What is a Blog Hop?

The chances are, you’re reading this because you run a website and you’re looking for ways to increase the number of visitors. Blog hops are a good way to do this as they are a collection of articles from various bloggers around the same subject. Each blogger promotes the blog hop to generate a buzz and everyone involved benefits.

Contents

What Are Blog Hops?

A Blog Hop is an online meetup consisting of just bloggers with the sole intention of networking to share readers. Everyone knows how hard it is to gain new visitors, so these networking events are very useful to find bloggers in related niches to partner with.

How Does a Blog Hop Work?

Everyone signs up to post something related to the event topic within a specific day or week.

It’s kept pretty broad to reduce the risk of duplicate content—something like life as a digital marketer.

Each blogger writes their article and then gives the Blog Hop creator the link. The creator then adds them all to one blog post on their own site.

You may be asked to visit each of your fellow bloggers’ articles and comment. This is borderline manipulation, which Google won’t be too pleased about, but they’re unlikely to take action on that alone.

You may also be asked to share the Blog Hop article and others in the list. This is fine if it’s just on social media, but if they ask you to start creating links on your site as well then this is a red flag—links should happen naturally, not as a requirement.

Some bloggers don’t share other articles, so you don’t have to, but it shows a basic level of respect to at least share a few, or even your favourite.

Talking of requirements, one may be that you need to keep your article under a certain word limit. This is just to make it easier for Blog Hop readers to make their way through all of the content.

It’s not guaranteed that you’ll be able to participate though, as you may need a certification to ensure that only knowledgeable bloggers can contribute.

Frequency is varied, but they’re usually a one-off event to promote something new, or on a regular basis.

What Are Blog Hops Good For?

Mainly comments. This might not sound like much, but if you’ve already started a blog then you’ll know just how difficult it is to gain them.

Comments are useful because not only can you help your visitors which they’ll appreciate, it shows others that your site is popular, acting as a form of ‘social proof’.

As previously mentioned, it’s a good way to meet bloggers in very similar niches in a similar situation to yourself—they know how hard it is to start out, so you can have some good conversations, even swapping tips and building relationships.

At the end of the day, it’s a great way to gain new visitors, comments, and join the blogging community.

Which Type of Blogs are Best For Blog Hops?

If you run a business then it’s likely to work but not as well as a personal blog. People connect more with those running a personal blog, so results are amplified.

Why Should Set Up or Participate in a Blog Hop?

Why? More visitors! Whether you set up or participate.

Participating in a Blog Hop

As previously mentioned, Blog Hops expose you to readers of other similar blogs, so you know they’ll be interested in what you have to say.

Some creators even choose a blog to promote afterwards which gives you even more exposure.

Setting Up a Blog Hop

Anyone can do this, but it probably helps if you already have a decent number of visitors each month—no one is going to be particularly interested in joining if your blog is new and unknown.

Open Blog Hop

This refers to the fact that anyone can join and that you don’t mind what they do or how well known they are. Also, entrants can submit their blog post at any point.

Closed Blog Hop

This is a set group of blogs who you know are going to supply the right content—you know ahead of time who you’d like to submit a post.

How Can You Find a Blog Hop?

So, you’ve figured out that you’d like to be involved in a Blog Hop, but where do you find them?

First of all, if you’re part of any groups, then ask there to see if anyone knows of any being created. If you’re not part of a blogging group or a group based around your niche, then consider typing the following into Google:

"blog hops" + your niche

For example, below will return all of the blog hops in the baking industry.

"blog hops" + baking

Some of them may be ‘closed’ Blog Hops, in which case you’ll need to contact them to find out if they’ll accept you.

How Can You Join a Blog Hop?

If it’s an open blog hop that anyone can contribute to, then the site will usually direct you to a form where you can add details about yourself. These usually include your name, email, blog name, blog URL, and the topic of your blog.

How to Get the Most Out of a Blog Hop

Participants are obligated to visit your site, possibly even comment on the post, but never to subscribe or revisit.

So how do capitalise on this extra traffic?

The most important thing you can do is research topics carefully and write something so helpful and informative that they want to learn more.

Of course, this is easier said than done, but the best results come from hard work. This is true more now than ever.

Also, add similar posts to the end of articles to let them know that there’s more they would be interested in.

You can either add these in yourself as a standard text link, or use a WordPress plugin such as YARPP to display a few titles and images.

Key Aspects of a Successful Blog Hop

Now that you know what a blog hop is, and whether you’d like to participate in one, here are a few things to consider.

Specific topic or generic?

Are you going to choose something very broad like interior design, or something more specific like craft decor? If you’re just starting out then consider broader topics to generate awareness around your blog hops. Once you start getting applications without needing to promote a blog hop that much, you could dive much further into the niche(s).

Clear start times

Be very clear with dates and times while also including a timezone.

Number of entrants

Consider how many blogs you’d like to contribute. With an open blog hop, you may eventually start to receive a large number of requests, but with a closed hop you have control although they may not get back to you so invite more than you need. Aim for 6-10 when published on your site—very few people have time to read through more than that.

Keep it simple

Too many restrictions will mean that fewer people apply and readers won’t get what they need from the articles. Keep it loose and only make it mandatory if it really matters.

Promotion

Make sure to promote it yourself on social and your homepage once it’s finished, and ask participants to promote it to their audiences as well. They’re likely to oblige if they haven’t already because they’re benefitting from the extra eyeballs on their content anyway.

Conclusion

While a blog hop can be tiring the first time with so much to plan and organise, it will become easier, and it’s all worth it when you can see visitor numbers increasing on a monthly basis.

Plan it all out properly the first time and use it as a template for future hops, but space them out—there’s no need for more than one per month. Lots of other content that you create yourself will need to fill the gaps.

FAQ

What is a blog hop?

A collection of articles around one specific topic from bloggers in the same niche. One blogger collects these articles from other bloggers who agree to contribute. Therefore, readers have a single page of links to articles around the same topic when researching a particular subject. Everyone benefits from extra visitors from everyone promoting the blog hop page.

How does a blog hop start?

You can either search for one taking place with ‘[your topic] blog hop’, and apply to take part. Or, you can set up your own and ask other bloggers to take part. You could find them from a social post or Facebook Group for example.

How does a blog hop work?

If you’re joining one then you can apply to join and then create a new blog post around the specified topic and hand over a link your page to the blog hop organiser. If you’re creating one, then read the advice in this article and let people know in the same niche with related hashtags or ask in a Facebook Group.

Do you have more questions? Let us know on the Contact page and we’ll get back to you while also adding it here to help others.