How to Promote Your Blog

Preparing for promotion

Before you start promoting your blog, you need to make sure it’s ready.

This step includes checking everything you have done to launch your blog, starting with setting up your blog to creating pages and posts.

• Make sure your cornerstone content is live and ready for promotion.
• Test your menu bar and sidebar links to make sure pages, and posts open correctly.
• Check your blog on the top browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer) and see if everything looks right.
• Check your contact info and test your contact form to see if it works well. Check your blog comment form to make sure people can easily leave comments.
• Test your social sharing buttons so people can share your posts on the top social networks.
• Give your visitors one or more ways to connect with you and subscribe to your blog including an option to subscribe by email.
• Set up Google Analytics to track your visitors, where they come from and top content pages on your website.

Promotion goals

As you begin blogging, you should have primary goals for promoting your blog.

• You need to get the word out about your new blog so that those interested in your niche can find your blog, consume your content and spread the word.
• Focus on becoming an authority and gaining trust from your readers and other influencers within your niche. Build relationships with top bloggers in complementary topic areas and strive to enhance your name and credibility.
• Engagement with your niche market happens every time anyone mentions your blog. When people start discussing your content, be sure to join the discussion wherever it may be, including on your blog, social networks, forums, etc.

Think of these goals in everything you do while promoting your blog. Your goals are to get exposure for the blog, establish yourself as an authority and engage with your niche audience.

Over 60 tried–and–true ways to promote your blog

Now, let’s look at the ways you can promote your blog, and it’s content. These are especially important steps when you are just starting out.

• Essentials
• Community
• Email
• Content
• Social media
• Search engine optimization
• Outreach and collaboration
• Paid promotion
• Other

Essentials: First steps to promote your blog

Let your friends and family know about your new blog

These techniques are essential and you should use them first. Word of mouth is one of the strongest ways to promote things. Plus, your close ones can give you a good feedback.

1. Tell them in person.

Sounds a bit old school, but these methods still work. Make sure you tell your friends in person that you started a blog. You don’t have to be pushy about it, but it’s ok to let your close ones know what’s new in your life.

2. Send them an email.

If sending emails is your preferred way of communication you can write a simple email and let everyone know about your new journey. You don’t have to go fancy with this one. We will talk more about how you can use email to promote your blog later in this guide.

3. Have a blog launch party.

People throw parties for various occasions, so why not have one for your newborn blog. Sounds a bit ridiculous but it’s also a good reason to get together with your friends and relatives.

4. Announce it on social media.

Social media is a big deal these days, and we will be covering more tactics of promoting your blog through social media later in this guide. For now, we are talking about announcing your new blog on social media for all your connections you have at the moment.

5. Ask them to join your blog newsletter.

Newsletters are an easy way to stay up to date with the blog content. Anyone who signs up for your newsletter will get notifications once you post new content. If you don’t know what we are talking about, don’t worry, we will cover it in details later in this guide.

6. Ask them to share your blog with others.

This one is a no-brainer, and it should be on the top of your list. Once you write your first piece of content ask your close ones to share it online. If you ask twenty people to share it on social media with their connections, you will slowly start getting visitors to your blog.

Let anyone you connect with know about your new blog

Everyone who comes in contact with you should be aware that you have a blog. Some good ways to ensure this include the following.

7. Add your blog URL to your email signature.

Thus, anyone you contact via email can check it out. WiseStamp is a great app to try for anyone using Gmail or other browser-based email systems. It will even pull in your latest blog post into your signature.

8. Add your blog URL to the social profiles.

That includes the networks you use the most, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest. This way, whenever people find you on social media, they can discover your blog as well.

9. Add your blog URL to forum profiles.

All the profiles with signatures where you participate in discussions, preferably related to your new blog’s niche.

10. Add your blog to author bios.

That could be any sites you are already contributing to, including other blogs you own. Maybe you already have a blog about photography, and you’re a blog about marketing. Your author bio and about page should link to your new marketing blog.

11. Create business cards and add URL of your blog on it.

You can create business cards for cheap or even for free these days. Just use services like Vistaprint.com or you can custom design it through DesignContest.com.

12. Network with others at every opportunity.

Attend networking events? Be sure to have a quick elevator pitch about your blog when people ask you what you do. If you’re at a blogging conference, in particular, it’s highly acceptable to let people know that you founded yourdomain.com, a blog that helps people learn more about your subject matter. Even if you have a day job that you need to promote, your elevator pitch is that you are a [your job title], and you also run yourdomain.com, a blog that helps people learn more about your subject matter.

