After all the keyword research has been done, after all the posts have been written, proofed, and published, learning effective ways to promote your blog is the next major step towards achieving success.
Whether the goal you set for yourself in your blog content strategy was to generate revenue, establish yourself as a leading authority in your field, or simply to build an audience for your work, actively getting out there and drawing attention to your posts is always going to do far more to help you achieve that goal than simply publishing post after post and relying on organic traffic to get you the results you need.
As the owner of a successful content website portfolio, I can certainly vouch for the need to have some tried and tested blog promotion strategies in place.
Before actively working on the strategies I’m about to share with you today, my blogs and websites were doing OK, but when I started to reach out, share, and engage with others, things really took off to the point that now, my portfolio generates several million dollars in revenue.
How did I do it?
Let me show you.
How to Promote Your Blog? 10 Tested Strategies
So, you are set to go to promote your blog, and you are in no way dilly-dallying to leave it uninfluenced to your audience. Here are all the ten test strategies to know in detail. Read on.
1. Share on Social Media
Let’s start with the most basic strategy for promoting your blog, shall we?
Basic though it may be, taking all of your great blog post ideas and distributing them through social media platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, can still prove to be a fruitful and worthwhile way to generate interest in your posts and drive traffic. At least it can if done right.
The trick here is not to simply spam every social networking site with your content but to think strategically about which platforms will produce the best results for you and carefully consider the way you use them to drive traffic to your content.
Choosing the Right Social Media Platform
As the largest social media site in the world and the third-most visited website on the Internet (after Google and YouTube), it’s no surprise that statistics show Facebook is responsible for driving over 65% of all social media traffic to websites, more than all of the other social networking sites combined.
On the flip side, another Meta-owned brand, Instagram, generates under 1% of traffic, which probably has a lot to do with the fact that the platform doesn’t allow active links in its posts.
So does that mean you should always stick with Facebook and never both with Instagram?
Not necessarily.
Yes, by all means, use Facebook to promote your posts.
With over 2 billion daily active users, it’s going to be a smart move to establish a presence on the platform, but Instagram certainly still has its uses in building your brand and creating engagement, particularly among younger audiences.
The same goes for platforms like TikTok and Snapchat, which data from Pew Research shows us, remain the most popular platforms among 18-29 year-olds.
Conversely, suppose your blog content tends to target people with high levels of education (think Bachelor’s degree or above) or high-earners. In that case, Pew Research tells us that this crowd will be spending time on Linkedin.
And of course, if you’re in the B2B (Business 2 Business) space, then you’re likely to find more success on a business/career platform like Linkedin than you are on one that’s mostly about personal connections like Facebook.
How to Effectively Use Social Media to Promote Your Blog?
If you decide that you’re going to use multiple social media platforms to promote your blog, be sure to think carefully about how you craft your messages.
Twitter and Instagram posts do better with shorter messages, whereas Linkedin users respond better to more long-form content. On the contrary, the size and style of images that you use may vary from platform to platform.
Facebook, for example, presents your content at its best when used with wider images but fewer hashtags, whereas Instagram works best with more evenly-squared-shaped pictures and more hashtags (just be careful not to overdo it!).
Finally, keep in mind that effectively promoting your blog on social media doesn’t mean just posting a link and moving on with your life.
Be sure to check back, actively engage with commentators, and build a discussion around your content. That way, not only do you get that all-important traffic, but you also stand a better chance of presenting yourself as a relatable, personable, and knowledgeable blogger. It means people are more likely to want to check out what you have to say the next time you make a post.
2. Build an Effective Backlink Strategy
As quick and easy as sharing your content on social media can be, it’s nowhere near as effective for promoting your blog as generating backlinks to your content.
If you’re unfamiliar with this term, a backlink is precisely what it sounds like:
A link back to your blog from another website.
How does this help?
Simple:
First of all, there’s the direct traffic you receive when somebody clicks on a link on somebody else’s website and heads over to your blog.
Secondly, there’s the fact that backlinks can form a fundamental part of a solid Search Engine Optimization strategy for your blog. Google considers a backlink as a “vote of confidence” from another website and thus includes the number of quality backlinks as a ranking factor when deciding where to position your blog in organic search results.
The word “quality” is key here.
A single backlink from a well-respected, well-visited, authority site is going to benefit you far, far more than an endless number of links from low-quality, low-authority websites.
