As you probably already know, writing and publishing your blog won’t get you very many views. In order to get people reading your blog, you have to market it and build an audience. You might be asking, “How do I do that?” Well, read on and find out.
Your blog marketing community consists of anyone that reads, views, shares, or might potential read, view, or share your blog. These people want to read what you have to say, so they will be more apt to visit your blog than the everyday person whose daily life is being temporarily disrupted by your marketing. Quicksprout recommends creating a profile of who one of these people might be, including details such as gender, age, occupation, and hobbies. This will help you define the audience that you’re looking for and where you might find them.
Post Articles On Top Social Media Channels
The next step is to create a Facebook business page. Once it’s set up, you’ll want to send messages to people you know asking them to like the page. This will help you determine which of your acquaintances are in your community, and hopefully those people will share the page with others they think belong in your community. When you post on your brand page, create hashtags that are unique to your business. Another way to use Facebook to build an audience is to comment on other brands’ business pages. You want to find complementary brands that have the same target audience, but aren’t direct competition. Facebook ads can also bring in new viewers.
Republish Blog Articles Frequently on Twitter
Republish frequently, but don’t get too crazy. The great thing about Twitter is that the news stream is constantly moving. Chances are, the person who saw your tweet and blog post at 12pm today likely won’t see it at 12pm 2 days later, but somebody else will! Just remember, if you decide to republish your blog post don’t use the exact same tweet each time. Change up the language and use hashtags that are relevant to your brand or the content shared in the article.
Share Content On Pinterest
Similar to Twitter and Facebook, you can use Pinterest to market your brand by liking and pinning posts from you complementary brands. You can also create group boards and invite your target audience to join it. When they make contributions, be sure to comment and reinforce their participation. Pinterest also allows you to promote pins, which will show up in certain categories and search results, expanding the number of people who will see the post past just your followers.
Reference Your Blog At Conferences and Events
If you have the opportunity to get in front of large audiences as a speaker or panelist at an event, be sure to mention your blog. If there are printed materials, make sure you have shared your blog’s URL with the event’s organizers so that you can draw more traffic to it. When you share content during your speaking engagement or panel, reference your blog as a resource where the audience can get more information. It isn’t necessary to sound like a salesperson or overly promote yourself, but it’s okay to reference if your blog truly has great content to offer.
Use Native Advertising To Get More Blog Traffic
You can grow your blog traffic organically, or you can get a little boost with paid advertising. Native advertising is one form is increasing your blog’s visibility. Services like Outbrain and Taboola offer opportunities for you to get the blog articles that you select syndicated across major websites like CNN, Answers.com, and many more.
Guest Blog on Popular Websites
Seek out opportunities to contribute blog articles to popular websites. In some instances, other blogs will allow you to syndicate your blog content to their website along with a link back to your original content. Do a Google Search to seek out opportunities like this frequently.
Use Forums To Come Up With Strong Topics
If you want a blog that gains a lot of traffic, post topics that people want to read about. Seek out questions that people are asking in public forums on sites like Quora, Reddit, or Answers.com. These sites typically categorize the questions that people ask. Use the forums as a research tool to look for common questions that your audience might be asking and then answer the question on your own blog.
Email Your Blog Content
As you grow your email list, make sure your subscribers stay in the loop with your latest posts. If you send out a monthly newsletter with company news, include a section that shares your top two or three latest blog posts. Your readers will appreciate it, and may be likely to share the content they enjoy most on social media or forward it to friends.
These are just a few of the options you have for getting your blog more visibility. As always, it’s ideal to have a sound strategy in place before you begin implementing these steps, so make sure you know what and how you’re doing before you take this approach.