Sometimes you want to drive traffic to a blog post as soon as possible.
Usually a post like this is timely. It’s something that will have a relatively short lifespan. Maybe just a few months or even a few weeks.
If that’s the case, it can be difficult to sit back and wait for any SEO to kick in. Sure, you might be in all the search engine news feeds and things like that. But people will still need to know that the content exists to search for it and if it’s a new topic they won’t even know that they should or can search for it.
Some obvious ways to drive traffic quickly include advertising. You can choose the platform that’s right for your niche and that’s popular at the time. By the time you’re reading this that platform will probably have changed. Advertising is certainly a great option.
Another is sharing with your subscribers. Either through an email newsletter or social media feed. Or even from those that just make it a habit to directly visit your blog every time you post your scheduled posts. But these take time to build and while that is worthwhile, it’s probably not why you’re reading this post.
Here are a few other ways to quickly drive traffic to a blog post…
1. Podcast Guesting Tour
Book authors have really gone hard on the podcast guesting tour. Many of the top podcasts host authors that are in the process of building buzz for a new book or are still building buzz shortly after a book has just been released.
It’s a great strategy.
But it does take some planning. Some of the top podcasts have about a 3-6 month cycle. That goes from the time you reach out to book a podcast to the time it’s published. Some are even longer than that.
So if you’re putting out a great blog post, it can take some effort upfront to book a podcast and do the timing right.
However, if you reach out to top podcasts you can get some traction just by saying that you’re releasing a new book and that you’re open for last-minute recordings if they ever have someone cancel. This used to happen with late night TV. The hosts like Johnny Carson would have favorite celebrities on-call and those celebrities often became staples.
You can also keep a regular schedule of podcast interviews open throughout the year. And when you’re on one you can promote your current blog post of choice.
2. Guest Blog Posting Blitz
Guest posting can be a little quicker than podcasting guesting. Sometimes it can turnaround within a week of when you reach out, write the post and see the post published. When you publish a guest post you’re usually given a byline with your short bio and at least one link. Just make this link in your bio or at the end of the post all about your own blog post that you’re looking to promote.
3. Social Media Snippet Blitz
Change all the links in your profiles to the blog post.
Now take the post you just published and create snippets. Usually you can create about 5-10x the snippets from the post. At least.
This post, for example, has seven different sections. Each of those can turn into a snippet to share individually on social media. You can use popular hashtags to get even more exposure in the short-term beyond just your immediate audience.
Obviously you’re going to share the title of the post with the link on social. Probably a few times. But social networks want to keep users on their site. I like creating snippets and natively posting the content without a link. You can usually generate more interest this way and to the point where people are looking at your profile, googling your name and brand name and more. They’ll find the post.
4. YouTube Guesting Tour
Look at the movies that are due to come out in the next month or so. Now go on YouTube Trending and look for the names of the actors that are in those upcoming movies. You’ll usually see a correlation.
The same was always true with actors going on late night and even daytime talk shows. They would also book interviews in all the magazines and sometimes radio.
Today, it’s all about the YouTube content. A lot of it is still from the late night or daytime talk shows. But more and more is from channels that are just YouTube-exclusive. They do the hot, spicy wing tasting thing or they go on some other channel and do their fun little stories and things like that.
You can do the same with your new blog post. You usually have to start small, but you can reach out to larger shows as you hone your guesting skills. It takes storytelling and a mix of entertainment and education.
5. Exclusive Preview Content Guesting
Way back in the old days, authors of books would often see full chapters of their book published in newspapers. Usually before the release of the book. You might even see all chapters released for a month or so and then after that the book was released.
This practice is still common with books. Sometimes the big online blogs will score a chapter from an upcoming book.
Let’s say you have a really big new blog post coming out. Reach out to your blogging contacts. Just like you would for guest posting. See if any are interested in publishing part of your post. Maybe just the first part. Maybe the first half. Maybe even the full thing.
The tradeoff is that you get the attention while they get the great content.
6. Influencer Mentions & Inclusions
This tactic got a little out of hand in years past, but I feel it’s in a better place now. It’s mature, just like guest blogging. Say you’re creating that really great new blog post. Reach out to experts in the industry for a quote. Share the whole thing. See if they want to add any details and then be included in the post.
This can work really great when you’re doing primary research on a topic or even something like a big survey of the industry.
You can gather opinions from experts and include them in the post to make the post more valuable, but it also gives those that are included a little ownership in the post. They will want it to do well and they’ll promote it along with you as soon as it’s published.
7. Social Media & Forum Q&A Blitz
Your post is live. Go to social media and search for a hashtag or five that relate to your post topic. Look for any and all questions relating to the topic and begin answering them. As many as you can.
Do the same thing on forums. Both those that are niche and also forums like Quora and even possibly Reddit.
The goal is to provide as much value as possible, which should draw positive attention to you and your profile on the channels, which will have a link to your new blog post.
Conclusion
It’s not easy to bring attention to a new blog post. SEO takes time. If you’re starting from scratch it can take years. It takes time to build an email newsletter or a social following. The tactics here are ones that you can pretty much do from scratch. They take a lot of time and effort, but can be done in the short-term.