the search result pages.
So as a newbie, you should also focus to promote your blogs in social media.
Use Social Media Marketing To Boost Blog Traffic
With the correct strategy for social media marketing, your blog posts will not go unread.
Share every post on social networks(such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest) you have. You can still use your current social media platforms or build new ones to go along with your blog.
Pro Tips: If you want to learn more about social media marketing, don’t forget to check out my posts below:
Expand your community
As a new blogger, connect with other book bloggers and joining a book club is one of the best resources you can get.
Make every possible effort to share, comment on and interact with the content of other book bloggers, so that you are able to integrate with others. This will provide you with great opportunities for profitable partnerships.
Book clubs are also an excellent place for book bloggers to promote their content and book review. There are many book clubs that can be searched online, join in and expand your network.
Step 10. Monetize Your Book Blog
Now you have everything running on your blog as it should. If you’re aiming to start your book blog as a long-running business and make money online, I’m going to bet that you can’t wait to get to this part and learn about How do I monetize my book blog.
Do book bloggers make money? The answer is yes, and you can start making money from your book blog in a number of ways, such as:
- Display ads – Consider adding ads to your book blog by participating in Google Adsense. You can also try Media.net. It will pay you once your visitor clicks on the displayed ads on your blog.
- Affiliate Marketing – One of the ideal ways for book bloggers to make money. What you need to do is to join the affiliate program, such as the Amazon affiliate program which has the biggest online book marketplace. All you have to do is incorporate your own affiliate links from Amazon into your content, once your reader makes a purchase from your link, you will get paid.
- Sponsored Posts – Once you’ve built up a following, you can begin promoting paid publications on your book site. You’ll be able to do this in a very short amount of time if you maintain the high quality, consistency, and frequency of your content.
Pro Tips: Here is my another post that discussing how to make money blogging, you will find out more methods to monetize your blog!
Do you Want to Learn More how to start a book blog right now?
I hope you find this article useful for you to take the necessary steps to start your book blog and get where you want to go.
To be honest, make money blogging is not easy and it’s not a “get-rich-quick” game, you must be patient,t and diligent. And the above steps are just a simple wrap-up about how to start a blog. There are more works your need to do if you wanna start a book blog.
If you want to learn more about how to start blogging and make money only, i would suggest you take a formal course to enrich your base knowledge about blogging.
Wealthy Affiliate University is one of the recommended course for new bloggers, especially for whom are totally newbie without any knowledge about how to set up a website and the online marketing world. Best of all, it offers a free starter account!
(Want to learn more about what is Wealthy Affiliate University, Click Here!)
Once you learn more and start to blog and put in your work, you will certainly see some very positive results if you can do this and start to earn an income, and even with the dream of financial freedom. Read here to learn more about the success stories of blogging
Are you going to start a book blog? Did you find this article useful? Please let me know in the comment section below.
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