When I first started blogging, I didn't read any other blogs, let alone comment on any! I only had a few followers, all of which were friends and family. The simple fact is: no-one knew about my blog. It was just some distant web page, buried in hundreds of others of its kind. Not that that's that different now but it's all relative. One of the many ways to solve the problem of getting page views is to blog hop, leave comments and connect with other bloggers. Today I wanted to share some thoughts about all of this and hopefully either help you out in your blog, or satisfy your burning curiosity!
Blog hopping is about reading blogs that connect you to other blogs, reading them for a bit until you find other blogs...it's all about reading blogs! I'm sure I could do it for hours! You can comment on blogs, but you don't have to. There aren't any rules (well, except don't leave mean comments)! There are however, other advantages to doing this, other than getting a bunch of book recommendations and post ideas!
Advantages To Blog Hopping (Other Than Recommendations and Post Ideas):
- Discover so many new blogs, opinions, people...
There are so many people out there - so many opinions and wonderful blogs that deserve your subscription! Maybe a post on a blog will change your ideas about an author, will make you reconsider a decision, will make you want to write your own review or discussion post...The possibilities are endless!
- Growing your own blog
If you leave some comments, some trace that you've been there, maybe a lovely fellow blogger will want to thank you and will take a look at your blog. Maybe they'll subscribe, comment...And you can do the same to them and support them!
- Make someone's day
Especially for smaller blogs, every comment is priceless. I know that every comment always makes my day and I think this is true for every smaller blogger, I guess when you get 50 comments on every post they become more insignificant but still special of course!
My Tips To Blog Hop:
- Use weekly memes
These include Top Ten Tuesday and every week you can add your blog to a list and this also provides a great resource for finding a ton of new blogs! Each Top Ten Tuesday list usually gets over 100 blogs added, plenty to kick off your blog hopping!
- Check sidebars/menus
Often, bloggers will put their favourite blogs either in the sidebar or as a page or tab or something. I have mine at the top of my blog. This can be a wonderful way to connect with blogs similar to the one you are reading!
- Comments
A lot of people who comment are bloggers themselves so if you have a read of the comments you will find so many blogs!
- When you find a link, Ctrl click
This means it will open in a new tab, meaning you can return to the page you came from and find more blogs if that one doesn't work out! It saves time too because you don't have to spam the back button!
How You Can Be Part Of Other People's Blog Hopping Adventures:
If you want people read your blog, possibly as part of their own blog hopping session, here are a few tips:
Comment
Comments are vital. If you comment, you will most likely get views from it, especially if you sign off with your blog url. If you are present enough in the community, people will get to know you and get to know your blog and one day will take a look. It works both ways though: you put the work in by commenting and reading people's posts, they will do the same for you. Also if you comment, the blog owner will most likely repay the favour and comment back on your blog.
Weekly Memes
This has definitely been one of the biggest game changers for me. It's so fun to connect with people over a joint topic and people are so kind with their comments and you can read their posts...I don't know if this is something other blogging communities do but if you have a book blog, this is something you should definitely consider. If you don't know, it is basically where a host blog will set a particular theme, prompt or topic and you can change it slightly to suit you and you can do a post about it that goes out on a particular day of the week and then link it up to the host's website where you can also browse other people's posts. The only one I take part in is Top Ten Tuesday hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, but I know of so many more that I regularly see on other people's blogs such as Waiting On Wednesday or First Lines Friday!
Essentially, being present in the blogging community is vital!
Blog hopping is so fun and it has the potential to be very beneficial to you too! It's all part of the joy of blogging and it's something I'm becoming increasingly a fan of! I would say that you may want to set a timer though, you may end up falling into a bottomless pit of blog after blog!
I know some people don't like blog hopping, and that is (of course) fine. But I highly recommend giving it a go, even if you just set aside ten minutes and see where you get to!
I can't guarantee that it will help you gain followers, page views and comments but I think it will definitely help. Gaining followers is a bit harder because people have to want to recieve regular emails from you, but getting page views and comments can definitely be achieved by following these tips.
I hope these tips on how to Blog Hop are useful to you!
Do you blog hop? Any tips? How do you gain followers, page views and comments?
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Very interesting post, Zoe! I do blog hop and it's helped my site tremendously. And thanks to you for stopping by so much!
ReplyDeleteThank you for repaying the favour! It truly means so much...I hope that blog hopping will help my site! Xx
DeleteHi there Zoe!
ReplyDeleteVery good and accurate post!
You need to be active on the blogosphere as much as possible. Life and time does restrict us on this a bit though. But I try as much as I can.
I've switched from Blogger to Wordpress in August last year and I still actually struggle to built up the same page views and followers. My Bloglovin account went haywire after the migration and no one there even cares to help you.
Anyways, we do what we can and support each other as much as we can!! Thanks for having our backs.
Elza Reads
Interesting about the move from blogger to WordPress...I am vaguely thinking about it but I'm still not sure, you've definitely given me some more food for thought! Yes, supporting each other is all we can do, thank you so much for this comment and being so lovely in replying to my comments on your blog and returning the favour!
DeleteI love blog hopping. I like discovering new blogs since these days, more people are at social media than at blogs.
ReplyDeleteComments are great even if you have been blogging a long while. It's surprising who comes to your blog sometimes. Even long time blogger like find it thrilling when even if I just get one comment for a post. It's what makes blogging fun. The idea of blogging for yourselves never seems appealing to me because you don't post so you can talk to yourself.
Sadly, many of my favorite bloggers are no longer posting but at least, a lot of us are still around.
Have a lovely day.
I still don't know what to think about the way that booktube bookstagram and booktok have overshadowed the book blogs...I love it because well, more bookish content! But I hate the way people who are present in these communities don't seem to read book blogs and support us!
DeleteI love the connections I make through comments, just chatting to people about books! It's always something I love and right now I'm on holiday and using my data to view and reply to comments! I just can't stop!
I love delving back into no longer active blogs and seeing their old posts, I love Lucy powrie's booktube channel and I've enjoyed reading back through her old blog.
Thank you so much for being here!!
I never understood what exactly Weekly Memes were, let alone called, until I read your post. Thank you so much! Who hosts the other memes? Is it easy to find them with a quick search? Don't have any advice as of yet as I'm a new book blogger. Great detailed post!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome ;) I have seen a lot of Waiting on Wednesday around which is hosted by breakingthespine.blogspot.com and Thriller Thursday as well as a few Sunday ones. If you subscribe and regularly read book blogs, you will quickly get to know some others! Good luck with your blog, thanks for the support!
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