Adding WordPress follow button to your self hosted sites

Adding WordPress follow button to your self hosted sites

One of the main reason I switched over to WordPress years was the nifty follow button that shows your follower count and more importantly the ease of new posts showing up on your WP feed Reader. So imagine my surprise when I found that the self hosted WordPress sites do not have the follow button natively? 

Of course there is a way to get it added, and it is not too difficult. And I did the WordPress follow button on to my sidebar here and my home page here. 

How do you follow WordPress blogs? Do you have a follow button on your WordPress blog? If not, here is how you can do it! #Wordpressblog #Bloggers Click To Tweet

Adding the button on self hosted sites

In fact it is one of those basic things that every blog or site should have! So with no further ado, can we get to adding those buttons on our self hosted wordpress site?

Jetpack plugin

1. Ensure your self hosted wordpress site/blog is Jetpacked powered. Basically check if this Jetpack plugin is installed. It usually is, but if it is not just do it.

Where do you want the button

2. Choose where on earth your site you are going to add the button. Just make sure it is a prominent place. 

The most obvious choices are

  • sidebar header 
  • footer
  • But in some cases, like this post, you can add it to your posts (see the end of the post).
  • And your ‘about me’ and contact pages, as well

Get the code

You can use this code generator from WordPress to generate your WordPress Follow button. 

The options here are pretty simple.You can choose to show your site name (better to leave it on).

Button options for adding a WordPress follow button on your self hosted websites

And show/hide the count of followers, as you wish.

Click the generate button.

Add the code to your site

Now for the important bit.

Insert the code to wherever you want the follow button to appear.

Code generator for adding a WordPress follow button on your self hosted websites

This is how my code below my ‘about me’ looks.

How to add a WordPress follow button on your self hosted websites

I am adding it to a custom HTML widget to display on my sidebar. 

elgeewrites Adding Wordpress follow button to your self hosted sites Wordpress Follow button HTML
adding a WordPress follow button on your self hosted websites

I am also adding the code snippet to this post, for good measure. 

adding a WordPress follow button on your self hosted websites

And you are DONE!

How does it work?

Now you can have your blog posts sent directly to others WordPress reader, without them signing up with an email address. 

If you have problems implementing any of these or would like to hear more on these feel free to chat up.

And don’t forget to follow me!

Follow Elgee Writes on WordPress.com

Previously on blogging tips for book bloggers

Check out this link for more of blogger resources posts and how to guides.

Pin me!

Adding a WordPress follow button on your self hosted websites Pinterest

Let us chat

So what do you think about this little ‘how to’ guide? Do you have your WordPress follow button enabled? If you want any other guide for book blogging let me know. Let us talk.

Adding WordPress follow button to your self hosted sites

How to improve engagement in book review posts?

As many of us would agree, book review posts draw the least traffic and engagement in a book blog. Despite this notoriety, many of us don’t want to stop posting reviews as many of us including me started our book blogs initially to talk about the books we read and how we feel about them. 

While it is not possible to make every visitor engage, we can tailor our review posts to suit their needs. And in the process, motivate them to engage. Tell us your ideas to improve engagement in book review posts Click To Tweet

How to improve engagement in book review posts?

What makes a visitor comment on a post or not is not easy to understand. While it is not possible for us to satisfy and engage with every visitor, it is possible to tailor our review posts to suit their needs. And in the process, motivate them to create engagement and increase traffic. 

Make the summary more interesting

Do you still copy the blurb/summary of the book from Goodreads or Amazon? 

The plot summary is something that is usually placed on the top part of the review. When the readers come across something that they can read elsewhere, they tend to skim over them and lose connection with the post. 

Skip the copy paste. Write the summary in your own words and keep it as short as you can. And that reminds me of something else.

Avoid including spoilers 

One of the reasons that your visitor is skipping reading reviews on blogs is to avoid spoilers. Repeat visitors usually remember these bad experiences in a blog and may avoid their review posts altogether. 

Make sure that you don’t spoil the reading experience for anyone else. And if at all, you can’t avoid a spoiler or two ensure they are hidden unless they are specifically clicked open. 

Make your star rating stand out 

The first thing most readers look at is a score or star rating when they visit a review post. So make sure your rating stands out from all your other texts.
Explain why you rated the book as you did and obviously be fair in your rating. 

Of course, you may choose not to rate a book in a review, (like I did). You do you.

Sprinkle your personality

Anyone with a blog can write a review. What makes yours different from the thousand others? YOU. People visit your blog and your review to know what YOU think about the book. They are not at a blog to get an impersonal, critique review. (But if you think that is what you want to do, please continue to do it with style.)

Try including your life and emotions into the review posts, just like you would in any other discussion or tag post. Be the fangirl that you are (or the snarky ray of sunshine as it might be), people like that kinda genuineness. 

