Writing and publishing content for you blog is only the half of it. If you want visitors and readers, you need to promote it too. But how do you promote a blog? Is it different from a website? Yes and no. You can combine promotion techniques quite effectively. I mean, I wouldn’t build a PPC campaign, unless you are selling products. For most blogs I think it’s best to use free strategies.
But you can use article marketing, which is effective for any kind of website. Here are a few ways to promote your blog that will only cost you time. Some of these tips are from my own experience and some from successful bloggers,
- Every bloggers favourite recommendation; add comments to popular blogs along with a link to your blog. Make sure you add something to the conversation.
- Open a twitter account and publish your posts to twitter. You can configure this to happen automatically. If you use wordpress, install the twitter tools plugin. Or you could use the twitterfeed web-based service. It’s free.
- Find a social network in your niche, join it, build a profile, make friend requests and join in the conversation.
- List your blog on blog directories, such as technorati and eatonweb, and submit to RSS directories. Check out the 35 best RSS directories to submit your blog feed.
- Join mybloglog and blogcatalog, the two best social networking communities for bloggers.
- Open accounts with social bookmarking sites, such as digg, delicious, stumbleupon and reddit. Then submit other sites as well as your own blog. This will get you links and traffic.
- If you are feeling creative, make and publish a video on youtube, with a link to your blog.
Social bookmarking as a promotion tactic is controversial. Simply bookmarking your own posts is not what Digg, delicious and stumbleupon ( in particular) want you to do. You should submit sites you like and occasionally, your blog. If you only submit your site, your account may get closed down.
In today’s video Michael Martine from remarkablogger talks about how he uses social media. Michael Martine is a professional blog coach. He tells us not to promote your blog with social networking. He argues that ‘nobody cares about your blog, but they might care about you’. Use social networks to promote YOU.
It’s sound advice to help you promote your blog.
