With all the incessant changes in the Instagram algorithm about saves and shares, it might seem like hashtags have lost their importance. But no, they have not.
Hashtags still matter a lot on Instagram, despite all the algorithm changes.
You can use up to 30 hashtags on a post, so make the best of it. I personally use all the available thirty hashtags.
That brings me to next question: whether to add your Instagram hashtags in your caption or comment? Why not do them both? You get the best of both worlds.
Do not repeat the same set of hashtags over and over. Mix and match relevant hashtags for better reach.
Include hashtags that have large, medium and niche/small reach in your posts. I have added a bunch of them at the end of the post, and again mix and match to your heart’s content.
Try to add in some geography specific hashtags, depending on wherever you are and the photo was captured at.
Also do not forget to count in book and author specific hashtags like #StephenKing or #TheClockworkPrince.
120+ hashtags for bookstagram
Here are more than 120+ hashtags that you can use for bookstagram (or any social media platform, for that matter) for your bookish content.
I typically save the hashtags on notepad or spreadsheet with their number of posts mentioned. That avoids the last minute frantic search for hashtags, and I can just copy paste relevant hashtags for Bookstagram when I am posting one.
Bookstagram Hashtags with over 1 Million posts (20)
I hope these Instagram hashtags for books and bookish content will be useful to you guys! If yes, please do leave a comment and share it with your friends.
What are your go to tricks for bookstagram? How do you choose your hashtags for bookstagram? Do you have an Instagram account specifically for books/reading and writing? Let’s talk.
Regularly publishing on your blog seems like a huge deal, often. And we usually forget about them after the first time we promote it. But it is also critical to revamp and update the old posts for improving the SEO ranking and increasing the traffic too.
10 ways to update old posts for higher SEO ranking
Adding relevant updates to your old posts is critical, especially the time sensitive topics like “New Year resolutions” or “Holiday gifts”. These are evergreen posts, but unless you update them with new content the algorithms might ignore them as old posts.
[toc]
Instead of churning out content week after week, spend sometime to update old posts and that will help you in improving your SEO ranking and thereby driving more organic traffic. Here are some ways to do just that.
1) Edit your content with relevant updates
Has your opinion or thoughts recently changed about the topic? Or have you learned more on the subject?
Do not hesitate to make the changes in your old posts. Even adding the current year to the heading (H1) might be a good idea for periodical posts.
Linking with time sensitive researches and infographics are other smart ways to update old posts for higher SEO ranking and traffic.
2) Tune up to the current formatting style
With all the fast changes in blogging world happening, keeping up with the recommended formatting style becomes vital.
For example, including a schema and adding relevant H2 tags to your posts will help you get to that spot as featured snippet in Google search page.
Also the uniform layout and styles will keep it easy for your reader’s eyes.
3) Add related posts
One of the easiest ways to keep the readers hooked to your blog is showing them more related content.
A few months ago I started doing this on my recent posts as an attempt to take some traffic to my old, neglected posts. I added a “Similar posts you might like” section before I signed off (or CTA), and there has been a significant decrease in the bounce rates.
You can even add a simple plugin if you are on Self hosted WordPress to do this for you!
4) Fix (or remove) broken links
Adding external links to your posts improves your credibility in the eyes of your readers. But as time passes, those links may become irrelevant or broken.
There are many free sites that can scan your site for broken links (for free!). And once you get the list of broken links on your site, remove and/or update the broken links manually.
Fixing these broken links creates a better user experience as well as shows the search engine and its crawlers that the post is still relevant and updated.
5) Rewriting your meta descriptions and titles
Ensure your older posts have your meta descriptions and titles filled.
With all my enthusiasm to churn out content, I had not bothered to fill those important details for quite a number of posts in my earlier days of blogging.
As a step in improving the SEO I am writing and rewriting the meta description and adding meta title tags to my older posts.
And guess what? The search engines consider this as new content and sends in more traffic!
6) Add in Alt text tags to your images
While updating your meta descriptions and titles, add the alt texts with relevant descriptions (or keywords) of your images.
I have already spoken in depth about the importance of alt texts in my post on Easy steps to SEO for bloggers here. But in short, alt text tags help the search engine crawlers to identify what the image is about.
7) Create Pinterest worthy images
With more and more bloggers shifting to Pinterest for promoting their sites, it has become essential to have a few Pinterest sized images in each posts.
