I've been doing this prediction post for a few years, and I haven't always been right, but it's still fun for me to guess where book blogging is going! Krysta did the predictions for 2023; you can see what she said here.
A Mini Resurgence in Blogging
2023 was actually the year I finally got on the "book blogging is dying" train. I've been disputing this for years, arguing book blogging is stronger than ever, but 2023 did get me down with the lack of views and interactions. It seems harder to find a large audience than ever. However, the with the rise of generative AI and thee amout of content online that is now incorrect and incomprehensible, I think some people might turn back to blogs. The strength of blogs has always been that there are specific people behind them. So if my choices are now Googling something and finding "content" generated by AI that's gibberish but apparently has enough SEO to rank high in the search, or reading quality content by someone I know is a real person, I think I'll stick with reading blogs. Other people may feel the same.
Less Focus on Visuals
I spent a couple years predicting that bloggers would become more visual in order to compete with other platforms. At Pages Unbound, I spent a couple years taking intricate book photos I could add to our posts (and cross post to Bookstagram), and it did seem to help with traffic. However, it's a lot of time commitment to add original photography to every post, and since it's hard to get an audience on Instagram anymore . . . I see a lot of book bloggers going back to focusing primarily on writing.
Less Focus on Social Media
Just as it's hard to break through on Bookstagram, other platforms seem to be making it harder for users to get real reach. Everyone has been complaining about their views on Twitter since Elon Musk acquired the platform, and I think some bloggers will be using it less as a promotional platform as a result. Our traffic from Twitter in 2023 was nearly the same as our traffic from the Facebook page I barely even maintain, so it doesn't seem worth spending a lot of time trying to promote blog posts there. Maybe another platform will pop up that has good visibility (besides TikTok, which seems to give people views but not really be good to get people to go read your blog), but until then, bloggers might have to think of other ways to get an audience.
Focus on SEO
And the best way to get blog traffic at this point may be SEO! Search engine hits are our primary source of traffic by a lot at Pages Unbound, and I don't even put a lot of time into making our posts SEO-friendly. So bloggers willing to put in the work here are likely to see good results. The only downside is this traffic tends to be one-time visitors, not dedicated followers.
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