So you’ve launched a new blog.
Maybe you’ve even written your first handful of posts.
You published those posts, sat back and waited for the traffic to roll in.
And then the disappointment sets in.
This happens to many bloggers. There is a lot of frustration with blogging because the organic search traffic part of blog promotion takes some time to come around. It will build over time, but to boost your blog’s traffic in the early days and really throughout its lifetime there are other things to focus on to promote your blog.
Here are some of those ways to promote your new blog.
1. Build Social Media Audiences
This is something that most people understand in today’s online marketing world. There is value in social media and one of the biggest values is having an audience of people that opt-in to your updates.
Those people that opt-in to your updates want content. They’re looking for things that are interesting, useful and entertaining. This is the best scenario. Some brands build an audience based on discounts and promotions. That’s a tricky situation and not one I would recommend.
An audience built on content is much more useful and more likely to buy goods and services from you.
Write content on your blog. Share snippets on your social profiles. Use hashtags and write about the things that are relevant to your industry and popular with your target audience on social media.
2. Start An Email Newsletter
Perhaps even more valuable than social media is an email program or email newsletter.
With email, you control the platform just like you control your website and blog. You can build an audience on social media, but you don’t control the platform.
Start a newsletter by asking your colleagues, friends and clients if they would like to be part of the newsletter. Ask them to give you a chance and that they can unsubscribe if they don’t like what they see. But gain feedback from these trusted people. They can help you build a newsletter that is extremely interesting and useful.
Use your blog content in the newsletter and you’ll send subscribers to your blog where you can further earn their trust, which leads to eventual sales.
3. Build Audiences On Forums And Communities
Don’t forget about forums and communities. These have been around since the beginning of the Internet and they’re as strong as ever.
There are forums and communities for nearly every industry and niche. It amazes me that they all exist. You might not think they do for your industry, but do a Google search and you’ll find at least one or two.
Participate in these communities and build a network of people that trust you. Then include a link in your signature or on your profile back to your blog. If people like the updates you share they’ll get curious and will go back to your blog to find more.
4. Write Guest Content For Others
Guest blogging has really come under fire the last few years. You could see it coming because people were abusing guest posting for links. Any time you do something for links you’re heading down a rabbit hole. Stay away from links.
Now that the SEO bandits are giving up on guest content it’s an opportunity again for you to use guest blogging and other guest methods to grow your brand.
Provide guest content like a post or a quote or something to someone that has an existing audience. This puts you in front of the people that will have potential interest in your blog.
5. Write Posts About Other Bloggers And Brands
When you write posts, always stick your industry and niche as best you can. You want to attract the right type of readers – those that are your potential customers.
But by doing that you also want to let influencers know that you’re blogging and one way to do that is to write about these influencers.
For example, let’s say a plumber has a blog. They want to attract households that need major work on their homes as far as plumbing goes. We’re talking about people needing to remodel a bathroom or entire home.
The plumber would create a top list of must-have items for remodeled homes and in this post they would link to similar blogs and business owners that do other things like electrical, furniture, etc.
Make sure these people have blogs and audiences because the goal is to have them share your post with their audience.
6. Offer To Do Co-Written Posts On Other Blogs
As you identify these other blogs that have established audiences you want to look for ways to get in front of that audience. One way is to offer the blog owner to provide co-written content. You could offer to do the majority of the post with some input from the other writer.
This gives the blogger content and it gives you exposure to their audience.
7. Host Co-Sponsored Webinars
You may have colleagues now or you may engage with some in the future. These connections are great for expanding the audience for your blog.
Webinars are becoming really popular today in the online world. They’re inexpensive to host and people really seem to like watching them live or even recorded.
Find someone that has a good-sized audience and propose a co-hosted webinar. Offer to do most of the work to put things together and co-promote the event to both of your audiences.
This doubles the people exposed to you, your brand and your new blog.
Conclusion
The goal of these items above is to help you boost the traffic to your new blog.
It’s all to common to see people become frustrated when their new blog doesn’t do well right away.
Don’t let that get you down. Set your expectations. Blogging is a long-term strategy that can provide many things to you including sales for your business.
To help you get started we’ve provided these tips.