Improve the aesthetics

It is no secret that people love seeing beautiful and colorful things. Make your reviews pleasant to look at and maybe pepper in a few relevant GIFs just to hold in their attention. 

Of course, good quality content is more important than images. But heart (and attention) wants what it wants. 

Talk about both the good and not so good parts

It is often a criticism that bloggers are so focused on hyping up a book they like that they shy away from talking about the negatives in a book. This is especially true when they review a book they received from an author or publisher. 

In my opinion, our duty as a blogger is first to the reader – to tell them what our honest views about the book. If you also share that opinion, please do share both the positives and negatives you may find in a book. 

But be gentle and professional about your critique – say what worked for you and what didn’t. Remember you can be critical of the book, not the author. 

End with a question or two

Another way to motivate your readers to comment is to pose questions at the end of your review. Ask both book specific questions, for people who have read the book already, and generic questions for others so that there will be something for all the readers to mull upon and answer.

Relate to other books 

At the risk of annoying some readers when you get it wrong, comparing and relate the book you review with some other book or movie may help your reader to take a decision about the book.

For example, I recommended One Day in December to all Bridget Jones fans. Now they can understand the mood and tone of the story better and they can make an informed decision.

More importantly, now the other Bridget Jones’ fans might be interested to comment on how true your comparison is.. 

Read popular books 

When all else fails, people search for reviews of book that they read or want to read. Thus reviewing popular and trending books may improve your chances of engagement in book review posts.

You do not have to go out of your favorite genres to do this but reading popular ones in your genre is a good idea. And getting off your comfort zone may work for you as well. 

Previously on blogging tips for book bloggers

Check out this link for more of such posts.

Pin me!

improve engagement in book review Pin me

Let us talk

What do you think makes a reader motivated to read and comment on your review? Or what do you as a reader would want in a book review to make it useful to make a decision? How to improve engagement in book review posts? Let us talk.

Adding WordPress follow button to your self hosted sites

Book reviews don’t get much engagement: Why?

As many of us did, I started my blog to talk about the books I read aka book reviews. At some point, people in my real life could only take so much of my nerdiness and were glad that I found a place (where they weren’t required to be present) to do that. 

That is why, despite what the statistics say and constant murmur about how “nobody reads book reviews”, I can’t give up writing on book reviews on my blog. Yes I agree they bring fewer comments and likes, if at all, but it is something I do for myself – even if it has shifted being a rant review from the initial days to a more structured format now. 

Why #bookreviews do not do so well in terms of #engagement, despite the fact that just few years ago that was all the #bookblogs were doing? What do you do to make them more appealing? Let us talk. Click To Tweet

It is true that many book bloggers have reduced the frequency of posting book reviews. And a few have even stopped posting them altogether on their blogs and publish them on Goodreads instead. Well, that is never happening on Elgee Writes

I am good at over-analyzing things and sometimes I do make sense. I have been wondering why book reviews don’t get engagement, despite the fact that just few years ago, that was all the book blogs were doing. 

Why book reviews don’t get engagement, actually?

Why aren’t book reviews getting the attention they deserve? Especially considering they are one of the hardest type of posts to write on a book blog. Well, let me over-analyze that for you.

“I want review of *insert hyped book title*!”

The popularity of the book reviews is almost dependent on how popular the books you review are. But as a reader/reviewer, I can not always read books that are popular because

  • I may not have access to all the popular books due to geography and duh.. money.
  • I may not be interested in those books, bringing me to the next point.

“I don’t read historical romance!”

Every reader/blogger has a favorite genre of books. And not everyone will love to read all genres. I for one, read very few Science Fiction and fewer Fantasy books. 

I am definitely losing on readers who are looking for reviews of Sci-fi/Fantasy books. For want of more readers, I don’t think I can spend time reading what I am not interested. I know that goes against everything blogging stands for, but sorry.

“Reviews are very subjective”

More often than not, book reviews in blogs talk about what WE THINK of the book, as blogs should be doing. We end up talking what WE liked in a book and what WE didn’t. We do not talk about what was good and bad in an objective manner, nor many of us aim to do that too. 

Obviously, we like that kinda subjectivity and prefer to keep that way. So unless the reader shares our tastes and preferences in choosing books, they may choose to ignore our reviews and we can do nothing about it.

“Part three? I have not even read the first!!”

Trilogies are all the rage currently. And when you review a book that is part of a series, you have a fairly smaller audience because unless they have read the other books the readers may not be interested in yours at all.

Sometimes readers might hold out on reading your review until they read other parts so that they can avoid its influenced. 

“Have I heard of this book?!”

If your reading tastes are anything like mine, your reviews will be books that very few people have heard of. My reading list rarely consists of popular books, though I am trying to change that and begun reading more Young Adults and romances last year. 

