How to Promote Your Online Blog

Once you have gotten to a certain point within the blogging process, you may begin to consider how you want to promote your blog – with all the time and work that is put into a blog, you want to ensure that people actually see it. 

There are a number of ways to do this, however some are considerably more effective than others – this can depend on your chosen niche, if you have allocated a budget towards promotion, the amount of time you have, and more. 

With these things in mind, this segment will provide succinct advice on the most effective approaches to promoting your blog.

A Good Place to Start is with Social Media

This can be both organic or paid – this section covers a few strategies and tips to maximise social media effectiveness.

Building an organic social media presence is a must, in order to keep your current audience engaged – sharing quality content organically can result in people sharing your posts, thus giving you new audience members. Be sure to share each blog post you publish on any relevant social media platforms – try to streamline this process through a system that minimises the work involved. This can be done through inbuilt plugins that allow you to share posts to social media, as well as through linking social media accounts so that a post to one platform is automatically shared to others. Organic social media is useful in terms of time and budget constraints, however the reach is relatively limited. 

• In utilising organic social media marketing, it is important to consider a well thought out strategy; this might include the use of an organic social media marketing posting schedule. This can work in conjunction with your blog posting schedule to streamline your overall blogging process, and it provides a more consistent process so that you can stay on top of your work.
• Remember to engage with relevant influencers and brands, as well as other people, on the social media platforms that you have chosen. You can also participate in social groups and pages to increase your reach and connect with relevant audiences.
• Utilise hashtags, mentions, and other features of particular social media platforms to increase the areas in which your posts are displayed.

On the other hand, paid social media advertising can be a great way to reach new readers. A focused advertisement campaign for each post, or otherwise particular posts that you feel deserve to be promoted more, is a great way to reach new audience members. Although this method is paid, you should notice that, with a small blog, the visits from paid social media advertising can be significantly higher than that of organic. 

• As well as focused advertisements for each post, a great strategy is to have a set of articles (work you are most proud of, possibly with more broad focus topics) that are constantly advertised to cold audiences (people not currently aware/interested in your content – with a low CPC, or cost per click). Rather than this being on a fixed, one time budget, you can allocate a recurring monthly amount to promote these posts over time, consistently building your audience and reaching new people.
• Facebook Ads is a particularly useful way to go, with broad coverage of Facebook, Instagram and more over almost all device types. However, depending on your niche, you may even want to consider a platform such as LinkedIn.

Get Involved Within the Community of Your Niche

For another approach to promotion, try to establish yourself within the community surrounding your chosen niche. There are a few ways to do this.

Firstly, you should consider interacting with other bloggers in your niche. This may be through commenting on their content, taking part in guest posting, or just getting in touch with them. You may also want to participate in local events relevant to your niche. This can open avenues of opportunity for increasing your reach, getting content opportunities, and collaborating on content. 

• As mentioned earlier, influencer marketing is a great way of promoting your blog. This is where you work with influential figures within your niche to reach a larger, relevant audience. You can do this by mentioning them in your posts in hopes of them returning the favour, or through paid collaborations. 
• You can also get in contact with influential bloggers for quotes and unique insights into your content topics. 

Another way to increase your involvement within the community is to become involved in bookmarking sites – these sites link an area of interest with the respective audience, giving those who are interested a place to discuss and interact within their niche. You can contribute to these sites by submitting your posts, or just through general participation, and doing so can be a great way to boost your exposure. You can target sites that are popular, as well as sites with a more niche focus. 

• When it comes to examples of social bookmarking sites, Reddit is maybe the most popular, with a ‘subreddit’ on almost any topic you can imagine. Other popular examples are Pinterest and Digg. Consider becoming involved in not only popular bookmarking sites, but also smaller ones that are relevant to your niche. Although your content has a smaller chance of ‘going viral’, niche bookmarking sites will generate more relevant traffic. 
• Get involved in discussions, and provide valuable insights. Writing original content is a great way of establishing yourself within bookmarking communities. Besides, links won’t build relationships, and many bookmarking sites will not allow links in the first place . 

Other Advice When it Comes to Blog Promotion

• Blog republishing – a few days after posting a blog (once it has been indexed by google), republish your blog on other platforms – an example of this is LinkedIn, where lengthier posts are common. The most effective way to go about this may be to post a snippet, with a link to the full blog post. For SEO purposes, it is best to avoid reposting a full blog post elsewhere. 
• Promote your posts over time – ensure that you are consistently updating and optimising your posts, with a focus on your best content. This ensures that you are keeping the content relevant,  maximising the reach of each post, and getting lasting value. You can continue to promote older posts through social media, particularly when it is relevant within your niche community. Not to mention, old blog posts may be unseen by much of your audience. 
• Emailing subscribers – email marketing is considered by many to be the most cost effective and useful marketing method.
  • Consistent emails, similar to consistent organic social updates, can inform and update your audience on your latest blog posts – this can also encourage interaction and sharing.
  • When it comes to getting subscribers, aka a mailing list – you should make sure that this process includes an easy sign up, as well as a compelling reason for them to do so (this is known as a lead magnet, and can be something such as exclusive content, regular updates, or whatever else may be of value to your viewers).
  • Make sure to use an email signature – this reminds readers of who you are, and increases the credibility of your emails.
• Encourage social sharing through the inclusion of social links and plugins on your webpage.

Conclusion

Ultimately, when considering blog promotion, popular advice always says that certain methods are a waste of time and less effective – however, a truly effective strategy involves utilising all relevant platforms and strategies, depending on your chosen niche.

You should also ensure that your content is worth promoting in the first place – there is no benefit in promoting content that people aren’t interested in. For more tips on creating an online blog that is worth promoting, check out our comprehensive page on CREATING AN ONLINE BLOG.