You’re running a business and are extremely focused on making a product and selling it or offering a service. All went well in the initial days, but now your business has found its footing, and your customers are expecting more. You hear murmurs about something called a blog, and before you know it, now you’re not just running a business but also creating content for your blog. You’re creating decent content, but it is not getting traction. And now you’re wondering how to promote your blog and whether you should do it or not.
If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably looking for tips to promote your blog. It means you’re convinced about the necessity to do so, and you are not wrong. There is data that shows blogs result in tremendous outreach for businesses.
- Hubspot says businesses with blogs get 55% more visitors
- As per Semrush, businesses with an active blog see 13 times the ROI than businesses that don’t
- Neil Patel says marketers who blog regularly receive approximately 67% more leads versus those who don’t
- Content Marketing Institute reports that 81% of B2B marketers utilize blogs as part of their content marketing strategy
- Among all channels used for content distribution, blogs stand at No. 2 with 79% usage, only behind social media platforms (90%)
These numbers tell you that blogging is minting money for those who are doing it, but you naturally find that hard to believe. Why? Because the same hasn’t been happening to you. You think you are creating amazing content for people and even promoting your blog, but it is just not getting enough eyeballs and as a result, users aren’t taking the action you are desiring.
What should you do? Should you promote your blog on social media, or is there a need for a little reevaluation of your strategy? Let’s address your headache.
How to promote your blog
There are two main ways to think about promoting your blog: creating awesome content that people want to share (organic promotion) and actively getting it out there (paid or strategic promotion).
These two things can’t work in isolation. People think just because they are producing quality content, they will eventually reap the reward they intend. Delusional much? It doesn’t work like that.
Organic promotion: Build a content powerhouse
Quality Content is the king. But nurturing that content to become king involves a lot of dos. The first step is to define your goals. It could be:
- increasing website traffic
- generating leads
- establishing brand authority
- educate customers
- improving SEO rankings
These goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals. For example, you want to increase website visits by 2x in three months by targeting people looking for hardware in Facebook groups. This goal is specific, it sets an achievable result in a specific time period and is relevant to the business’ target user base.
Understanding your audience is also key. Who are you trying to reach? Understanding their demographics, interests, and pain points is crucial for crafting relevant content.
Content strategy
The ideation is sorted, you have an idea about your goals, not let’s get to the real deal. Strategy.
A big part of it is brainstorming topics is finding the right keywords because if it is on the internet, it has to have the right keywords. To come up with a topic, think about the challenges your target audience faces and how your content can address them. What questions do they have? What problems can you solve for them?
Another way to go about it is to analyze your competitor’s blogs and see what topics they’re covering. In this way, you can create valuable content that goes beyond what’s already out there. Tap into current events or industry trends to create timely and relevant blog posts that capture reader interest.
Once you have narrowed down the topic, look for relevant keywords related to it. If people have a problem, what words are they using to search for its solution on the internet? Look for keywords with a good search volume – the average number of times that keyword is searched for in a given month – and narrow it to a few options. Start with broad keywords that represent your niche or industry. For example, if you’re a bakery, your seed keyword could be “bread.”
The strategy is now in place, now you will have to focus on producing content that provides genuine value to your audience. It should inform them, educate them, entertain them, and solve problems for them.
The OG content
There’s a lot that goes into a blog post that keeps readers hooked. Open your blog post with a captivating introduction. Use a thought-provoking question, a surprising statistic, or a relatable anecdote. This grabs the reader’s attention and sets the stage for the content to come. For example, blog posts with ‘guide’ in the title get three times more organic traffic. Headlines that pose a question have a 23% better sharing rate on social media.
Once you get to the body, back up your claims with data, statistics, and quotes from credible sources, showcase your expertise by providing in-depth analysis and insights.
Also, add a lot of visuals because blogs with more than seven images are 2.3x more likely to achieve their desired results.
What comes after creation? Promotion
Now you have created a blog, so half the job is done. It’s time for you to think: “How should I promote my blog?” Now, promotion is of two types: organic and paid.
Organic promotion means you generate content, one person sees it, they share, the other person sees it, they share … and it goes viral. Paid promotion is more strategic because there is money involved, and you have to clearly identify paths where you want to spend it for optimum results.
General and specific targeting
The first point on every blog post promotion checklist is social media marketing. Every blog promotion starts with social media because there are millions of people on each platform. Like Facebook, with its three billion active users, provides a vast audience base. These platforms all have their niches, meaning specific content types perform better there.
