Promoting Your Blog
Your blog is up and running. You have decided on an editorial calendar. You have been working hard to post at least three times a week and have been doing so for a month or two. Now is the time to get started on your promotional tour, which, by the way, never ends.
Here are some tips on how to promote your blog.
NB – Check out ProBlogger for great tips and tools
Profiles
Take the time and write keyword-rich, information-packed profiles on all of your social networks. There are places where you can include your URL. Don’t skip them! Add your URL to your email signature. How many emails do you send out a day?
Facebook Your blog
Post your new posts to your facebook profile! In addition to the post and link, add a question, ask for feedback. Don’t forget to add a great image to the post.
Set up a Facebook page for your blog, fill in all of the information and about fields, use your logo, and post regularly! Add a Facebook Like box to your blog with the words: “Find us on Facebook.”
(Note: DIVVY has a great editorial calendar – check it out!)
Tweet your Blog
Another way to promote your blog is on Twitter. Start conversations; give out information, tips, and helpful recommendations. Tweet your blog posts! Don’t start the tweet with “my new post…” Tweet the title or a relevant question, something that will trigger your followers’ fingers to click on the link.
You can also tweet a past post. Here is a handy plugin for that: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweet-old-post/
Make sure that your twitter profile is complete and your URL is there. People will want to know more about the person behind those great tweets! Remember Twitter etiquette: thank retweets and give a shout out to new followers!
YouTube is the second largest search engine; you should be using it. Create video about your blog. You don’t have to be in front of the camera. Make it short, emotional, and relevant. Upload it to YouTube. Make sure that you include the URL of your blog in the first 75 characters of the description
Get Listed
Add your blog URL to lists and directories. If you have favorite blogs, add them to your blogroll -frequently this will be reciprocated.
Submit your blog to all of the search engines (not only to Google), to sites like Technorati, blog directory sites, dig, del.ic.ious, and Reddit. Comment on other blogs and make sure that your URL is included with your comment.
Social Share buttons
Make sure that you have Twitter, Facebook, and other social network sharing buttons on every blog post. There are great WP plugins for this (Share This, Tweet Button, FB Like, and Recommend Buttons). It’s best to have these buttons in more than one place, usually under the title of the post and then again at the side or bottom of the post. Don’t make your readers work hard. NB Don’t forget a Pin (Pinterest button)
SEO
SEO strategy should be implemented from Day 1. The more you write and post, the easier it will be to write with SEO in mind.
- Research keywords for every post.
- Make sure your post is keyword-rich (but not overloaded. The text needs to be for humans first.
- Make sure your title has a keyword in it.
- Include keywords in your picture alt-tags, headlines, meta descriptions etc.
This great plugin checks to make sure your SEO is on track (Yoast)
Create an Email List
Ask your readers to give you their email addresses! You can do this in a number of ways:
- Give something away – a random giveaway to new subscribers
- Offer a newsletter
- Create an eBook in your niche – give a free eBook to everyone who registers. Offer blog reminders by email. If your content is compelling, some readers will subscribe just for the content.
Monetizing your Blog
The next post, and last in this series, will be on monetizing your blog. There are many ways to do this; including the use of plugins on WordPress. It is easy. We will touch on Google AdSense, Donation Buttons, affiliate marketing, and banner advertising.
