Before we dive into the main topic of how to promote a blog post, let’s see what Lucy Literado of Reply.io once said about blog post promotion.
“Content promotion is a tough job for every marketer out there mostly because great results require great effort. At Reply, we started using LinkedIn prospecting to enhance our promotion processes using our own email finding tool for the platform. However, we do personalize every single message and spend a lot of time on this kind of outreach to get the impact we want, but it’s totally worth it. “
Having read that, Lucy Literado has given us a generally perceptive that promoting a blog post online is a serious business. Be that as it may, there are proven strategy that’ll help you achieve this feat.
In this blog post promotion guide, I will guide you to the ways to promote a blog post and your blog content is in fact the indispensable aspect of your blog that will elevate or boost the success of your blog.
You will also learn what it takes to create a remarkable blog post. Along with the types of content you should create or fashion out for your audience.
But, to be candid with you, your blog post will under no circumstances be of assistance to your success, if no one ever sees it.
What is a Blog Post?
Blog post is a written text created and targeted at educating, informing or encouraging people to either learn – to acquire knowledge – or inspire to action an action through an online magazine called a blog.
So, a blog post is aimed at letting people know or understand a matter which was unclear to them before they came to read them on your blog, and as such, a blog post must be relevant, educative and informative.
But for people to see your blog post online, you must promote them either through a paid medium or other channels which I will be discussing in this post.
So for this reason; it is of utmost importance that you hit resources like online marketing strategies to help you market or promote your blog contents or your entire blog, along with each piece of content you create or publish. This is called content marketing.
Your content marketing capabilities will define how well traffic comes to your blog/website, the number of social shares you receive, the number of comments that are made on your posts and how many subscribers you gain.
And at the end of the day, the goal is to gain as many visitors as possible, especially when you begin to monetize your blog.
The visitors who you can transform through advertising clicks, affiliate referrals and product/service buyers, rely on your monetization approach.
In anticipation of that, let us quickly look at the various ways you can promote your blog contents.
Getting Ready For Blog Post Promotion
Before you begin your journey to promoting a blog post, I believe you would want to be certain that your content is all set.
The steps I have outlined below is to help you check the whole thing you have done from the beginning, that is from building up your blog to creating your pages and posts.
So let us go;
- Make sure if your principal content is live and all set for promotion.
- Examine and retest your menu bar and sidebar links to ascertain that your pages, posts and archives, are opening as it should be.
- Examine your blog on the best browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Mozilla) and see with conviction that the whole thing appears accurate.
- Evaluate your contact info and scrutinize your contact form to really confirm that its workings fine.
- Examine your blog comment form to be certain visitors can easily leave comments.
- Make sure your social sharing buttons is working properly, so individuals coming to your blog can share your posts on the best social networks.
- Allow your visitors one or more means to link up or connect with you and subscribe to your blog together with an opportunity to subscribe by email.
- Also make sure you configure Google Analytics to show and analyze the activities of your visitors, wherever they come from and the top content pages on your website they are visiting.
Now, before we dive into how to promote a blog post, let’s first deal with promoting your blog first;
Ways on How to Promote Your Blog
Let me put this straight to you, it’s important you give your connections awareness to know all that pertain to your new blog.
Each and every one who comes in touch with you, should know that you have a new blog. Some good ways to demonstrate and certify this includes;
- Adding your blog URL to your email directorates, so your email contacts can check it out. WiseStamp is a distinguished app to help out with this, if you are using Gmail or other browser-based email systems. It will typically pull in your latest blog post into your signature.
- Submit your blog URL to your social media networks you use the most, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, and so on. This means, on every occasion, everyone will find you on social media, they can encounter your blog as well.
- Submit your blog URL to forum networks and signatures where you can always involve yourself in dialogs, if at all possible it is associated to your new blog’s niche.
- Include your blog URL to author bios of any blog sites you are at present contributing to, including other blogs that you have.
Perhaps you already have a blog about women pregnancy and you are pioneering a blog about family finance. Your author bio and about page should link up to your new family finance blog.
So, let get started…
Linking with Others at Every Opportunity
The first step to promoting your blog is networking with opportunities. In the quest to start blog and content promotion, linking up with others in your niche and attending an interacting events is crucial.
You must be definite to have a quick growing-pitch relating your blog when you are asked what you do. If you are at a blogging meeting specifically, it is very much satisfactory to let people know that you’ve started a blog.
A blog helps people gain knowledge about a specific topic of importance. At the same time, if you have a day time job that you have to make public, your elevator pitch would be that you are a [your job designation], and you also manage yourdomain.com.
Promoting your blog will be of assistance to people as they come to know more on the subject of your subject matter.
Offering Your Blog to Search Engines
In offering your blog to search engines as part of the measure to promote blog content; I’d advise you use a plugin called RankMath or alternative Yoast SEO. There’re both good SEO plugins to help you out.