Community: Be active in your niche

13. Submit your blog to directories.

While hundreds of directories will list your blog for a particular yearly or permanent fee listing, only a handful should be considered regarding quality. These include Best of the Web Blogs ($299 for submission), and EatonWeb Blog Directory($59.99 for submission). Some of these directories offer free listings as well, but you will be waiting for a very long time to get added, assuming they add it at all. If your website location is specific, you could consider adding it to local directories.

14. Join social community sites.

There are many social bookmarking and voting sites. Your goal is to look for social bookmarking and voting sites that have engaged users such as Digg, Alltop or similar. Note that many of these websites are not fond of people promoting their content all of the time, so you may want to consider making friends on those networks and occasionally share content with them in hopes that they will submit it to these networks.

15. Use blog promotion networks.

Several networks exist solely to gather people who love to help each other promote their blog posts. These systems include Social Buzz Club, Viral Content Bee, and similar.

16. Build your network or group.

You can also create your promotional operation as you network with others in your niche. Just have everyone connect in a Facebook group or create a new team on Slackwhere anyone can share their ideas or latest posts.

17. Be active on relevant forums.

Here is a quick way to find forums from your niche. Type the following into Google search bar “intitle:forum” + [your niche keyword] to find good with active members.

18. Be active on groups and communities.

You need to be active where your targeted audience spends their time. Perhaps there are forums or Facebook groups that you know of, and the audience you want to attract is hanging there.

19. Ask and answer questions on Q&A websites.

Thousands of people are looking for answers on the web every day. You can create accounts on Questions & Answers websites such as Quora, Stack Exchange, and similar and start helping people by answering their questions.

The idea is to find topics that are related to your niche and be active in those sections. It will help you get your name out there and build the authority. You can direct people to read more relevant content that you have created on your website.

20. Comment and interact on other blogs.

Commenting on other related blogs is a great way to build relationships with top bloggers within your niche. Research the web to find top blogs in your niche and start commenting on their newest posts. It will help you make them and their readers aware of your existence as well as a way of developing your authority within the niche.

21. Collaborate with other bloggers.

Working with other bloggers is always a right choice. However, don’t confuse collaboration with networking. While networking is all about making new connections and forming relationships with other bloggers, collaboration is the result of networking. Therefore, once you establish reliable connections, make sure you work on collaborating with authority bloggers, as it will help you go way beyond your potential. When you join forces with like-minded people, you can achieve so much more than if you were working on your own.

22. Contribute to other blogs in your niche.

Matt Cutts, former Google’s head of web spam, has denounced guest blogging as a tactic for SEO. That said, it’s still an excellent way to get exposure within your niche as long as you are submitting quality content to quality blogs. Find blogs that have strong social shares and community engagement as judged by the number of comments per post and social followers. Get to know the blog owners and editors, establish a relationship with them, then approach them to see if they are accepting new contributors on their website.

23. Let people to guest post on your blog.

You might get requests for guest posting on your blog, and it’s a good sign which means people see the potential in your blog. The key is to make sure these contributors are committed to creating high-quality content. From your end, you will have to have a process in place to review and publish this content.

In most cases, guest bloggers will also help you promote the content they wrote. They will share it on their social networks, and you will get additional exposure.

24. Attend conferences and meet new people.

Attend conferences and networking events. Be sure to have a quick elevator pitch about your blog when they ask you what you do. If you’re at a blogging conference, in particular, it’s highly recommended to let people know that you are a founder of yourdomain.com, a blog that helps people learn more about your subject matter.

25. Organize events and be a speaker.

You can organize and host your events. It could be a local or an online event. Here is an example how Pat Flynn and Chris Ducker held 1 Day Business Breakthrough local event.

Use keywords in title, description, and H1 tags

• Use SEO-friendly URLs
• Make a user-friendly layout, use H2 tags, bullets, etc.
• Use keywords in first 100 words
• Make your design responsive

Events like this will help you to network with people, build new relationships and give you and your website more exposure.

Email: Various email tactics for blog promotion

26. Grow your email subscribers list.

Don’t wait until you get a substantial amount of traffic, start collecting subscribers from the beginning. If on the first day of launching your blog you get a few people who love it, you want those people to give you their email address so you can keep them up to date with what is happening on your blog. Later, this list will be what you use to promote your new content or products.

You can also, use service like MailChimp that allows you to have up to 2,000 subscribers and send up to 12,000 emails for free. Or service like Aweberthat allows you to have up to 500 subscribers with unlimited emails for $19 per month.

27. Send emails every time you post.

This step is pretty basic, let all your existing subscribers (even if you don’t have many) and anyone who might like your content when you post a fresh article.

28. Create a curated newsletter.

That means that you can collect interesting content around the web, including your content and send the list of useful articles to your subscribers. It could be anything. Hiten Shan sends weekly emails to people interested in Saas business.

