Promoting your blog is something I see most bloggers fail at. There are a lot of great bloggers out there that no one has heard of, simply because they don’t know how to promote their blogs or simply don’t want to.
The most important tip I can give you to promote your blog is to not be afraid to tell people about your blog!
I’ve heard from many bloggers that they don’t promote their blogs simply because they don’t think they deserve it. They say things like “I don’t have enough posts yet” or “I need to work on my site design first”.
Don’t do this to yourself! If you’ve spent time building a great site and having great content, then you need to let people know about it. Be proud of what you do.
So how do you promote your blog? Well, it turns out that the most effective promotion methods are free!
1. Email marketing
Many of the other tips on this list are for attracting new readers to your blog. But if you want to build a real following, not only do you need new readers, but you also need to keep first-time readers coming back!
This is where email marketing plays a big role. By collecting your visitors’ email addresses (with their permission, of course), you can notify them when you post something new on your blog. This keeps people coming back to your blog, which not only gets you more readers over time, but also allows you to bond more closely with your readers.
Email marketing is too big a topic to cover well here, so I’ve created a separate topic a guide to email marketing for those who are interested (hint: every blogger who wants more readers should read this guide).
2. Social networks
Chances are you already have a Facebook account and maybe even a Twitter account. So when you post something on your blog, make sure you post a link to your blog post on your social media accounts.
It also helps you connect with other people who are interested in your topic. Friend request the top bloggers in your niche and make sure to follow them on Twitter too.
You might be surprised how many people will find your post interesting and then share the link with their friends.
3. Commenting on other blogs
On many blogs, you can leave a comment with a link to your blog. By posting helpful comments on blogs related to your topic, you’ll put your blog in front of people you know are interested in your topic.
Attention! Do not abuse this method.
If you leave horrible comments on posts to get your name out there, it will only hurt your blog. In addition, poor quality comments may be deleted by the blog owner anyway.
If you leave a helpful comment, people are more likely to visit your site because they will want to hear more about what you have to say about the topic.
4. Links to other blogs
One of the best ideas for writing a blog post is to reply to a post from another blog. This could be a blog post you disagree with or another topic you would like to add.
When doing this, be sure to close the blog you are replying to. In most blogs, this creates what is known as a “trackback”.
A backlink simply means that the blog you linked to will also (automatically) post a link back to your blog. This means that anyone who reads the other person’s blog post will also see a link to your blog and hopefully click on it to visit your site.
5. Guest posting
Another way to get readers of other blogs to hear about your blog is to write guest posts.
To write a guest post, you simply need to contact other blog owners and offer to write a post for their site.
Not all bloggers are open to this idea, but if you can find a few who are, it’s a great job for everyone. You provide them with quality content and in return you link to your blog in your post. If people enjoy your guest post, they will visit your blog for more great content.
6. Online forums
If you haven’t already, you should join popular online forums related to your topic. For example, if your blog is about dog training, join the most popular dog training forums.
Many forums will allow you to post a link to your site in the signature below each post you make. Some forums may require you to post a number of posts before allowing you to do this.
After joining the forum, make useful posts. As with blog comments, the content of your forum posts should be high quality and useful. People won’t want to read your blog if they don’t find your forum posts useful and interesting.
7. Frequent placement
Promotion methods are primarily aimed at attracting new readers to your blog. This is usually the hardest step for any blog. However, you also need to make sure that readers will keep coming back once they find your blog!
Posting frequently (at least once a week, but preferably every 1-2 days) is key to building and maintaining a large following.
Your content can be fantastic, but if you only post once a month, people will likely forget about your blog. You have to strike a balance between high quality and high quantity. It is a difficult balance for any blogger to achieve as it is not always easy to write a high quality post once a day or even once a week.
If you’re having trouble coming up with ideas to write about, be sure to re-read the previous step in this guide.
What’s next?
Now you have learned what you need to know about starting your blog and attracting readers to your site. For some bloggers, this is the ultimate goal. They just want people to read their thoughts and have the opportunity to participate in a community of like-minded people.
However, once you get a decent following, you can start making some money from your blog if you want. Check now for the next and final step to learn how to make money blogging.