For example, a technology company can leverage LinkedIn and Twitter to share how-to guides or the latest tech updates using Facebook groups focused on technology enthusiasts and professionals for broader engagement. Meanwhile, a health and wellness business might use Instagram to share visually appealing wellness tips and fitness routines.
If you want to know how to promote your blog for free, social media is your answer. But this is generalized targeting. You can also be very specific in choosing your audience, which gives you better ROI and more engagement.
For example, you can create separate campaign funnels for your existing customers and website visitors. Tell your customers about the products they have used and how to buy them. On the other hand, visitors who are thinking of making a purchase should be told about promotions, the USPs of your products, and how it would solve their problem.
Email marketing
Email marketing remains a strong channel for promoting blog content. The possibilities of customization here are endless. Businesses can send regular newsletters featuring new blog posts, snippets, and calls to action that encourage readers to visit the blog for the full article.
In this way, they can address readers by name and highlight specific blog posts that address their pain points or interests. Using personalized emails may lead to a 28.57% increase in click-throughs, numbers have shown.
Social media advertising
Social media platforms offer robust targeting options for promoting blog content through ads. This means you can target your audience based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and even specific keywords they’ve searched for.
It is used for highly specific granular marketing. Here, you can divide the audience based on demographics – age, gender, location, and language – or based on their interests and searches.
You can advertise your blog to target users who have previously interacted with your brand on social media, such as those who have liked your page, clicked on a link in a previous post, or watched your videos. This allows for retargeting campaigns to re-engage an already interested audience.
Online communities
Industry-specific communities are also an effective method for finding your audience. These places include industry forums, Facebook groups, Quora or subreddits, etc.
Here, the plan is to actively participate in discussions by offering your expertise and insights. Once you have established yourself, feel free to link your blog posts in the conversation. This will help you build relationships with other members of these communities. This will also foster trust and increase the likelihood of them engaging with your content.
Micro influencer partnerships
I am not talking about paying Charlie D’Amelio to talk about your blog, but there are tons of other influencers who might not have millions of followers but still have a dedicated community that trusts them.
They can be used as marketing leverage to influence individuals who share similar interests. For example, consider a travel blog aiming to increase its readership. The blog identifies micro-influencers who are travel enthusiasts with 5,000 to 50,000 followers on Instagram. The blog collaborates with these influencers to share their travel experiences, including mentions and links to the blog’s detailed travel guides. The influencers create authentic posts, sharing their personal stories and how the blog helped them plan their trips. This technique ensures that the content reaches a highly targeted audience interested in travel, leading to increased traffic to the blog, higher engagement rates, and more subscribers.
Micro-influencers usually have higher engagement rates compared to macro-influencers. According to Markerly, influencers with 1,000 to 10,000 followers have a 4% engagement rate, compared to 1.7% for those with over a million followers.
Some avenues of collaboration with these influencers are:
- Sponsored posts: Micro-influencers create content featuring your brand or blog in exchange for payment, products, or services.
- Product reviews: They review your product or service while promoting your blog content for in-depth information.
- Giveaways & contests: You can also partner with them for giveaways or contests, encouraging their audience to follow your blog for participation or entry.
Link building
I don’t know what popular opinion about link building is these days, but the strategy still reigns supreme. Especially today, when Google is all about E-A-T content, having an authority website linking to your content can provide a tremendous boost to your search rankings.
Links act as pathways, directing users from other websites to your content. The more websites link to your blog, the more opportunities there are for readers to discover your content as readers follow links from trusted sources.
There are two broad ways to go about it:
Guest posting: you can write guest posts for relevant blogs in your niche and include a backlink to your blog within the content in a way that provides additional information to readers.
Relationships matter: another way is by building relationships with other bloggers and industry experts. This is done by engaging with their content, providing thoughtful comments, and contributing to online communities. These connections can organically lead to link-building opportunities.
But remember that link-building is a long-term strategy focused on creating valuable content and establishing trust within your niche. You will have to prioritize quality over quantity and focus on acquiring links from reputable and relevant websites.
Conclusion
Now you know how to promote your blog and why you should do it. The idea here is to create quality content first and then spread the word about it. Overall, promoting the blog is a great way for businesses to grow their online presence, attract new customers, and establish themselves as thought leaders in the industry.
