A blog can be a great tool for marketing your business. It’s a powerful way to engage with your audience and get them involved in what you do. You can get feedback, showcase your work, and build relationships. But if you don’t know how to promote your blog, it can be difficult to get people to find it. This article will show you 17 proven ideas for promoting your blog so that people can find it easily.
1. Use social media
Social media is the best way to promote your blog. It’s where most people are looking for content, and you can get in front of them easily. You can use these sites to share links back to your blog: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linked In, Google+, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, and more. Plus, if you have a WordPress blog, you can easily add social media buttons to your posts and setting up automation with the plugins or 3rd party services like ifttt.com to auto re-post your latest publish post to your various social properties.
It is an easy to do and cost-effective way to promote your blog. As a result, you can get more traffic and increase your blog’s exposure by building engagement with your social followers, building your presence through various assets.
2. Use search engines
Google search is probably the best tool to use if you want to drive traffic and get in front of people who are looking for what you do. You can optimize your site by writing unique content that’s optimized for your keywords. For example, if you’re a plumber in New York City, then your blog post about plumbing might be indexed by Google for that keyword.
You can also get people to find your blog through SEO (search engine optimization). If you have a WordPress site and the plugins mentioned above, you can easily optimize your site and get it to rank for specific keywords. Start with optimizing your title, meta description, and other tags, then continue with the pages of your site. Make sure that you are not using any paid advertising for this purpose. You can simply use organic search results to drive traffic to your blog.
3. Use social bookmarking sites
Social bookmarking is a great way to promote your blog as well because people who follow you on one of these sites will see your content. Some of the most popular social bookmarking sites are:
Pinterest – Find and save images from websites, apps, books, etc. People can follow other people on Pinterest and share their own pins with their followers.
Delicious – Save the URLs of web pages you like. Similar to Pinboard but less robust.
Reddit – Share content with the community of people who are interested in what you’re doing. Technically, it’s not a social bookmarking site but more like an online forum where people discuss various topics and posts links to relevant websites.
StumbleUpon – Find interesting articles on different topics.
Digg – A popular social bookmarking site.
Technorati – Submit links to your blog posts or stories, and you can be featured in a Technorati section for a certain amount of time.
That’s it! The more you do these three things, the more people will see your blog, and the more you’ll grow.
4. Write guest posts for reputable blogs
If you have a lot of expertise in your field, writing guest posts can be a great way to promote your blog. You can share links back to your blog so that people can find it easily. You can tap into the relevant audiences and gaining backlinks to help building your website authority. Plus, you can get your name out there and be recognized as an expert in your field.
Formerly known as “guest blogging”, this tactic is still very much alive and well. There are many blogs out there that are looking for guest bloggers to write for them. You can find these types of sites on search engines, or by browsing through the “recommended” section of some websites.
Some examples:
Moz Blog – A popular blog with lots of traffic and a great reputation.
Social Media Examiner – A blog that focuses on social media and the latest news in the industry.
The New Yorker – A popular magazine with a large following, and is usually very strict about its guest posting policy. The only way to get published here is if you have a large audience and a high reputation.
5. Build relationships with other bloggers
If you have a blog that’s related to the same niche, you can share content with each other and build relationships. If you’re both blogging about something related, it’s natural to share each other’s content. You can also exchange links with one another and promote your blog.
Certainly don’t expect reciprocal links in return. That’s not how things work in the blogging world. But do make an effort to share relevant and complementary content with one another. It’ll pay off in the end.
6. Create videos and upload them to YouTube
If you have a lot of expertise in your field, create videos and upload them to YouTube. You can share the video on your blog so that people can find it easily. If they are interested in what you’re talking about, they will subscribe to your channel or come back later for more. You can also use YouTube to drive traffic to your blog.
Youtube is the second biggest search engine in the world, if you are not using youtube to promote a blog, you are missing out on a lot of traffic. You can also monetize your youtube channel with advertisements.
7. Create an infographic
Create infographics to help people remember your blog post or share information easily. You can also use the images as the header of your blog post for better results. You can embed these infographics on your blog and share them with your followers. Plus, you can use these infographics to get backlinks to your blog by asking people who shared to give you credits.
A great way to improve your website authority and driving extra traffic to your blog. However, the infographics you created must be share-worthy and beautifully made, else it won’t gain many tractions.
8. Offer an eBook for download
Offer a downloadable eBook as a giveaway on your blog. You can use the same to drive traffic and build relationships with people who like what you’re writing about. The only thing is that it will take time before you can see any results. Use this giveaway to drive visitors to opt-in to your email list and build a relevant audience, it will make a difference in the long run.
9. Give a discount on your blog posts
If you are selling products, give away discount codes on your website, it is a great way to gain subscribers to your website. It is also one of the easiest ways to increase website sales. People love discounts and when they get something for free, they feel even more grateful towards you and your business. So, offer a discount code for your next blog post and see what happens.
