Most people that start a blog are looking for organic search traffic. High rankings on Google that brings in people that will lead to sales. Sales of products, services, ads or whatever.
And that is a great goal, but it’s a long-term goal. Unless you have an established brand, it’s going to take time to build a reputation that Google can trust and thus reward with high rankings. Even if you have the best content in your niche in the areas you target, you have to prove with brand recognition and trust indicators (links, mentions, etc.) that you’re the best result.
If you’re patient, you can setup a consistent blogging schedule that will position you for long-term SEO success. But there are still some things to do in the short-term that can bring more immediate results.
Here are a few tips for promoting your business blog in the first six months.
1. Publish Consistently
This one is often overlooked. Some, not all, but some, business marketers and owners expect that they will see returns after just one blog post. Maybe they have the patience to wait for three or four.
The key to successful blogging is to setup a schedule and stick with it. Weekly is a good place to start. If you can do more then you’re in better shape. If you know you’re busy or if you want to go more in depth, then start with something like monthly post.
The big key is to keep it consistent. The same day every week. The same day every month. This is for the benefit of your new readers so if they like what you’re publishing they can rely on you to publish more on a certain schedule. But it’s also for your benefit because sticking to a schedule ensures long-term success just like with saving money. If you save only when you think about it you won’t save as much as when you set auto-drafts from your checking account to your savings account.
2. Guest
Imagine an actor that has a new moving coming out. Or imagine an author that has a new book coming out. They go a guesting tour for several weeks and even months to get in front of as many people as possible.
The actors usually go on late night TV and even on the afternoon and morning talk shows. They schmooze and tell anecdotes and maybe play fun games. It’s all to give the talk show hosts some entertaining content and a way for the actor to tell people about their movie.
Podcasting has been big for authors. If you listen to a lot of podcasts you’ll often discover that many of the podcast guests have books coming out or have published books very recently. Maybe they’re even promoting older books.
You can do the same for your new blog. The key is to approach blogs that have had guests before. Look through their previous episodes. See where you can fit in to offer something unique to the audience and then make your pitches to the podcasts.
Let’s say you’re a dentist. You could target health and wellness podcasts. Natural teeth cleaning ideas. Symptom recognition. General oral health. Mistakes people often make when brushing their teeth. Send these ideas to the podcast hosts via their websites.
Then when they ask what they should link to or what you would like to talk about, mention your new blog and all the great content that you’ll be publishing on it.
3. Interview & Collaborate
On your blog you can target some interesting people to interview. You can interview them via email or phone and transcribe it to publish on your blog. You could also collaborate with others to make really great posts.
Say you’re that dentist. You could collaborate with a blogger that specializes in natural healthcare DIY products. You could create a post about natural teeth cleaning techniques and products. You could publish the first post on their blog and the second one on your blog.
The key to this is that you’re invested in promoting your content (on social media, email, etc.) and so is the person that you’re interviewing or collaborating with.
4. Social Media Curating & Engagement
Building a social media following is a great way to get traffic to your blog in the early days. It goes without saying that you should share your posts multiple times on your social accounts.
A good way to build your social following while also building your blog is to curate content on your social media account. Find 5-7 sources of great information in your industries. Blogs, online publications and even Google Scholar are great sources.
Try to find and share 5-10 pieces of content everyday. YouTube is another great place to find and share content.
Also look to engage with people on social media. Use hashtags to find discussions in your industry and leave your comments. Like content. Share content. Add to content with comments. The more you engage the more people will see and look at your profile.
5. Blog Post to Podcast
A final tip is to turn your blog posts into podcast episodes. Signup for Anchor. When you publish a new post, take the time to read it and record it via Anchor. Then publish it as a podcast.
That’s it. Now you have the same content available as a podcast where millions of people are now consuming their information for their entertainment and education.
If you write a 600 word blog post it should take you about 4 minutes to read and record it and get it published on Anchor. It’s very much worth the effort to reach even more people.
And over time you build brand recognition on podcasting platforms, which is a signal that your brand is trustworthy and useful and that all feeds back to Google.
Conclusion
It’s not easy to get instant recognition for a new business blog. But the items here can help to bring you some traffic while you’re working to build the organic side of things. That will always take time and it’s still very much worth it. But try the tips here to get even more return from your blogging efforts.