While some might choose to hide a few of these images, they all have to be Pin-able and Pinterest ready.
If you are newly adding these Pinterest sized images, update your old posts first!
8) DO NOT CHANGE THE URL
When you are in the process of updating old posts for higher SEO ranking and traffic, ensure you do not edit the page URL, unless it is absolutely essential.
Editing the URL would lose the valuable traffic and history that the post had gained so far. For this reason, it is better not to have any dates/years (like 2018 resolutions) in your URL.
But if you had to change your URL for some reason, ensure you use a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one.
9) Update your affiliate links
If you have joined new affiliates sites or if the links have changed, now is the good time to scan and fix them.
Using a plugin like thirsty affiliates this might be easier to do, in a self hosted WordPress.
10) Promote all over again
Finally, when you have finished all updating your old posts, promote the post like you would promote any new content, for higher SEO ranking and traffic.
Now that your old post is refurbished with updated info, new images and links, it is as good as a new one. And this will drive more traffic from social media as well.
Final word
Once you re-up your old posts keep an eye on its performance and metrics. I am sure there will be a spike in a week or so. And if you schedule some time to update a few of your old posts every week, you will can see a continuous increase in your organic traffic too.
How often do you update old posts? Have you seen any improvement in your organic traffic due to that? What other blogging topics do you want me to discuss? Let us talk.
I love posting bookish photos on my Instagram account. Often, I run into some slump and freeze when I try to come up with captions. Then I realized I can use my favorite quotes for Instagram captions. And that is a life saver, honestly.
Do you ever feel stumped when you write captions on your bookstagram? Here are some book quotes for Instagram captions that may perfectly say what you want to and keep your readers hooked.
“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.
― Groucho Marx, The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish
Books are a uniquely portable magic.
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
It’s strange because sometimes, I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book.
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines
It is is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially.
Social media for authors is critical! The size of your social media presence of an author, especially if you are self published, can make a huge difference in your book promotion. Using it effectively to connect and engage your readers, fellow writers and and the publishing community as a whole, can go a long way in your marketing campaign.
Let us talk about a few things to remind yourself to make social media for authors and writers more successful.
Social media for authors
[ez-toc]
Don’t make it all about you!
Unlike your personal social media accounts, your author profile accounts shouldn’t revolve around you and your personal tastes. Sharing current writing/reading updates aside, try to share content from other sources, not just Amazon links to your books.
Talking about the causes that are passionate to you is great on social media but try to keep your author pages professional and to the point.
Host giveaways
Another great way to increase your followers and keep them hooked is host awesome giveaways. There is a huge market for bookish merchandise like bookmark, pins and posters. And of course signed copy is truly cherished.
Ensure you are not spending too much time over social media – time that you can be using for writing or editing your next book. Scheduling posts for a week can reduce your work load by half.
For example, Twitter lists help you to curate similar accounts into group and organize your followers better. You can even subscribe to someone else’s public list.
Interesting and useful bio
Your bio is the first thing that a new or potential follower would be looking at. It often acts as a resume and an ad for yourself. It should provide a glimpse of who you are as a person and why they should follow/subscribe to your account or channel.
Do not try too hard to be funny or smart. It more often than not, backfires.
Don’t read reviews
Call this as a word of caution or request from a book blogger/ reviewer, but do yourself (and others, too) a favor and avoid reading reviews of your own book.
While it is nice and essential to engage with reviewers and bloggers during your book promotion, it is not fair when authors read the reviews and discuss about it to the reviewer. The reviews are usually written for the readers and other bloggers – not authors!
Pitch wars
Another exciting step towards getting your book published is getting noticed by literary agents and publishing companies. And pitching events on social media, especially on Twitter, could make your chance.
Basically, these events are like “the Voice” but for authors. If your manuscript get selected, you get mentored by experienced authors and agents. #PitMad, #Pitchwar, #DVPit, are all good places to start!
Get involved Community
Social media is a platform for you to finally get involved with your own peers and readers. And that can happen only when you stop lurking and put yourself out there.
Give writing tips and advice. Answer questions and polls, even AMAs (Ask Me Anything). Engage with peers and fans. Share interesting articles and follow your favorites.
#WritingCommunity and #indieauthor are great places to meet your fellow writers. Maybe you will find next best friend right there.
