The Book Blogger Hop was originally created by Jennifer @ Crazy-For-Books in March 2010 and ended on December 31, 2012. With Jennifer’s permission, Coffee Addicted Writer relaunched the hop on February 15, 2013. Each week the hop will start on a Friday and end the following Thursday. There will be a weekly prompt featuring a book related question. The hop’s purpose is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to your own blog.
The Book Blogger Hop post image was created by Coffee Addicted Writer.
This Week’s Question
What’s the best investment you’ve made for your blog?
I suppose there are a number of ways to approach this question. From a financial investment standpoint, I am glad I decided to pay for my own domain and self host this website outside of WordPress.com’s servers. One of the biggest benefits, at least for me, is that so far I haven’t run into any storage issues. I also have access to a lot of free WP plugins. The downside, though, is the learning curve is much higher. Thankfully, most of that startup stuff I don’t have to tinker with much anymore.
Financial aspect aside, there are two big investments that I spend time on for my blog’s subjective “success.” One is taking the time to blog hop. I resisted this for a while because yes, it takes time. But I learned that it’s worth it. It helps build that community in your personal blogosphere, which is honestly hard because it’s a slower form of social media that doesn’t have as dominant of an algorithm. Taking the time to comment on others’ posts makes them feel appreciated, builds rapport, and often times they’ll return the love on your own blog.
The second investment is optimizing my posts for search engines. This worked really well for a few years and I saw a lot of growth. However, lately that’s all gone to shit with AI taking over and fucking up how internet searches work. At least, that’s my theory coming from someone who doesn’t know a lot about this stuff. My views have tanked and I also now get a lot of views from China as opposed to the US, where I live. I also refuse to optimize my posts for AI searches, which I learned recently is something I can do with my WP Yoast plugin. No thanks. But in normal times, SEO works well.
Did this turn into a little bit of a rant? Yea, maybe! But it is what it is. If there’s anything to take away from my ramblings, remember to blog hop!
I also blog hop a lot, and I’ve made it part of my daily schedule, so it’s become something I enjoy. I’m also glad I moved to self hosted, although I do have occasional glitches where I have to do something behind the scenes and I’m completely lost, lol. The SEO thing is so annoying and it just confirms that AI is going to ruin us.
Oh yes, I remember the drama you had a while ago when trying to switch hosts or something. Eek. The SEO thing is super annoying. I’m so irritated by it. Like, why am I getting all these views from China all of a sudden?!
I suddenly have lots of visitors from China too😳
Yea, it’s weird, isn’t it?! Glad to know it’s not just me.
The AI search robbing sites without directing traffic to them is for sure a big issue with SEO. It’s a big part of why I got laid off from my journalism job. Some engines, like Microsoft Edge’s default search, were just ripping my lists whole cloth and putting them right there. It’s maddening.
I’m sorry that AI robbery is part of why you got laid off. That’s so dang frustrating!!! AI search sucks and I hate it. Not to mention it’s wrong in more scientific or technical queries. I used to get hundreds of views on my monthly anticipated new releases book lists and now I’m lucky if I get 100. Ugh.
Hey there,
yeah, SEO is essential for a blog to be found. I also use Yoast to get the “best” out of it.
Instead of a lot of traffic from China, I do have a lot of traffic recently from the US even though it should be from Germany, since that’s where I am located.
Watching how AI is taking over and destroying so many things, especially tons of books, gives me a devastating feeling. The ones behind those AIs don’t seem to mind but they also don’t look at the negative outcome in the long run. If you use AI to replace people less people will have jobs and money; therefore, fewer people will buy your AI or other products.
Cheerio
RoXXie
That’s interesting that you’re seeing more views from the US despite living in Germany. Another blogger above said she’s also started seeing more views from China. What’s interesting about it is I’m not seeing a massive spike in views, like you might see with a bot “attack.” But I now get about 1.5 times more views from China than the US.
I agree that watching AI take over makes me feel yucky and I agree with everything you said.
I’ve never put much time into SEO, which seemed like it would have been smart to do… but now I hear that AI has kind of ruined it, so I suppose the time to do it has passed! I agree about blog hopping and the investment of time — that’s really been the most positive for me, and what’s given me the most pleasure when it comes to blogging!
Ha, yea, it seems like the time has passed to even bother with SEO because it doesn’t seem to be working very well right now. Apparently what you’re “supposed” to be optimizing for is AI to crawl your sites. No thank you. I’m glad you have a good blog hopping routine, though!
I couldn’t come up for anything in response to this prompt. You’ve made me see how short-sighted that was. Time and blog-hopping (I’m on a downward trend with both, but need to correct that).
And I’m down for an Anti-AI rant anytime. 🙂
Time and blog hopping are both so important, I’ve learned! And thanks for being here for my anti-AI rant!