So often, when I go on somebody’s blog, I’ll look for a particular page and realise they don’t have one. Even something basic like a contact page often gets forgotten about.
You might be asking yourself: what pages should I have on my blog? If you want people to learn more about you, be able to get in touch, or give important information, there are some essential pages you should add to your blog right now!
Note: while this list is aimed at book bloggers, most of these apply to bloggers within all niches!
Table of contents:
Essential pages:
Nice to have:
- Privacy Policy
- Submission Information for Guest Posts
- Your Writing in Other Places
- Affiliate Disclosure
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What Pages Should I Have on My Blog?
Here are 4 pages you need to have on your blog as a book blogger, and 4 more that aren’t as essential but are still nice to have.
About Page
Blogging is different to things like making YouTube videos or posting on Instagram because it’s often very text-based, especially book blogging. And that can mean that it can be harder to get to know who the blogger is behind the words.
The best way to help people get to know you? An about page!
Use this as an opportunity to write a bit about yourself. Now, I know that a lot of us find it difficult to write about ourselves—so here are some ideas of things to write about on your about page:
- Who are you? Some fun facts about you, where you went to university, what you studied, etc
- Why do you like books? What got you into reading and/or blogging?
- What do you like to read? Any particular genres, authors, etc
- What have you got from blogging? Some great experiences, friends, new favourite books? Why do you love being a blogger?
A lot of readers like to feel like they have a personal connection with the blogger, so an about page can help build that. It doesn’t have to be an essay or your entire life story! Just enough so people know who you are and to show that you’re not just an anonymous face.
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Contact Page
If you’re going to add any of the pages from this list, a contact page is potentially the most important, especially if you want to get opportunities like PR companies getting in touch (although this isn’t very common with book blogging) or publishers asking you to review books.
I speak from experience when I say that there’s nothing more irritating than wanting/needing to get in touch with someone but you can’t find any way to do it from their blog.
Here are a few things I’d recommend including:
- Have a contact form. It’s the quickest way for someone to get in touch with you. Most blogging platforms might have their own contact form you can add, or there are many plugins or forms you can create online and embed.
- If you’re self-hosted on WordPress, I highly recommend a plugin called Cognito Forms. You can customise how it looks and have specific fields pop up when someone chooses a certain option. (Check out my contact page to see what I mean.)
- Include links to your social media profiles if you have them.
- As well as a contact form, I’d recommend including your email address. Sometimes, people might rather send an email rather than fill out a contact form (I know I would), so it’s nice to give people the option.
- If you don’t want to share a personal email address, you could make a new one for your blog.
- If you’re worried about being picked up by bots and sent spam because you have your email address on your site (this doesn’t happen very often but there is a small chance), format your email address without the @ symbol – for example, hello[at]wonderfullybookish.co.uk. This is common practice on a lot of websites, and people will know to switch it out for the symbol! Some people also switch out the dots for [dot].
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Review Policy
A review policy is essential if you’re going to open up your blog for review requests – i.e. people getting in touch and asking if you can review a book.
This is where you can explain what you like to read in more detail than on your about page – for example, specific genres you’d prefer, ones you definitely won’t accept, and ones you might accept on a case-by-case basis.
Explain how long it takes you to read and review a book so people don’t keep pestering you after 3 days to ask if you’ve read their book yet. This can be completely up to you – how long does it normally take you? Do that, and then add a bit on to give yourself some extra time.
It’s also a great idea to state that accepting a book does not bind you to anything, and you don’t have to post a review for any reason. (But it’s a good idea to let the author know that you won’t be reviewing their book.)
You might also want to explain that receiving a review copy of a does not guarantee a positive review, and that in the case of you not enjoying a book, you might prefer not to post a review.
Other things to include in your review policy:
Are you open to other content as well as reviews, like guest posts, interviews/Q&As, cover reveals, excerpts, blog tours, etc? Say that!
If PRs come across your blog, let them know what you’re open to doing. Similarly, say what you’re not open to doing.
Take a look at my review policy here.
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Review Index
This isn’t exactly essential, but for a book blog, an index of all of your book reviews is a nice thing to have – and something I always look for when I’m visiting other people’s blogs!
Make a list of all the books you’ve reviewed and link to them all on your review index. You could also link reviews in other places (for example, if you reviewed a book in your BookTube channel but not on your blog). You can then organise the list alphabetically, either by book title or author name (or both).
This is handy if someone wants to know your opinion on a specific book or if you’ve read anything by a certain author, and they can check your index to see if you’ve reviewed it or not. It’s also a fun way to see how many book reviews you’ve posted—it’s rewarding to see the list get bigger!
Here’s my review index (mine also includes films and theatre).
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Other Pages You Could Consider Having on Your Book Blog
Privacy Policy
A privacy policy isn’t necessary for everyone. If you’re just a small blogger who only posts book reviews, it’s probably not needed.
However, if you collect any sort of data using a third party tool (Google Analytics, email marketing platforms like Mailchimp or ConvertKit, etc) then it could be a good idea to include one, just to cover your back—especially with stricter GDPR laws that have come into affect in the past few years.
A privacy policy is there to explain that you won’t share or sell anyone’s data with any third parties and it’s safe with you. You could also include a bit about cookies, because every site uses them.
If you’re not sure what to write, there are tons of free or paid resources online to help you out. Take a look at my page and feel free to copy chunks of it and tweak it to suit you.
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Submission Information for Guest Posts
Open to receiving guest posts on your blog? You could create a page explaining what you’re open to, what kind of topics you’d accept or not accept, and some guidelines for how you’d like people to submit. Also tell them where to submit them (or have a link to your contact page).
It might be a good idea to explain that not all submissions will be accepted and you have to be completely satisfied with the content first before going ahead and publishing it. Also set limits, if you want to, on things like word count, the number of links to their own site, etc.
Here’s my submissions page if you want some ideas.
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Your Writing in Other Places
Have you written for other blogs or places online? Written articles for the media/journalism? Here’s where you can share them!
Have a page that links to all the places you’ve written elsewhere. If anything, it’s a good log for you to remember all the other places you’ve written, and it can be nice to look back on it.
Here’s my page (in case you’re interested in seeing my writing elsewhere!)
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Affiliate Disclosure
If you use affiliate links in any of your posts, you should be disclosing them in every post, but you can also have an extended disclosure on its own page that explains in more detail what they are. You could then link to this in your disclosures in individual posts.
Include a bit about what affiliate links are, why you use them, and a list of all the places you’re an affiliate for. Also explain that using your affiliate links won’t affect the buyer’s purchase in any way.
See mine as an example and feel free to use it as inspiration for your own.
No idea where to start with using affiliate links, but want to try making a bit of extra money? Check out my in-depth affiliate marketing guide for book bloggers!
I hope this list has helped you find some ideas for pages to add on your book blog, and some of the things to write on them if you’re stuck for inspiration.
If you’ve got any pages that I missed, share them in the comments below!
