Author Blogging – Still Relevant?

Author Blogging…

Every few weeks, it seems, I have people ask me if blogging is still relevant, and more specifically if it’s relevant and important to blog as an author.

The short simple answer, yes and yes.

Here are some concrete reasons why yes, as an indie author, you should be blogging in 2019:

Search engines want fresh content.

What does that mean? Search engines give more relevance rating and weight to websites with fresh consistent content over a static website or a website that gets infrequent updates.

Key take away: blogging consistently helps your search engine rankings.

Give your readers something to read.

Blogging regularly on your author website is critical in helping to build that oh-so-important relationship with your ideal readers.

(And I cannot state how important this point is!)

As indie authors, to grow a base of loyal fans who want to read all of your words — be it books, short stories, or yes, even blog posts — you need to be blogging.

Key take away: relationship building with our ideal readers and fans is a critical part of being an indie author, and your blog is one of your best resources to do that.

Here are some questions I’ve received from indies recently concerning blogging:

But I’m already on social media, why should I have to blog too?

This one is an easy answer (that you already know the answer to). Social media platforms, any social media platform, can change the rules, their algorithms, or put your posts behind the “pay to play” wall. Think about the experience you’ve had with your own pages, and you will see it for yourself.

Over the past few years on different platforms we have seen algorithm changes which dropped visibility of posts on our author pages to near zero, at times; and we’ve seen our posts need to be “boosted” by paying money to make our posts more visible to some of those same users.

Short version: with social media platforms, they are in control, you are not. On your own website and newsletter, that dynamic changes you have control over your list of contacts and whether you make your content available for them to see.

But how am I going to find time to write social media posts for all the different social media platforms and my blog and my newsletter?

This one is surprisingly more easy than you may think. (Especially if you are using a WordPress-based websites). There are plug-ins available that will allow you share it to all of your social media platforms either automatically, or with a single click of a button.

What does that mean? That means you post once, and it goes to many places. One post… lots of visibility on different platforms… no extra work for you.

Also, don’t re-create the wheel!

Re-purpose your content. Just because someone may follow you on social media, does not mean they have seen your blog post. It also does not mean they have seen your newsletter. Even if they have, you can still re-purpose that same content effectively across all of those platforms.

What’s the point? I feel like no one ever sees it!

Two things:

1. 1. 1. Refer to the ‘sharing it automatically to all your platforms’ bit above – they’ll see it.
      2. That’s why you keep doing it consistently!  You didn’t give up on trying to walk the first time you fell down (or the first 500 times!). Keep doing it — they will come! 😁

Now next week, we’ll dig deeper into blogging and how to make your blog posts more effective, read-worthy, and without losing your sanity!

So, what do you think? Drop a comment below and let us know.