29. Add your best or latest content to your email signature.

If you have a particular piece of content that you what to promote and people to see then you can add this article as an extra link in your signature. Here is a case in point:

30. Send emails at the best time.

It’s important to send emails, but it’s also important to do it at the right time, so more people see it and open it.

Data from Mailchimp

31. Use email automation services.

You can send emails automatically using one of the email autoresponder services. That will allow you to send messages to your subscribers in the order and frequency that you decide. Often people create full-on campaigns for the email subscribers.

32. Send the second email to those who missed it.

According to Noah Kagan when they send emails to Sumo.com subscribers the open rates are as low as 50%. Here is what you can do to increase your open rates

• Step 1. Take the same email and change the subject line into something new
• Step 2. Email it out a week later to people who didn’t open your first email

33. Include social share links directly within your email.

Pro marketers do it all the time. It’s a handy trick that would let your subscribers share your content from the email with one simple click.

34. Optimize your email content.

There are many ways you can experiment with email content. However, there are three main areas to pay attention to:

• Subject line
• Body text
• And call to action

If you want to test your email, don’t change everything at once. Each test should only change one piece of the email.

Content: Promoting your blog through the right content

35. Create content for the targeted audience.

The content of your blog will be the bait that attracts readers. You will need to figure out who is your targeted audience. Here is the list of questions you need to answer first to get a better understanding of your audience:

• What is their occupation?
• What common problems they might have and can you help them?
• What topics do they enjoy reading the most?
• What keeps them up at night?

Good content makes people take action because they show one of the following:

• Social currency
• Practical value
• Emotion

It can be tricky to come up with the content that would cover all the wishes and concerns of your audience. But if you have the right approach, your content will get a lot of traffic.

36. Have posts schedule and blog consistently.

Creating a consistent schedule of posting on your blog helps your readers know when they can expect to hear from you again, whether it’s daily, weekly, monthly or even quarterly. The key to maintaining publishing consistency is to be realistic. Individual bloggers will find it difficult to create high-quality content on a daily basis. Start with weekly or bi-weekly posts and work your way up to daily posts, if that is your ultimate goal. Just don’t sacrifice quantity for quality.

To help you maintain consistency, be sure to use some form of an editorial calendar. You can use Google Calendar, or even a simple spreadsheet. Use it to manage your ideas and plan your content themes for each month so that blogging is something you focus on, not something you do in your spare time.

37. Work on long-form content.

According to studies by SerpIQ long form content usually gets higher rankings in search engine results.

One type of long form content is evergreen content. Evergreen content continues to be relevant to its readers and gives them value years after the publish date. It will help you improve your SEO ranking, and you will drive more traffic to your blog.

38. Use proper headlines to get more clicks.

The headline, or title of your blog post, has to capture the attention of potential readers. People may see it in their social media news feed or search results. Make sure you include the main keyword phrase that people could use when searching for the topic you are covering.

It’s also important to include the principles mentioned above to your headlines. Show social currency, practical value, or focus on emotions to get your headlines clicked more often.

Here are examples of good headlines:

• Social currency – Why 1000’s of Bloggers Will Come to SMX Conference in 2018
• Practical value – Spend 10 Minutes a Day, and You’ll Have Incredible Abs in 2 Months
• Emotions – Warning: Don’t Buy Another Ounce of Dog Food Until You Read This

39. Organize your content and make it scannable.

You need to properly structure your content so that people can quickly scan through it. Use elements such as sub headline, bolded text, bullet points to optimize each post for both readers and search engines.
The research study from Nielsen Norman Group shows that on the average web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit.

40. Add graphics and images to your content.

Create and add graphics to your content. Images can be a great source of additional traffic to your website. You can let people use your pictures and ask them to cite you as a source.

You can even create pre-made HTML code that people can copy and paste on their websites.

Research shows that articles with images get 94% more views than those without.

41. Create useful infographics.

Infographics became popular in recent years, and marketers often use it as a promotion method.

You don’t have to be a professional designer to create infographics. Here are some tools that you can use: Canvaand Venngage.

Tip: Include HTML code for people to copy and paste it on their website. That would help you get links to your site as well.

42. Use SlideShare to promote your content.

The SlideShare is a multimedia content that allows you to create slideshows and post them on your blog. This way you can present your work, ideas or some fun photos to your audience.

43. Write in-depth guides.

Your main pieces of content will be your cornerstone content. That content that will be used as a foundation for your website and smaller blog posts will be written around that core.

44. Refurbish and republish your old content.

This practice can be compelling. You can find older articles that get some number of visits and see if any of the content can be updated. Once you do that publish it with the new date and share it with your audience. Content gets old all the time, so make sure you stay on top of that.

