Julie Broad says starting a new blog to promote your book is usually a waste of time. A 2019 study of 912 million posts found most get no backlinks or shares. Blog only if you already do it and enjoy it; focus on writing a strong book for your actual readers instead.
If you're writing a book or about to release a book, you're probably wondering if you should start a blog to support your book marketing. The answer is maybe, but probably not. So stick around and I'll explain. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad author and founder of Book Launchers, a self publishing services team that will help you write, publish and sell a fantastic nonfiction book. In 2004, I was in charge of sales and client services for a real estate data firm in Toronto, Canada, and I told my boss that our company needed a blog. I was tired of cold calling a bunch of developers and brokers and trying to explain to them why they needed our data and I just thought it would be better if we created content people shared and that got our phone ringing so I didn't have to cold call anymore. I'll never forget his response. We should start a company blog. I feel like a blog. So if that's what you're thinking when I say the word blog, that's totally fine because that was female 15 years ago and blogs aren't what they were in 2004. In 2004, a blog was an amazing way to get search engine love. People actually read blogs and they were difference makers for many, many people and many, many businesses in 2019 and 2020. Whenever you're watching this video, Blogs aren't what they used to be. If you're a blogger, you know what I mean. But let's take a step back, shall we? First, what is a blog? For the purposes of this conversation, I'm talking about any length of content you post on your own website on a regular basis. So the should you blog to market your book? Here are my thoughts. Number one do you already blog? Number two do you like blogging? Number three Is your blog already getting results for you and your business? If you answer yes, yes and yes, then the answer to the big question of should you blog to market your book? Is yes. But if your answers were no and you're still wondering if you should start a blog to market your book, my answer is only yes if you have the time to dedicate to it and you think you'll like it. A study I'll tell you more about in a minute found something really, really important. 94% of all blog posts have zero external links, meaning only 6% of the blog content being created right now is getting shared or linked to. So if you're not already creating great content people are sharing. It might not be worth your time to do it unless you really want to. There is no one thing you can do to market your book, you have to do different things. To me, this means you should focus your limited resources, which is probably your time, on the things that are most likely to get the biggest results. And a brand new blog just isn't that. Now if you want to add a blog because it can help you with search engine love and you're willing to commit to posting regular content on a regular basis, or maybe you already have a blog. This study released in February 2019 analyzed 912 million blog posts. To better understand what's working, I'll put a link down below. Here are some of the key findings. Number one if you want backlinks, which are really what creates great SEO and get people to visit your site from search engines, you need long form content. Long form content gets an average of 77% more likes than short articles. Long form content is what you need for backlinks and ideal length was somewhere between 1,000 to 2,000 words. Second key point if you think a blog post will get your content shared on social media, think again. A small percentage of power posts get a disproportionate amount of social shares from this research. Specifically, 1.3% of articles generated 75% of all social shares. Number three this one was interesting to me. Longer headlines are correlated with more social shares. So if you've got a headline that's 14 to 17 words in length, 76% more social shares than those short headlines. Question headlines also worked really well too. Number four List posts get shared more than anything else and infographics are still hot. So if you want to create an infographic from your book content that could be a great shareable they receive 25% more links than a regular how to post number five there's no best day to post or publish new content. Social shares are distributed evenly among posts published any day of the week. So you can get all of that research down below in the link below. Now if you have a blog, go ahead and post your favorite blog post below in the comments. But bottom line, this is just my opinion and according to a couple of YouTube viewer comments, I'm over caffeinated person who chuckles way too much during my videos. So take my opinion for what it is. It's just my opinion. I wouldn't start a blog today unless you really really wanted to. It's probably not gonn much attention and without those super important backlinks, it's just not going to get the SEO love that it would have got 15 years ago. My boss really missed out. There are plenty of other things you can do and should do to promote your book, and the first thing, if you haven't done it already, is write a really awesome book that people, specifically your ideal reader, want and need to read. What do you think? Share with me below after you smash that thumbs up button. So YouTube knows you like this content and make sure you subscribe and turn those notifications on, because when you comment the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some cool book launcher Swag. You'll become YouTube besties, joining the ranks with some really spectacular folks who appreciate my caffeination. Michael Brenner, Humphrey Jones, Grisdom Nation, Nathan Branham, and Yapdog. Thank you so much for being a part of this community and being kind and supportive as you contribute to the conversations. You absolutely rock. All right, I'll see you on one of these fantastic videos. This one's really actually quite cool. Oh, this one's hot off the presses, but this has cool tips. I don't know. Click one, they're both great and I'll see you there. I feel like a blog.
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