Why Your Book Blog Could Be Losing Readers
Ever wondered why some of the people who have been following your book blog, have suddenly stopped? When we work so hard to get those followers, it’s disappointing when they just disappear.
I wanted to share a fabulous article from Hugh of HughsViews&News that highlights some of the reasons why that might happen. You might be surprised it’s not simply a question of content they’re no longer interested in reading. It could be that you have an annoying pop up or don’t respond to comments.
Unfollowing blogs. It’s something many bloggers don’t like talking about and is something many fear. Are people unfollowing your blog for any of these reasons?
Are These The 7 Main Reasons Why Your Blog Is Losing Readers? — Hugh’s Views & News
Personally, I don’t notice any of these except #6, uninteresting content. I am not aware of people’s posting schedules! And I read in the WordPress viewer for the most part, which takes away all the formatting wierdness. I do like an up to date About Me page, but I don’t think I’d unfollow due to its lack. It’s all about the content for me!
I’ve come across many bloggers who have a blogging schedule. They’re mainly those that make money out of blogging, have a large following, or those that offer information that many of their readers want, especially if it helps solve a problem. Many blogging experts agree that scheduling posts is a good idea, especially if you need to come offline for any reason.
A really useful post. Thank you. Especially on how to quickly Unfollow.
So much is simple when you know how isn’t it?
I’m glad it helped. Thanks so much for reading the post and leaving a comment.
Thank you for sharing this! I also believe there should be a good about page. Even few lines are enough. I still see some blogs who have that WP default About me page that’s blank saying ‘write here about your blog’. It’s annoying and gives impression they are really serious about their blog.
Oh dear, I understand when you are starting the blog that you can’t do everything right away but if I still saw that on the about page after a few months it wouldn’t fill me with confidence
Yes, I agree. It’s frustrating to see that WordPress ‘about me’ template after a blog has been up and running for a few months. especially given that the ‘about me’ page is one of the most visited pages of a blog.
None of this is particularly new but it’s nicely said and good to have all in one place, so thanks fo sharing.
I do think a good About me page is important. If there isn’t one and the first page of the blog, doesn’t seem relevant to me, I won’t hang around.
I’m not too bothered about posting schedules. I’m not really aware of any bloggers having particular schedules except for special series like my Monday Musings or Paul’s Jottings or Melanie’s Sunday Lowdown. I don’t see blogs as being the same as newspapers or magazines. I rely on being notified when they post and then I visit them. However, I do worry when someone suddenly goes silent. That doesn’t make me unfollow them. It makes me reach out to see if they are ok.
Agree with yiu on the importance of a good About page. It’s the first thing I look at when I visit a blog for the first time. I want to know whether the blogger has interests in common with mine. I’ve changed my About Page so many times, never seeming to be satisfied that it is informative and conveys some personality.
The schedule thing comes up over and over again in advice on blogging but it doesn’t make that much sense to me. I’ve never felt I was missing out of a blogger posted on. Tuesday when normally they post on a Monday
It’s disheartening to say, but I’ve reached out to a few bloggers who suddenly went silent, and didn’t get any responses. It made me feel the worse had happened, especially when they social media accounts also went silent.
Well, I’m not sure I agree with the stick to a schedule rule. That’s the whole point of subscribing to a blog… you don’t have to go to the blog, the content comes to you when it’s available.
Also, it’s all well and good to say fix your broken links. But why does he not offer how to find them? I have used deadlinkchecker.com, a free online tool, in the past to help with this, but there are probably lots of other tools out there to do the job.
I don’t agree with the schedule advice either though I see it time and time again in any forums about blogging. I can’t imagine any of my followers are exactly waiting in desperation for me to post on a particular day and getting angst if I don’t. Nor am I ever conscious of schedules being followed by the bloggers I follow. What’s more important I think is regularity. It could be three times a week or just once a week but what you want to avoid are long gaps and silences.