45. Create controversial content.

If you want to get people talking controversial content is the way to go. You need to be careful with that form of content, but it could bring attention to your blog. As the saying goes, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

45. Convert your articles to PDF format.

You can convert your articles into PDFs and offer to download through signup forms. That way you can grow your subscriber’s list and offer them something else down the road. If you don’t know how to create PDFs yourself and you don’t have a designer on your team you can use tools such as Web2pdfconvert.

46. Start a podcast.

The podcast is audio content you can create to share your views on various topics. People can sign up to your podcast if you decide to publish files in series. You record audio files and post them on your blog for people to download or listen.

Podcasts are an excellent way to promote your blog and your brand. Many people prefer to consume information via audio when they are traveling or driving. It’s just another channel that you can use to reach your audience.

48. Run a giveaway.

Giveaways are also excellent means to attract attention to your website. As long it’s setup right and properly promoted.

There are different software out there which makes it easier to setup your giveaway. Here are a couple that you can take a look at: WizHive and Wazoku.

50. Write an eBook.

After you blog for some time, you could consider writing an eBook. It’s not always fun to write a 30-40 page document, but it could give you positive benefits.

Here is an example of the case study, where Danny Iny talks about how to write viral eBook and how to get traffic because of it.

Social media: Promoting your blog through social networks

51. Share your content on primary social networks.

The first thing you need to do is to claim your preferred name on all the main social networks. Depending on your niche, some social media channels can be invaluable. Don’t forget, though, that social media (aside from paid advertising) is a place to connect with others to be helpful to them and display your expertise. Don’t hop in with a megaphone and act like a barker at a circus. Rather, treat social media like a huge cocktail party – a place where you can meet others, trade ideas and share your content with them. Your aim is to be of value and engage with your current or future blog readers.

You can also look into adapting your content for each social media individually. For example, here is how we modify content that we post on our blog for our Instagram account.

52. Add social share buttons to your content.

You can place sharing buttons at the top of your content, at the bottom of your content, or on the side, as a floating widget. Or you can use all of the options if you want.

53. Post on social media at the right time.

Knowledge is power and someone who knows when to post, where to post, what to post, and how often to post will get a lot more bang for their buck than someone who just sporadically adds random content to whichever social media platform has their attention.

54. Publish your content on social media more often.

You can get results from posting once a day on different social channels. What if you post more? Of course every social channel different and it depends on who your audience is. But we guaranty you would get better results if you publish more than once on social networks of your choice.

55. Don’t just use headlines when posting on social networks.

Many people get lazy. They only copy the headline of the text add the link and post it on social media and waiting for a miracle to happen. It’s important to spend time on adding additional content to your social post depending on the channel you use. It could be more text to Facebook post, hashtags for Twitter, etc.

Image credit

56. Add visuals to your social media posts.

It’s important to understand that adding some visuals or video to your social post will increase your click through rate and engagement.

57. Ask your team members to share.

If you have any team members that help you run your blog ask them to share your content on their social networks. It sounds simple but this small steps will help you to get the word out about your content and whoever likes it will stick around.

58. Thank your readers for reading and sharing.

Take time and thank all your readers for comments. Don’t get lazy. It would mean the world to them. Also, thank people for sharing your content on social media. Here are some creative ways to say thank you:

Gary Vaynerchuk using video replies on twitter all the time, watch him in action

Twitter

There are more than 200 million users on Twitter. Some say it is a one-way conversation, with 140-character (maximum) messages getting fired out continuously. They claim there are a lot of people talking, but not a lot of people listening. But others have managed to build a strong, engaged following to promote their content.

59. Tweet at the right time.

There are different studies done on what is the best time to Tweet. Here is an excellent illustration from Coschedule on what is the best time to Tweet:

You can also do your research by checking your Twitter Analytics account and looking at the stats.

60. How often should you Tweet?

Social Bakers studied Twitter, taking a sample of 11,000 tweets and concluding that three tweets per day are the point where brands start seeing significant engagement.

Image credit

61. Use proper hashtags on Twitter to reach more people.

The hashtag is a keyword phrase written without spaces with the pound sign (#). It could be a single word or a combination of any words. For example, #blogging, #ilovefoodblog, #mytraveladventure, etc.

Hashtag works similar to a link; it ties all the conversations that used particular tag together. Thus, if you know what hashtags are popular in your niche, you can use them to get more exposure to your tweets. Check out the Twitter search function to find what’s happening right now and what’re the trends.

Recommended reading: How to Use Hashtags on Twitter: A Simple Guide for Marketers

Also check out an article on Madalyn Sklar’s site about 7 Powerful Ways to Use Twitter for Marketing.

62. Use “Click to Tweet” boxes within your content.

This function will let your loyal visitors share your content easily on Twitter. Plus, it serves as a good reminder to take action.

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