It’s done! You are excited about your new well-written and informative blog post. Hitting the “publish” button is cathartic and you’re certain that it will mean big things for website traffic.
So, you wait…and wait…and wait some more. But the traffic never comes. Discouragement sets in.
You have created a great blog post but you forgot a key element of blogging success – Promoting Your Blog Posts.
If you want your blog post to be read by a growing, interested audience then your audience needs to know that your blog post exists.
Important reality: how you promote your blog post is nearly as important as the blog post itself.
Not doing any promotion for your blog? Do any of these sound like excuses you’ve encountered?
- “I spend so much time creating the actual blog post that I don’t have time to promote blog posts”
- “I use keywords, so my blog post should reach a huge audience on its own”
- “My marketing budget is too small to promote my blog”
- “I’m a small business and don’t have a large audience yet”
To help with your blog promotion efforts we have put together an excellent list of 18 straightforward tactics for how to promote blog posts. The goal? To help you overcome excuses while building exposure and visibility for the excellent content you create.
And the best part is that these tactics are focused on small businesses and startups, so you won’t need a huge budget or a four-person marketing team to ramp up your promotion efforts.
18 Tactics to Promote Blog Posts
1. Post on Social Media
An important first step – social media. Blog promotion is effective on multiple social media channels and the opportunities are endless. One thing is sure…you will not hit a target that you never shoot at, so post your blog to every social media site that makes sense. Do not forget the big ones:
- Google+
- Tumblr
- Other new and growing social media platforms
Prioritize social media sites frequented by your target audience, but do not discount the less used platforms where you can spark additional interest. Make sure that your social media profiles include a link to your blog as well.
2. Share to Content Aggregator Sites
Aggregate sites, also known as content aggregators, are information hubs that collect content from sources related to specific topics. Here are several useful sites to include in your blog post promotion routine:
Some of these sites also have relatively low-cost methods of getting increased visibility for your content.
3. Enlist Your Community
Encourage all employees, friends, colleagues, and family members to share your blog post within their circles of influence. Consider creating a simple social media scheduling template for employees to track their blog post shares.
4. Use Tools for Blog Promotion
Content sharing tools such as Buffer and Hootsuite are designed to automate and schedule blog post sharing in order to maximize the reach of content. For around $10/month, your small business can perform various automated tasks.
5. Email Every Post
Your blog content is a great way to leverage your email marketing efforts. For effective email blog content promotion:
- Send emails at the optimal time for click-throughs.
- Set emails to launch each new post and build excitement.
- Include links to past blog posts.
6. Use Social Sharing Icons
If you are using WordPress for your website or blogging platform, there are a wide range of WordPress plugins to add social buttons. Social sharing icons not only make it easy to share content but also encourage sharing.
7. Take Advantage of Trends
Promoting older blog posts can be tremendously effective when the content coincides with current events or a newly emerged trend.
8. Continue to Promote Older Content
Many blog posts have an extended lifespan which offers opportunities to promote blog posts over time.
9. Think Long Term
Learning to appropriately identify and integrate long tail search terms into each blog post can serve as a highly effective, long term blog promotion and visibility strategy.
10. Repurpose Your Blog Content
From one blog post, create three additional pieces of content such as:
- Videos
- Podcasts
- Infographics
11. Republish Your Blog Posts on Other Platforms
Platforms such as LinkedIn and Medium provide members the opportunity to publish content on their site. It allows for introducing your blog content to a new audience.
12. Use Internal Links
Include at least one internal link to a previous blog post in each new post to help drive organic traffic back to previous posts.
13. Engage With Your Audience
Encourage engagement by thanking your social media audience for sharing your blog post and suggesting additional reads.
14. Use Your Email Signature
Include a link to your blog in your email signature to put your blog post in front of your email recipients.
15. Build Relationships
Build mutually beneficial relationships to help promote blog posts. Agree to share the content of others in exchange for them sharing your content.
16. Convert Your Post to a PDF
Create a PDF with clickable links that lead back to both your website and your blog post.
17. Join H.A.R.O
H.A.R.O., or Help A Reporter Out, joins reporters and “sources.” If you have recently published a blog post that is relevant, you may gain visibility.
18. Include Your Blog Link in Your Social Media Profiles.
Most social media profiles have room to add one or more links. This can be an opportunity to get extra visibility and exposure for your blog content.
Conclusion:
To get the most out of your creative efforts, promote your blog posts.