One of the qualities of these plugins is to make available you a channel to set-up a custom sitemap for your blog. You can make use of this sitemap to present and submit your blog to search engines through Google Webmaster Tools (for Google) and Bing Webmaster Tools (for Bing and Yahoo).
In doing this, you’re promoting your blog and your posts altogether.
Submitting Your Blog to Directories
Despite the fact that there are hundreds of directories that will list your blog for a particular time, yearly or for a long-term fee listing, only a one or two should be well-thought-out in terms of quality.
These directories consist of the Best of the Web Blogs ($150 for submission), and Eaton Web Blog Directory ($35 for submission).
A number of these directories recommend free listings as well, but you have to wait a very long time to see your blog get added, let’s assume they add it at all.
Commenting on other blogs
Another way to promoting your blog is by commenting – a very qualitative and educative one – on other high-ranking blogs, it is a remarkable way to put up relationships with top bloggers around your niche.
Explore the web to discover top blogs in your niche and start commenting on their newest posts. This will be of advantage to you as you prepare them and their readers, to be conscious of your presence as well as increasing your own authority within the niche.
Participate with Other Blogs in Your Niche
Google’s principal of web spam, Matt Cutts, has decried that guest blogging is a maneuver for SEO.
With that said, notwithstanding, it’s a great way to get attention and exposure within your niche. So long as you are putting forward quality subject matter or topics to quality blogs.
So get in touch with blogs that have plenty of social shares, and community activities as ascertained by the number of comments per post and social followers.
Try to know the blog owners and or the editors, institute a relationship with them, and then go near to them to see if they are accepting new contributors on their website.
The important thing is to say new contributors as opposed to guest bloggers, “Contributors” tells the blog owner/editor that you are dedicated to initiating high quality content for them, as contrasting to just launching something all in the process to market yourself.
Sign up for a Feedburner account
Feedburner is a service owned by Google. It lets you to track the number of subscribers to your RSS feed.
Utilize it to offer your blog to visitors, a way to subscribe to your blog in their favorite RSS reader such as Feedly.
Optimize Your Blog for Search
On a regular basis, creating helpful content on your blog is one way to get search engines to index your content.
If you want your blog and posts to rank for particular keywords, you will want to always strive to optimize both for search engines.
This is simple, by using the fields provided by RankMath or Yoast SEO to add a keyword optimized SEO title and Meta description to your blog’s homepage, main static pages, and each one of your posts. To stay on Google’s good side, stay away from overstuffing your blog with keywords.
Choose one keyword phrase to optimize for on each page and post. Include it in your SEO title, Meta description, and one image on the page.
Related Article on Search Engines and Optimization:
Start Building Your Mailing List
Do not wait until when you start getting an ample amount of traffic before building a mailing list, start from the very beginning of your blogging journey.
If on your first day of launching your blog you get two people who love your content, you want those two people to be able 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 monetization strategy.
Having a mailing list is generally not expensive from the beginning. Email marketing Services like MailChimp allows you to have up to 2,000 subscribers with up to 12,000 emails for free, while services like Aweber allow you to have up to 500 subscribers with unlimited emails for $19 per month.
Related Article on Email Listing:
Looking at What Your Competitors Are Doing
You do not have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to promoting your blog. Just look at what your competitors are doing in terms of marketing strategy.
You can use SEO backlink tools to help you know the links your competitors are getting.
This will shed more light into their strategies, in regards to social networks, directories, guest posting opportunities, and other online marketing tactics.
Cognitive SEO has a free Backlink Explorer you can use for this purpose. You can go for a paid advertising option if you have a budget and can boost your initial traffic through paid advertising.
One of the most used paid adverting options is the Google AdWords, it allows you to pay, to promote your blog on Google Search and their display networks.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon have their own advertising spaces, to help you compel traffic to your blog and blog posts. You can also look at advertising options on other blogs in your niche that receive a lot of traffic.
This will generally be in the form of banner advertisements or sponsored reviews.
Proven Ways on How to promote a blog Post
In addition to promoting your blog as a whole, you will also want to promote your blog content, i.e., each, individual blog post.
As you promote your blog post, your blog as a whole will gain more traffic, social shares, and engagement.
Here are some ways on how to start your blog post promotion.
1. Submit your blog posts to bookmarking and voting sites
Similar to directories, there are hundreds of social bookmarking and voting sites on the internet. And parallel to directories, not all of them are useful. Your goal is to look for social bookmarking and voting sites that have busy users.
These include Delicious, Stumble-Upon, Reddit, BizSugar, Inbound, and related ones.
You must realize that most of these sites are not fond of people promoting their own content all of the time, so you may want to consider; making a friend on those networks and occasionally sharing content with them in hopes that they will submit it to these networks.
2. Try blog promotion networks
Several networks exist solely for the purpose of gathering people who love to help each other promote their blog posts.
