9 Awesome Tips How to Promote Your Blog [Infographic]
Learn all you need about how to promote your blog with this infographic! This invaluable guide is made from interviews with 40 successful blogging marketing professionals. Get inspired and empowered!
40 extremely successful bloggers and marketing experts were asked to mention things that most bloggers and content marketers can do to boost the effectiveness of their content promotion. The result is a veritable gold mine of marketing insight about blogging ideas, optimization, building relationship with your audience, and sharing to the right influencers.
Enjoy, and find some great marketing quotes to share!
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1. Your blog's gotta rock!
Be helpful
Most bloggers and content marketers need to make their content helpful to their community and not just type something to put it up there. Whenever you phone it in, no one answers. Ask the question, “Is this helpful?” If the answer is no, start over.Chris Brogan
Be unique
Figure out what’s your value proposition and help people understand why they should pay attention to you, to what you write, and buy your product.Peter Sandeen
Tell stories
I’d have my guests tell a story. A real story of failure, the lessons they learned. A real story of their “aha” moment, and lessons they learned from that moment. We just connect with stories. They can be very powerful and attracting.John Dee Dumas
Quote experts
What I like to do is write an original article and gather expert opinions to supplement some of my arguments.Gregory Ciotti
Respond quickly to trends
It’s easier to get bloggers and journalists to write or share information containing an interesting new angle on something that was already at the top of their mind.Larry Kim
2. Make sure it's searchable
Do proper keyword research
Writing awesome content is nice, but not doing proper keyword research upfront is probably the most common mistake I see. Joost De Valk
Use
Google's Keyword Planner.
3. A picture paints a thousand words
Create original images
Far too many blogs use stock photography because they won’t take 20 minutes to create an original picture that stands on its own, and isn’t just a title image.David Leonhardt
Make images more effective with text overlay
On Pinterest and on other social networks images are often seen in isolation and the viewer has to make an extra effort to read the text of the pin description to understand it. A simple text overlay is an easy way to clarify the meaning of the image and can increase click through.Synthia Sanchez
Use images to attract traffic
Images not only make your articles more pleasant to read, but they can also help drive a lot of traffic from sites like Pinterest and Facebook.Mitt Ray
Invest in your content's design
Remember that most people that you outreach to are very, VERY busy. That means they won’t read every single word of your content. So the better your content looks the better response you’ll get.Brian Dean
Create Visual Content
I think all bloggers can promote their content more effectively by creating engaging visuals that encourage interaction via sharing, liking, or clicking through to see the content. That could be in the form of awesome photographs or creatively designed graphics included in a post that allow for easy visual sharing. We’ve found that people can easily consume and will consistently respond to content that has strong visual anchors.Lindsay Ostrom
4. Relationship Matters
Build real relationships with people first
Your post promotion efforts will be a lot more effective if you build relationships first before asking anyone to share your posts. Saying “Hey, I love your blog – look at this great post I just wrote!” doesn’t usually work well.Ana Hoffman
The most effective thing is taking the time to build real relationships and not trying to ‘network’ your way to acquire as many links as possible. Real relationships tend to scale better and you get better results in the long term.Eric Siu
Build a loyal audience
I’m talking about a dependable base of people who genuinely feel like they have some attachment to you or relationship with you, or who just really like your stuff. Encourage that group, feed them, nurture them. Make them special.Mark Traphagen
Share other's content
The internet is a relationship economy. You have to give to get. This is definitely a long game, but the payoff is tremendous.Carol Lynn Rivera
Your followers will appreciate the extra help and the content creators will be pleased to get extra attention, so it’s a win all around, and then everybody’s more likely to check out your next piece of content.Sophie Lizard
Use Social Media to Network and Engage - Not Spam
Mention relevant people and ask them to get involved in the conversation. Make sure to hang around to interact with those who do respond.Tom Ewer
5. Know Your Target Audience
Really, really understand your audience
Understand your target audience’s most difficult problem and provide critical information to solve their problem. This will help them and solidifies your position as someone who provides incredible value.Carol Amato
Revisit your customer profile, or avatar, and see if the assumptions you made when you first created it still apply. Keep track of how these things change so you can invest your time and resources into only promotional tactics that will work for them.Megan Dougherty
The process is simple. You create personas to describe a group/sub-group of your target audience so you would have an idea of their interests and needs in your industry.Venchito Tampon
Match your content to the needs of your targeted audience
Successfully promoting content is a lot easier when you are promoting awesome – and targeted – content.Rae Hoffman
Begin by surveying your audience. Ask them what is important to them. What do they need help with? What keeps them up at night?Melonie Dadaro
6. Get Personal by Email
Email people that you mentioned