Consistency
Last but not the least, try to be consistent in your goal and content plan. Posting for a few days and then disappearing for the next few weeks is not going to help anyone.
Consider this as a groundwork for your book promotion and more importantly, for the emotional connections you will need. It is a time taking project and will sometime eat too much of your time. But it is indispensable!
Which social media platforms you can’t do without? What do you think are the biggest pain points when it comes to social media for authors? What do you do to increase your following? Let us talk.
Welcome to the final part of the series on making blogging schedules work for you, and this is where I tell what works for me and what doesn’t. Here is my typical day as a book blogger to inspire and help you make your own blog schedule that works.
Typically I spend more than 30 hours per week on my blog and book blogging related works, making me a part time blogger and more. I also juggle between beta reading, writing and content development work for my clients. And none of this would be possible without a proper blog schedule that works for me.
I normally post four times a week and I have a bookstagram where I post thrice a week. And I am nothing if not being consistent. Yes that sounds like a lot for a hobby blog, but fortunately Elgee Writes is not just a blog that I work on for fun.
To put it in perspective, I work so hard on my blog because it acts as my portfolio and this is where I generate my paid clients from. You will understand it better if you start substituting “content marketing” every time you call it “blogging”.
I have an almost set routine, though the COVID19 situation has thrown the balance a little off. But it still works with minor tweaking here and there.
My mornings
My typical day begins around 6 30 AM. I am not a morning person, but I have come to realize that waking a bit early gets a lot of things done and you can always slack later in the day, if you want to.
I love spending the first hour or so on writing, so that I can actually focus and not worry about answering texts or calls.
7 to 8 30 AM: Usually I have prepared outlines for the blog posts or article for my clients the previous day or so, and I just have to put my thoughts into words without having to use the browser for research (AKA the distractions) much.
8 30 to 9 30 AM: Once that is done, and as my family wakes up I make a quick breakfast and coffee hustle. If you personally know me, you would understand when I say “I need a breakfast before 9”. Else, you will have to believe me when I say “HANGRY” was made up to describe me.
Since we are all working from home at the moment (and possibly until the end 2020 at least), things are kinda slow for now. Else this would be my peak time in terms of household chores.
9 30 to 11 00 AM: This is when I write down my to-do list for the day and check if any weekly goals have to be changed. Speaking of goals, I also do a check in of my Google analytics and social media stats on a daily basis.
I also quickly hop on to the social media to check if my scheduled posts are getting posted and answer any DMs or mentions I have received. This invariably ends up with my scrolling my Twitter and Instagram feed for a while.
If there were any client calls I schedule them here, so that I can alter my schedule if needed.
Depending upon the day and the work schedule, I usually spend the morning reading something for work (AKA beta reading a manuscript) or a non fiction.
11 00 AM to 1 00 PM: This is the time I spend on cooking lunch, catching up on errands and household chores. I also have a very long curly hair routine which I try to squeeze in here too.
My noons
1 00 PM to 2 00 PM – I usually hit the gym on weekdays just before lunch. This is a practice that I am trying to build again, now that the gyms are open in the UAE and we are free to use them.
Being the bookworm that I am, I usually read on my phone while workout on the treadmill or so just to keep me distracted from the fact that I am actually working out. I will let you know when it actually works.
2 30 to 6 00PM – This is the time I completely spend on research and development which means I am doing email outreach and pitching for clients.
This is probably the second most productive time of my day.
The daily chores can range from clicking photos for bookstagram to logo designing for a client. And one day is like no other. There is always something going on and fire to put out.
Sometimes (though I am trying curb that habit too) I catch up something on Netflix while I do some monotonous task. White noise helps me too.
My evenings
6 00PM to 7 00PM – Depending on the weather, I take a walk or watch Netflix or just take a break from work.
7 00PM to 9 00PM – Dinner and family time. I speak to my parents who are back in India and would be retiring to bed around this time. So that helps.
9 00PM to 11 00PM – I catch up with whatever is pending from the day.
I usually spend the time prepping for the next day’s writing session in terms of outline, tone etc.
I usually hit the bed by 11 00 PM and read a bit (or lot, depending on the book) until I can convince myself to sleep.
On most days, I get most things on my list done. It is generally a full packed day and I rarely take off. But it is only because I love what I do and I love keeping myself busy.
What do you think atypical day of a book blogger looks like? What is yours like? On an average, do you get most things done on a daily basis? Let us talk.