These networks include Triberr, Social Buzz Club, Viral Content Bee. You can also build your own blog post promotional network. As you network with others in your niche just get everyone connected to a Facebook group or in an email list where they can share their latest posts.
By this point, you should have already claimed your preferred name on each social channel. Which is one of the most crucial ways on how to promote a blog post, although depending on your niche, certain social media channels can be invaluable.
Never forget, though; that social media (aside from paid advertising) is a place to connect with others. Be helpful to your online audience 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 network to form alliances.
Promoting your Blog Post on Social Networks
Another blog post promotion tactics is doing that on social media networks. In promoting a blog post on social media, it’s important you treat everyone you meet with respect. Your aim is to be of value and engage with your current or future blog readers.
The main social networks you should work towards and building connections with are listed below. Each social media platform should be utilized and approached differently.
Chose the one (or ones) that best fit your needs and become an expert at leveraging them to help reach your goals.
1. 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 constantly with a lot of people talking.
But not a lot of people listening. Others have managed to build a strong, engaging following allowing their business promote their content.
To learn more about Twitter, start with the Twitter 101 guide to Business as a quick-start resource. Also check out this list of free Twitter tools and apps collected by Kevan Lee from Buffer to help you get your foundations in place.
2. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the leading social network for professionals with more than 100 million users. It’s a great place to connect with other bloggers and business owners in your niche.
The network has a lot to offer when it comes to business-related information. For the downside to this network is that unlike Twitter, you have to know a person already (or know their email address) to connect with them.
3. Google+
More than a social media platform, Google is using Google+ as a hubspot for identifying online movers and shakers. The internet giant has moved business listings from Google Places to Google+.
4. Pinterest
While it is still predominantly used by women, the number of men on Pinterest is increasing. With more than one hundred million active monthly users, the statistics on Pinterest are impressive. See the Pinterest Tips for Business page for additional information.
5. Facebook
With over a billion active monthly users, Facebook is the number one social media network. Chances are, many of your potential readers and future customers already have an account there.
One thing to remember is that Facebook tends to be reserved for true “social” interaction. You can launch your blog’s Facebook page and start interacting with the community that is already established.
But be careful about mixing business with pleasure on this platform. Facebook rewards the engagement with your followers, thus the goal is not the quantity but quality of relevant posts and updates that engage your fans,
Which can be measured by the number of likes, comments, and shares you receive. For an overview of how to use Facebook for business, check out the Facebook for Business guide.
Find out how to use your personal Facebook page for business by reading this article. Also remember that Facebook is a great place to promote your posts.
You can start by doing so using their paid advertising place as you grow your own organic audience and reach.
6. YouTube
Now owned by Google, the videos you launch on YouTube can get indexed on the world’s largest search engine quickly.
Don’t forget to apply search engine optimization (SEO) strategies on your YouTube channel and launches. Most especially by optimising your titles and video descriptions with a target keyword phrase.
It is not wise to host your videos on your own blog. The size of video files will lag you down way too much. YouTube is an excellent help in this regard.
You can host videos there for free, gain the SEO advantage, and then embed them on your own blog.
7. Instagram
This site allows you to promote a blog post by sharing photographs via your mobile device. It is similar to Pinterest, in that you can create boards that focus on specific topics.
Here again, remember how important it is to stay centered. Make sure your photographs are what your audience wants to see.
This is not to say you shouldn’t post items of general interest, but your profile as a whole should draw your desired audience and provide value to them.
Instagram’s Getting Started page is an excellent place to learn about the platform.
The Hootsuite’s article on using Instagram for business is an excellent primer for finding out more about this very visual social media channel.
8. Other social networks
There are other social media possibilities, and new ones appear regularly.
For most of us, though, one of the already-popular channels will serve our needs well and deliver maximum promotional benefit.
Of course, your business is unique, and you should make use of the social media avenues that best fit your own niche and style.
If there is a lesser-known channel where your audience tends to gather, you should be there with them. Whatever you do, don’t overextend yourself.
Everything you do online is a reflection of your capabilities, and your content marketing is a reflection of your content strategy.
Context is important.
The context is the circumstances that form and surround an event or idea, so it can be fully understood.
When it comes to blog content, context is the way you’re publishing, distributing, and how you promote your blog content.
If you’re trying to connect with your audience in the wrong context, it doesn’t matter how good your content is. Your blog content will not be read, shared, or discussed.
Final Note on How to Promote a Blog Post
Beyond the tips listed on blog content distribution, you can come up with other creative ways to promote your blog. Your best bet is to start small and make adjustments to your promotion strategies along the way. Always remember to focus these key fundamentals.
1. Maintaining a clean and properly functioning blog.
2. Creating focused and helpful content.
3. Engaging in conversation and build your authority.
I hope this guide offered you value, what other ways can one do content promotion online today? Give us your thoughts right in the comment box.
He is Digital Marketer who is passionate about blogging. MarketingBlogo was birth has a result of misconceptions about the reality of online marketing for business growth.