This sometimes works better than just tweeting it at them because it’s more personal and others can’t see that you’ve emailed them. The more people on your email list who you can notify when you create a new post, the more traction that post will get.Dan Norris
Collect leads
The most effective way to convert traffic into subscribers is through the use of a Lead Magnet. The Lead Magnet is an irresistible bribe that gives a specific chunk of value to a prospect in exchange for their email address. Ryan Deiss
Send better emails
Write a better outreach email. Make it personal. Create content that you think influencers in your space would genuinely be interested in. Try action-driving subject lines, like “Would love your input on this.”Elisa Gabbert
Email people according to content topic and interest
Content marketers should segment their email list so they can broadcast email people who like the topic of the new content. The idea is to send email subscribers to the most relevant content possible. You can tag subscribers based on interest, where they opt-in, lead source and what they buy for example. This will help you identify sub-groups of your main emailing list.James Schramko
7. Perform Targeted Distribution
Share with those who have already shared similar content
Start with the low-hanging fruit – people who have already shared or linked to the similar content from your competitors. But it’s very important to ensure that the quality of your content matches or exceeds the content from your competitors.Jason Acidre
Send your content to specific targets
For our clients we make a list of targets to share our content. Hopefully we can turn them into advocates. We created what we call a “client firehose,” which gives us great insight into who similarly publishes the stuff we create, and others who have a general interest in content like ours.Bill Sebald
Reach out to influencers
Find key influencers on Twitter that would be particularly interested in your content. Then, reach out to them with a Tweet and ask them to review your content. This method works especially well if you have mentioned or referenced that influencer within your content.Jayson Demers
If you run an outreach program to reach out to key influencers in your industry to promote your content it’s important to track this outreach. One great tool for doing this is
Buzzstream.
Ian Cleary
The way
ViralContentBuzz works, it’s one of the most unintrusive ways yo put your content in front of eager social media influencers. And you don’t even need to ask them to share your content because they are there
exactly for that: They
want to share your articles.
Ann Smarty
Prioritize promoters
First, choose the people you link out to wisely. For example, if you have to choose between linking out to a blogger with an inferior resource but who is very active on a site like inbound.org or a Sub-Reddit, choose them over the blogger with a better resource but who’s less active in promoting other people’s content.Richard Marriot
Tag/mention relevant people
The next time you share one of your blog posts on social media try tagging any brands or people that you have mentioned within a status update, or you could go as far as to actually ask them nicely if they’d help share your content. If you say awesome stuff about them, chances are they will be happy to help you.Adam Connel
Add context when sharing
Instead of dropping a link and leaving, take the time to craft an introduction for the piece you are about to share. Also, every social network serves a specific purpose. You cannot promote your content on Google+ the way you would do on Facebook.Cendrine Marrouat
Get as much personal exposure as possible
Get as much personal exposure as possible. This can be done through many different ways, such as paid advertising, a guest post, interview or even with your own affiliate program. Of course the ultimate way is to get exposure for free, as that is where the real value is. Zac Johnson
8. Maximize the Potential of Social Media
Take note of timing
Ideally, you want to time your content’s publication and promotional efforts to coincide with your audience’s schedule. Your content will be much more successful if your audience finds it when they are most receptive to sharing, linking, etc.Steve Webb
Share in more places
If you go through a lot of effort to create good content, then do yourself a favor and share it, re-publish it, and pitch it to more places. Good content deserves to be shared with more people and the best way to do that is to share it in more places.
James Clear
Retweet for visibility
We all use social media to increase online visibility but there are certain tools that can magnify your efforts. Justretweet is a platform where it’s members can easily share content to social media channels including Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus. Once added to these channels additional people are able to share it further magnifying your reach.Bill Gassett
Multiple Tweets/Shares at Intervals
Most bloggers tweet the same piece of content multiple times. The reason being is that not all of your followers won’t see your content so tweeting and sharing it multiple times helps increase your overall traffic.Neil Patel
Milk older content for their worth
Don’t forget to promote older content that is buried on your site or blog. If it’s valuable, evergreen content, there is nothing wrong with re-sharing it months later. You have new followers and subscribers who haven’t seen it. And existing fans might have missed it or might even gain a new perspective from re-reading it.Jimmie Lanley
Use Pinterest
Pinterest is still widely underused for bloggers. Bloggers should have a
Pinterest Business account and utilize the analytics on their pins. Rich pins are also a must for bloggers.
Jimmie Lanley
9. Make it Happen!
Take Action!
Every morning, before doing anything else, grab your list of tactics and strategies, look it over, and ask yourself this: what’s the ONE thing I can do today, right now, that can help me grow my readership? Then go do it. It’s that simple.James Chartrand
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