So it goes without being said, those book reviews have fewer engagements. As a reader of “not so popular-yet” books, I have to take that chance.

“Reviews are not honest enough”

Of late there has been a shift in the review field, that bloggers are shying away or refraining from giving a negative or even a moderately critical review for any book.

Yes I understand why they decide to do that (saving their mind’s peace is one of the main reason) but still as a reader I might want to know what went wrong in the book by reading a review. 

So when that doesn’t happen often they might tend to quickly dismiss reviews as mere promotion tool for the author.

“What to comment?!”

Many a times, readers are genuinely stumped, not knowing what to say. Unless your reviews stand out and make them want to talk about them, book reviews usually do not invoke much response. What could they say about your thoughts about a book they have not read yet? 

I usually throw them a lifeline asking something generic at the end of my post so that it might help to comment, even without reading that particular book. But beyond that, there is nothing else I can do about it. 

Can we make book reviews better?

On an average, I follow about 50+ book blogs on a regular basis and if each even posts one book review per week I read about 150 book reviews approximately each month. I am sure many bloggers do more than I do. 

That makes it quite understandable that people skip commenting on book reviews, which let’s face it, are a drag compared to other posts like tags or discussions.

So it is on us as a blogger to make the reviews more engaging and interesting. I will post more on that in the coming weeks. 

Pin me!

Book reviews don't get much engagement Pin me

Let us talk

Do you still post book reviews on your blog? Why do you think book reviews don’t get engagement at all? If you are a reader, let us know what do you expect from a review to make it more useful? Let us talk. 

Adding WordPress follow button to your self hosted sites

2020 and the reading challenges that I signed up

Happy new year 2020 y’all. I am not sure if it is still cool to talk about “New Year, New me” but I am always excited for a chance to start new. Yes, I am that kid that would try to buy entire set of stationery after every summer break. Of course, never worked, thanks to my desi parents.

Coming back to the topic, I get too excited for each new year and make elaborate plans. The planning process may start well in advance, say in October sometimes.

Happy New year 2020 ya'll. What are the reading challenges that I might be missing out on? Let us talk about challenges I am signing up for in 2020. Click To Tweet

Remember how started last year with such a big bang and then after July life happened and all my plans and schedules went to a toss? Oh I will post an update on those goals soon, just for the laughs.

Well, I learnt nothing from that. I am gonna make another try now. If you had any doubts, I am definitely go big or go home kinda girl. 

Goodreads Reading Challenge 2020 

Last year I chose 45 books to read for my Goodreads Reading Challenge and I read 53 books. I am gonna try and do the same this year as well. 

Target: 45 

2020 A To Z Reading Challenge

I loved doing the 2020 A to Z reading Challenge by Ginger Mom and company over the past two years. And I am more than excited to join the fun again. I am planning to join the mini challenges as well. 

Target: 26 books – one for each alphabet and as many mini-challenges as possible.

South Asian Reading challenge

I recently found out I am not reading as many desi and South Asian books as I should be and I want to change that. And later I found Fanna from Fannatality is organizing a challenge just for that. 

So yes, I am a big deal of it and gonna try read as much as I can.

Reading more Classics 

I read some classics for the first time ever in 2019 and I can’t believe I have never read them earlier. So I am gonna continue to do them in 2020 as well. 

I will follow the ones recommended by the following for my reading choices. 

Read and review more Indies

Don’t you love finding out an amazing book to love, especially one that not many of your friends know,just so you can hound them so that they would read it? No? Sorry, maybe it is just me.

That is why I love this challenge. I am going to read as many indie novels as I can – as a beta reader and a reviewer. 

Also,  if you are an indie author, consider writing a guest post for Elgee Writes.

Pin me!

elgeewrites 2020 and the reading challenges that I signed up 2020P

Let us talk!

So these are the reading challenges that I would be partaking in 2020. How about you? What are the challenges that I might be missing out on? Let me know and let us talk.

Adding WordPress follow button to your self hosted sites

Beginners Guide to SEO for bloggers – Things You Can Do Today!

I am glad you are still with me! I was wondering if I had chased of all you guys with those technical (read as: boring) blogging terms. And I am gonna go out on a limb and imagine that you are here for my next post on the series on blogging for non techies. And today let us talk about SEO basics for bloggers, even if you are a newbie.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization are just techniques to help the search engines find your site easily. Do you focus on SEO as a blogger? If not, why? Let us talk. Click To Tweet

Beginners Guide to SEO for bloggers

SEO or Search Engine Optimization are just techniques to help the search engines find your site easily. I know it seems like some sorcery to increase the traffic but it is not so. Maybe it is, but I am only talking about those little things that you and I can do without having to relearn blogging entirely. 