Sure, generating those quality links might take more time and effort than simply sharing your posts on social media, but there are a few simple strategies you can use to make the process easier:
A. Use Your Existing Referrers
If you’re using Google Analytics to monitor your site’s performance, head to Acquisition – All Traffic – Referrals.
Here, you’ll see a list of sites that are already providing you with a backlink and the posts they’re linking to.
This will help you to identify the kind of content your referrers like to link to so that you can create more of it in the hopes of generating more links.
B. Reach Out to Outbound Links
If you’re linking out to other sites from your content (as you should be), then you can use a good plugin for WordPress SEO such as MonsterInsights which will show you which of those outbound links receive the most clicks.
You can then reach out to the owners of these sites with the idea of forming a mutually-beneficial partnership, possibly in the form of a content collaboration or, at the very least, a reciprocal link.
C. Use Infographics
Ultimately, the key to generating quality backlinks is to create amazing content that people want to link to in the first place.
Done well, infographics (visual representations of data) can be an invaluable source of great content that other sites love linking back to as they help provide their own visitors with key information about the subject at hand.
D. Write and Submit Guest Posts
Finally, never underestimate the power of good, old-fashioned guest posting when it comes to generating backlinks.
Head to Google and type in a keyword relevant to your industry plus the terms “write for us” or “contribute.”
This is likely to present you with some unique opportunities to reach out and submit a post to another website with a link back to your own.
3. Start an Email List
Did you know that the global email marketing industry is said to be valued at $7.5 billion, with 4 out of 5 marketing professionals insisting that they’d rather give up social media than email?
What makes email so popular?
Simple:
It works.
In fact, only solid link-building comes close to email in terms of effectiveness.
Again, this approach takes a little effort but produces a lot of results in driving traffic to your blog and growing your brand.
Using an email marketing tool as an integral part of your overall blog promotion strategy allows you to build up a list of subscribers and send your new content directly to their inboxes whenever it’s published.
Some of my favorite tools for this task include:
If you need to know a little more before you dive into one of those, I’ve provided you with my honest review of each platform in this guide to the best email marketing services.
4. Add Your Content to Pinterest
Image sharing/social bookmarking platform Pinterest hit the scene in 2010 and within two years was generating more website traffic than the likes of Linkedin, Reddit, and Google+ (remember that?) combined.
These days, the initial excitement around Pinterest may have subsided somewhat. However, it still remains an excellent way to promote your blog.
To do this, create a Pinterest account for your blog and optimize your profile with your blog logo, a brief description, and, most importantly, your blog’s URL.
From there, each time you create a new post, you can add each image (properly optimized with alt tags, titles, etc.) to Pinterest or even use a service like Canva to create a separate image that’s optimized to be displayed on the platform.
When you add that image, be sure to write a custom description, preferably with a Call to Action, encouraging users to visit your site.
This platform also works particularly well for sharing infographics and other visual content that is informative and useful rather than merely decorative. This can help you establish yourself as an informed, knowledgeable and authoritative voice within your niche, all of which can only help your blog in the long run.
5. Create Media Releases for Newsworthy Content
Have you done something with your blog that’s particularly unique and newsworthy?
Did you interview a celebrity, authority, or other influential figures within your niche who had something particularly noteworthy to say?
Have you done a case study or conducted a survey that revealed some pretty interesting insights and/or hard data?
If so, it’s worth shouting about.
Write a media release (essentially, a short news story sent to other platforms) about this newsworthy content of yours, find other sites that might be interested in running that story, and send your release to them.
While there’s no guarantee they’ll do anything with it, if what you’ve done really is as compelling and interesting as you think it is, there’s a good chance that at least some outlets will run with that story.
To demonstrate how this might work, let me give you an example:
You write a blog about music, and you’ve just secured an interview with a band or artist who revealed some never-before-heard details about the recording of their last album, or perhaps they gave you an exclusive about an upcoming tour.
That’s newsworthy.
So you create a media release titled “Johnny Guitar Reveals the True Meaning Behind His Hit Song in Interview with Awesome Music Blog.”
You send that out to music news sites, and if it really is as newsworthy as you say it is, they run that story, typically with a mention (and quite possibly) of a backlink to your website.
