Getting traffic to your book’s blog is all-important for any author. It’s publicity, and the more publicity you have, the better. Just like anything online, word travels fast, and the more visitors that come to your blog, the faster that word will travel.
The key is getting readers to the blog. Here are some tips to help them find their way.
1. Offer your book for free…
This doesn’t mean you are giving your hard work away for nothing. Of course, you want to sell it, but if you offer it out for free for the first 25 visitors (or 50 or any number), it will not only get people to visit your blog – to get the book – but it will also get that word out once more people are reading your book. This is especially effective for an eBook.
2. Ask for something in return…
Another way to offer the book for free is to ask for a review in return. If you have your book listed on Amazon.com, then your readers can write a review to post and mention your book’s blog. Not only does it get the word going about your book, but it also gets a review on Amazon with information about your blog. Win-win!
You can also use Goodreads.com as another venue for reviews and giveaways.
3. Post on well-known blogs
Sometimes this will work better than other times, but it’s worth a try. Of course, the best option would be a guest post on a top blog, but that can be quite hard to get.
If you can’t, try just commenting on some of the top blogs that relate to your book. Along with your post, you can add a link to your book’s blog. If you are lucky, the blogger will refer to it as well and may post a link on the blog itself.
4. Use YouTube
With all the traffic on YouTube, this is a great way to get visitors to your book’s blog. Create an account, make a video relevant to your work (and hopefully interesting), add the address to your blog, and you are all set to upload it and have it ready to share. Be clear and concise in your video; don’t try to sneak anything past your viewers.
5. Tweet!
Through searching similar genres, you’ll find readers who may be interested in your style as well. Follow as many as you can; they may start following you, too, and tweet away. Remember to interact and engage, don’t just tweet your book’s name and your website, or else your followers will quickly hit that “unfollow” button. Tweet about other articles or things related to your book as well.
6. Link EVERYTHING to your blog
Link to your blog through all your social media – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Goodreads – anything and everything. Post when you write a new blog post, and let your readers and followers know about it.
A good idea is to not just say, “Check out my latest post,” but to give a little teaser to pull readers over to your blog.
7. Do interviews
Find someone in your same boat and interview each other. Or find another author and just interview him or her; you don’t even need to ask for one in return. They will post the interview, more than likely with a link to your blog. Those readers will, in turn, come to you. Everyone likes publicity, and by offering to help someone else out, you get some publicity, too.
Any author would love a traffic-filled blog about his book, but sometimes it takes some creative work to get it there. Don’t be afraid to step outside of your blog to do it.