There are a number of broken link services around as you say, I suppose he felt he couldn’t cover everything in one article.
I have seen this in some of the bigger blogs – those with huge followings so as to get almost commercial. I think regularity is important there.
We all seem to be on the same page about this aspect Nish
You’re right, Karen. I was focusing more on not having long gaps between posts when it came to scheduling. Not everyone signs up to receive new post email notifications from the blogs they follow, so it’s important to regularly publish content with no large gaps between posts if you’re publishing new posts at least once every few weeks.
You’re right. I should have put some details in about fixing links, but I was mainly focusing on links on the ‘about me’ and home pages of a blog. Also, any links contained in any widget bars of a blog. If too many are broken and don’t get fixed, it can turn readers away.
I love your devotion to improving our blogging. Thank you again. One of Hugh’s suggestions was along the lines of is your blog easy to navigate around? Which gets me wondering how many people come to ones site and then more or less idly look for interesting content. Not many I would have thought. I go to other blogs and use the search function when I’m looking stuff up or making links, and I try and refer readers of one post, who may have come from Google say, to other similar posts, but that’s about it.
When I visit a blog for the first time I look for the About page to get a sense of who the blogger is and what content I’ll find on the site. Then I’ll browse some content – the last few posts usually – and take a look at their menu where they might highlight some reading projects, I’m doing this to gauge whether this is a blog I wil want to follow. Finally I will look for any links to their social media profiles. If I have to hunt for any of those elements I get frustrated. Hence why navigation is important.
Having a search box on a blog is a vital tool to have, especially for new visitors. Like Karen said in her comment, if there is no way of finding what I’m looking for, I’ll move on. This also happens if I want to link to a particular post on somebodies blog, and have no way of finding it. I’ll link to somebody else’s post instead if they offer me a way to find that post.
Hugh, thanks for taking the trouble to come back here and making some clarifications after we all commented on your post on Karen’s site. Karen, I changed the tag line in my header (it now begins “Australian Literature”), I wonder if Google will notice.
You’re very welcome. I’m always happy to help.
That phrase should have an effect. It might take a little time for google to recognise changes
Interesting points! I have definitely been guilty of the “going a long time without posting” one. I did update my About Me page once or twice since starting my blog, but probably haven’t in a long time. I didn’t realize people who weren’t on WordPress weren’t able to comment on my blog after something changed with an update until someone told me either via Twitter or on their own blog, so that must have also been annoying and might have lost me followers along the way.
There may be times in our lives when we don’t have the energy to post or other life events take priority. Your readers wil understand that and those who are loyal wil stick with you, especially if you told them in advance yiu were going to go silent for a while. If you keep having long gaps though that might be a sign you need to think whether blogging is still for you
In my experience, if I’m following a blogger who regularly publishes content, and who then regularly publishes nothing for 3 or 4 months without any reason, the blog will start to lose followers. Out of sight, out of mind comes to mind, so try and publish content at least once a month. And if you are planning on taking a break, write and publish a post to inform your readers.
My experience may be helpful to some people.
There is this company in Finland called Semalt which specializes in making your blogs Google-friendly. I didn’t sign up for their service which costs money (especially when one time they called me at 3 AM our time to discuss my blog.) but instead intuited how to make my blog Google friendly. There is a line directly under the blog name in which I always posted a meaningful quote. Anyhow Google uses this line to determine what the blog is for. After I figured that out, I switched that line to always read “A Literary Fiction Book Review”, and my views have been going up ever since. I realize that line is rather pedestrian, but Google uses it to determine if they want use your source in their searches.
Thanks for sharing this tip. For the benefit of others who may be reading your comment, we are talking here about the tagline. WordPress offers this in all blog themes. It’s a good way to let readers know what the blog is about. Yiu say yours is pedestrian but I would describe it in more positive terms – it’s very clear about the nature of your site. So often Imsee tag lines which are cleverly written but actually don’t tell me what the site is going to offer me,