This doesn’t just help in terms of driving that initial traffic; it also helps to establish your blog’s reputation as one to check out for exclusive insights or information.
6. Reach Out to Podcasters and YouTubers
Sticking with the theme of establishing a reputation, reaching out to other established names in your niche (or even in other related niches) is always a worthwhile strategy for getting your name out there and demonstrating your expertise to a wider audience.
Check out podcasts and YouTube videos in which people are talking about the kind of subjects you like to write about.
Listen to what they’re saying and think about what you could add to those conversations, whether that’s straight knowledge and data or simply a fresh, alternative perspective.
Then, reach out to those creators and pitch yourself as a guest.
You could, of course, also go the opposite way of inviting them to be featured on your blog.
Whether you do this in the form of an interview, a collaboration, or something else entirely, featuring other creators in a blog post means they’re likely to share that post with their audience, helping you to reach more people than you would on your own.
7. Repurpose Your Content for Other Platforms
Speaking of podcasts and YouTube videos, there’s no reason why you can’t create your own using your existing blog content.
Think about how you could create a compelling video from your latest post and upload it to YouTube or simply start a podcast in which you discuss the main themes from each of your posts.
Ultimately, this doesn’t just give you more ways to monetize your blog (such as through ads on YouTube) but also helps you to reach those people who prefer to consume content in other ways.
8. Run a Contest or Giveaway
Let’s be honest:
People love getting free stuff.
That’s why running contests or giveaways consistently proves to be an effective blog marketing strategy, with one report from Hubspot claiming that brands gain an average of 17,500 fans through a successful contest.
There are two ways you can approach this:
Giving Away Something You’ve Created
If you have a product or service that you’d normally sell, you can run a contest with a freebie as the main prize.
For example, if you’re running a jewelry-making blog, make a unique piece that you put up in a contest, or if you run a cooking blog, why not offer a one-to-one cooking lesson with you via zoom?
Better yet, if you have small items you can give away for free, then give them away in exchange for signing up to your email address, sharing your content on social media, or both.
Partnering With a Brand
If your blog is already well on the way to being established, you might find brands and businesses willing to partner with you on a contest or giveaway.
Typically, they would put up the prize in exchange for free promotion on your blog.
This way, both of you win. Your partner brand not only reaches a wider audience but also gets a ringing endorsement from you as a trusted voice in your niche. In contrast, you get to raise your blog’s profile and attract scores of new visitors to your website that you can then encourage to return via email sign-ups or social media.
9. Reach Out to People and Brands That You Link To
If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably noticed that reaching out to others and making connections is one of the most helpful strategies for marketing a blog, so don’t forget to shoot people an email if you mention them in your content.
Whether you link to their content, review a book, product, or service they’ve created, or simply quote them, get in touch and let them know.
Be sure to start your relationship with these people on the right foot by telling them what it was that you liked about their website, product, etc., that compelled you to want to use it in your posts.
At a bare minimum, those individuals or brands are likely to share your content on their social media platforms if they like what you said about them. However, at most, it could lead to all kinds of exciting collaboration opportunities that will help you grow your blog even further.
10. Don’t Forget Word of Mouth
Last but not least, there’s certainly a lot to be said for simply getting out there and talking to people in your life about your blog.
The people in your life can be your biggest early supporters and advocates, but only if they know your blog exists in the first place.
Tell friends, tell family, tell the people you work with, especially if your blog is related to the same industry as your 9-5. Share it on your personal social media accounts and those pages you create for your blog.
The more people you tell, the more people you’ll have checked out your content with the intention of being supportive. The more people check out your blog, the more it gets shared, and your audience grows.
A Final Piece of Advice
Time and time again, every single one of the blog promotion strategies listed above has been proven to be effective by countless bloggers and content creators.
Yet that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to use all of them together.
In fact, the key to learning how to promote your blog successfully is to explore, experiment, and see what works for you.
After all, while Facebook may technically drive more web traffic than any other platform, you might find that you have a particular way of connecting with people on Twitter that makes the 280-character service a much more valuable use of your time.
You may find that one particular approach to link-building works better than another, or even that despite all statistics showing email marketing to be highly effective, you actually get the best results from posting on Pinterest.
To sum up, then, try out different approaches, measure your results, and combine the particular methods that work best for you into a blog marketing strategy that’s going to help you achieve whatever goal you have in mind for your blog.