While I still want blogging to be fun and a place to talk about things you love, I don’t mind taking these small extra steps that may not take much of your time. Also, it is not like you have to do them all. Just pick only what you can do and enjoy blogging rather than stressing yourself too much.

[toc]

Choosing the right keyword

Keywords are the search phrases that we type on the search engine. I have discussed more on what keywords are in my earlier post and let us focus on how to put them to use effectively now.

SEO For Book Bloggers

The aim is finding a balance between using an unique keyword (that nobody uses) and using something that everyone uses. Give a bit of thought on ‘What search queries would your post answer to? ‘ and this will help you in achieving a better SEO as a blogger.

For example, let us talk about the keyword for my review on Fahrenheit 451, instead of using just the title of the book, I use the title and the word book review, just to make sure it is not the film but the book that I am reviewing.

This is just to give a basic idea, there are several free keyword planner tools online to help you choose better. But that is a topic for another day!

While I totally support using the keyword three or four times in your post, DO NOT JUST DUMP THE KEYWORD IN EVERY ALTERNATE SENTENCE. Google will punish you for overusing (keyword stuffing) it !

SEO friendly title

The whole objective of a title is to tell the reader (and the search engine) what the post is about. I know it may sound obvious but you will not believe the number of blogs that fail to do this. The easiest way to achieve this is to use the keyword itself, when it is possible. 

I have been using this “book review: title of the book” as a standard format where title of the book is the keyword. Quite recently I found out “Title of the book – a review” works better, the keyword being at the beginning. I will let you know if changing them makes a difference.

Permalinks

Having a strong permalink or URL to your post is kinda important too. Make sure it is not too long or too short. And it ideally should contain the keyword. In case of a review, I usually include the title, the term review and if that is too short I add the author’s name too.

SEO For Book Bloggers

One of the major advantage of moving to WordPress is that I got to change all my permalinks (AKA the URLs) and get rid of those dates from them. The dates do not have anything with SEO, but I personally didn’t like them because they dated the posts and made the permalinks too long.

Use shorter paragraphs and headings

It should not come as a surprise when I say we, readers, have a short attention spans and that posts with shorter paragraphs work better. But including relevant headings to your paragraphs makes the search engine appreciate it better, because you are now telling it see what is important, ie, your heading.

Make an attempt to use headings (H2) and sub headings (H3) in your post, as relevant. If you can, include the keyword in your H2 tags (the headings) without making it too conspicuous.

Meta description

Another place to sneak in the keywords is the meta description, which is like the blurb to your post. Since it is the first few lines that a reader sees make sure it piques the interest of the reader before they click the link. 

SEO For Book Bloggers

In case you don’t write a meta description, the search engine will use the first 160 characters of your post which may not be as good as you write your own. So it is always a better SEO practice to include the meta description.

Attention grabbing first paragraph

Just like in the real world, you get to make the first impression just once. Many people stop reading after the first three lines and if you don’t impress them by then, they would leave your page.

SEO For Book Bloggers

For this reason, I usually avoid copy pasting the blurb content (from Goodreads) as the first paragraph in my reviews. But whatever you add in there, just make sure the keyword is included. 

Put your images to use

With blogging becoming more and more visual, we need to make sure our images are top notch. Be it just using the book cover or a relevant image from Google search, we need to make sure they are not only on brand but also SEO friendly.

Though search engine crawlers are essentially “blind”, we can make sure they index and rank our images with the image alternate text/tag. Including the alt text might seem negligible but it will be so much better than “IMG56784” when you fill the alt text with something relevant like “Blogging terms to know keyword”. 

Blogging terms to know - Alt text Alt tag

While you are at it, follow the same rule when you name your image. 

Interlinking

I may have already spoken about how crucial interlinking the posts in your site was and I think it is worth a repeat. Basically you are trying to hold the attention of the reader to your blog and make them go binge reading your posts. Linking to your older reviews or any other relevant posts is a way to reduce the bounce rates as well. 

Creating an archive page like Evelina has at her Avalinah’s Space or a simple index of your reviews is also a good idea. They offer a bird’s eye view of all your posts to the readers and helps the SEO crawlers staying within your blog. 

While you are interlinking, make sure you fix all your broken links. There are lots of free link checkers like this one that list the error links for you. 

Bonus: Install Yoast plugin

If you use self hosted WordPress for your site, do not think twice and install the YOAST plugin for all your SEO needs as a book blogger. It even guides you step by step. 

If you need any help or have a query about any of these things, feel free to DM me on my social accounts or leave a comment here. I would be happy to help you out! 

Similar topics you might like

Check out this link for more of such posts.

Pin me!

SEO TIPS For bloggers Pinterest

Let’s chat

Do you focus on SEO as a blogger? Are you already doing any of these? Or if you don’t, why not? Which of these ideas do you think will be difficult to follow? Let us talk.