10. Give a free teleseminar or webinar
People love to get a chance to learn from experts. This is one of the best ways you can use to improve your website authority and driving traffic back to your blog. Teleseminars are great for this since they help you build relationships with people who want to learn more about your topic.
11. Give away freebies for social media shares
You can give away a small number of products or services in exchange for a link back to your website on their social media profiles, this is an easy way to get people’s attention and build relationships with them. If you have a great offer for your followers, they will share it on their social media profiles and that is what you want.
They should share it because they want what you are selling and they want to help you promote it. Don’t force them to do it if it is not a natural thing to do for them, you will only annoy them and lose the chance to make a relationship with them.
12. Build your email list
If you’re really serious about your blog, then it’s important to build a mailing list for people who want to stay up-to-date with what you’re doing. The more subscribers you have, the better. To do this, you need to make it easy for people to sign up. There are a lot of email marketing software out there that can help you do this. Just make sure you’re using the right one and know how it works before jumping in headfirst into an email marketing campaign.
Email marketing will be as important as ever, as the marketing cost is constantly on the rise, building your own list and continue to keep them engaged can be a cost-effective marketing vehicle to promote your content and products.
13. Giving answer on quora
Unquestionably one of the best traffic building strategies is to simply ask questions and allow people to answer them for you. If you have something valuable to say, people will come to your website from Quora and read what you have to say. Plus, they will click on the links you included in your question which will send them back to your website.
Besides that, when people read your answers on Quora, they will often comment on them and this will give you more credibility and popularity. So, use Quora to gain trust and traffic!
14. Engage with influencers in your niche
The reason why you should engage with influencers is that they have a huge following and can easily help you gain some good traffic from their followers. In return, the way to approach them is through Twitter or Facebook as it’s easy to interact with them. You can send them an email or simply comment on their blog post, in which case they will reply to you and this is when you start building a relationship with the influencer.
As I have shown you earlier in this post, the best way to do this is through social media. There are plenty of influencers in every niche so don’t be shy to reach out to them.
15. Blog comments are very important
One of the most important traffic-building strategies is to have a blog and use it as a platform for you to share content. The best way to do this is by getting your readers involved in the comments section of your blog post. If you’re not sure how just ask them or send them a link to your blog.
Later on, you can always ask them if they’ve got any feedback for you. If you are selling products, include a comment section on each of your blog posts and ask your readers questions. Give them a reason to come back to your website again and again. It’s a great way to build a relevant audience and turn them into customers.
16. Write content that is helpful
Write content for your website which is of high quality and very useful to the visitors you are trying to attract. This will help you build authority over time as it’s important to be seen as an expert in your niche. In addition, you can also include links to other useful websites in your content.
17. Ask for testimonials
Another great way to get more traffic to your website is to ask your readers for testimonials. If you’re selling products, including a testimonial box on your website. If you’re not selling anything, this is also an excellent way to get free traffic as it will be seen by your visitors as they read through the content that you have written. On the whole, it’s another simple yet effective strategy for increasing the popularity of your website.
18. Build a brand around your blog
Once you have built up an audience for your blog, it’s important to make them part of your online community by creating a brand that represents you and what you stand for. This is something that takes time but once you have built up a strong brand around your blog, it will become more and more difficult for others to take away your authority.
19. Create relevant content every day
If you’re blogging about business-related topics, then you should be writing relevant content on a daily basis so that people will continue to return to your website. The more relevant your content is, the more likely it will be that people will come back to read your blog.
20. Start a forum
A forum is a great way to connect with other people who are interested in the same topic as you. It’s also a great place for people to post comments and questions, which will help them stay on top of your blog and make sure that they don’t miss any important information. Forums are a great way to increase the amount of traffic that you receive and keep your reader to continue coming back to your blog.
21. Create an RSS feed for your blog
RSS feeds are very useful as they allow people to be notified whenever there is new content added to your website or blog. If you have included links on your site to allow people to subscribe to your RSS feed, then you can expect an increase in traffic as more and more people will be able to find out about the latest content that you have posted.
22. Create a newsletter
Another great way to increase the amount of traffic that you receive is by starting a newsletter and providing your readers with regular updates on what’s going on in your business. If you provide people with useful information, they will be more likely to subscribe to your newsletter and continue to read it. Then, you can provide them with more useful information and they will be even more likely to subscribe.
23. Create a Facebook group for your blog
If you already have a large Facebook following, you should consider creating a Facebook group for your website. This will allow you to share information much faster than you could use your personal profile. It’s also a good idea to make this a closed group… so that only people who have approved permission from your personal profile can join. The audience in the Facebook group is also highly engaged and it is very effective in promoting your new content.
In summary, there are many ways to increase the amount of traffic that you receive. The most important thing is to create content that people want to read and then share it with your audience. The more time and effort you put into it, the more effective your content will be.