Yesterday’s task in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge was to write a ‘list post’ on your blog. Hopefully you’ve had a chance to write that up and publish it by now.
Today we’re going to take that post and attempt to drive some readers to it.
Today’s Teaching on Promoting Blog Posts:
Blog Promotion is something that most bloggers have tried to do in many ways – however one mistake that I see a lot of bloggers making in their attempts to find new readers is that they only ever promote their blog as a whole. Their promotion is all about driving traffic to their blogs home page URL.
While there’s nothing wrong with this – I personally have had A LOT more success in promoting individual posts than my blogs front page. That’s what we are going to do today.
Having hit publish on your post yesterday – don’t just leave it to chance that your post will be read by people. Be more proactive than that and spend a little time today giving it some ‘nudges’ to help it on its way.
I know quite a few have already done some of this by leaving a link on our previous post promoting your link (some of your are reporting quite good traffic from doing it) but lets go a step further and find some ways to promote your post in other networks outside of ProBlogger.
11 Ways to Promote a Blog Post
note: please be careful in using these techniques. Don’t use them all with every post you write. Choose your best posts and promote them selectively and in ways that are useful to other people.
1. Pitching Other Bloggers – asking another blogger to consider linking to your post. note: there’s a real art to this – read more on how to do it at 11 Ways to Increase Your Chances of Being Linked to By a Blogger.
2. Social Messaging – what social networks like Twitter and Facebook are you a part of? Attempt to leverage these to promote your post. The key is not to incessantly spam your followers and friends with your link – but use your network to ‘seed’ the link and let your followers spread word of it for you (this won’t happen every time but as your network grows it can become more and more powerful).
3. Social Bookmarking – promoting selective links on a site like Digg or StumbleUpon can lead to amazing results. Further reading on this topic at How to Get to the Front Page of Digg and Using Social Media Sites to Grow Your Blog’s Traffic.
4. Internal Links – don’t just promote your post on other people’s sites – think about where you can link to it from within your own site. Perhaps you’ve written on the topic before and can add a link for further reading, perhaps adding a section in your sidebar for ‘latest posts’ could work. Internal linking won’t drive heaps of new traffic but it can help with SEO and increase page views.
5. Newsletters – if you have an email newsletter list – shoot out an email to your list about your latest post.
6. Other Blogs Comments Sections and Forums – leaving helpful and insightful comments on forums or other blogs can be great at driving traffic if your comment is genuine, relevant and sensitive to the discussion. Leaving a link is sometimes also appropriate if highly relevant.
7. Email Signatures – Adding links to your blog to your outgoing emails is fairly common place – but whatever including links to recent posts instead of just your blog’s front page URL.
8. Followup Posts – write a new post on your blog that picks up where your last one left off. This builds momentum and if you inter-link the posts drives more page views.
9. Advertise Your Post – for posts that you’re particularly proud of and that are well received by readers you might even consider a mini ad campaign with a small budget using a service like AdWords or StumbleUpon advertising. Further Reading on this at Run a StumbleUpon advertising campaign on your blog.
10. Pitch Mainstream Media – occasionally posts will be relevant to mainstream media. You want to really pick a highly interesting post for this – it’s not something for every day.
11. Article Marketing – I wouldn’t recommend submitting exactly the same article you’ve posted on your blog to article marketing sites (this can get you into trouble with Google penalties for duplicate content) but I know of a few bloggers who rewrite their key articles for article marketing.
Of course there are many other ways to promote posts. Feel free to tell us how you do it in comments below.
Please note: don’t do all of the above things for every single post on your blog. I personally tend to pick 1-2 posts a week to give a push and let others grow organically.
Today’s Task – Promote a Post:
Take a little time to look at yesterdays post and ask yourself where it might be appropriate to promote it. If you look at the post and don’t think that it is really worthy of promotion anywhere – feel free to choose another relevant post to do it with. If you don’t have one – spend some time today writing something that you feel IS link worthy and then try promoting that.
For most of you I’d start with point #1 above – pitching to other bloggers. Choose another blog with highly related content to your post and politely submit it as a suggested link to that blog. Again – check out 11 Ways to Increase Your Chances of Being Linked to By a Blogger for tips that will help increase the likelihood of it being successful.
Feeling Timid?
I know that many new bloggers often feel quite timid and wary of promoting themselves. Don’t worry – you’re not alone. I have felt that myself many times and have at times not put my work forward where perhaps I should have. However – the times that I have been willing to push myself out of my comfort zone have often paid off.
While I’ve had a few times in my blogging life where I’ve had lucky breaks that result in traffic – most of the times traffic has arrived at my blogs in numbers have been a direct result of me doing some promotional work. Don’t just leave it to chance – put yourself out there and see what comes as a result.
Once you’ve done it – I’d love to hear how you went about promoting your post and what the result was in comments below. Lets learn together how to get this task right!
Update: There are lots of folks talking about this over at the forum, you should check it out! Day 3 – Promote a Post
Want More?This task is a sample of one of the tasks in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook – a downloadable resource designed to reinvigorate and revitalize blogs. Join over 14,000 other bloggers and Get your Copy Today. |
Hi Darren, I have two blogs, so I’m going to put two links in this comment:
From turtle^haus, I’m promoting my interview of author Amanda Ackroyd, http://turtlehaus.com/2009/01/26/author-interview-amanda-ackroyd-part-i/
and from Life+Web this post on managing your work schedule as a freelancer, in particular limiting it to 40 hours a week (not to be confused with 4, hee hee)
http://www.lifeplusweb.com/2009/03/the-successful-freelancer-knows-how-to-compartmentalize/
Hi Darren!
I am definitely in the “shy about posting my site” group. I actually linked my blog to my website, then mentioned on Twitter that I had done it. Within five minutes I had a positive posting back! WOW! This is fun!
http://literacycenters.googlepages.com/
I am amazed and thrilled!
mpcallihan
I definitely feel shy about pitching to other bloggers. Don’t they have their own stuff to say? I can see having a guest writer, but I don’t see how pitching to another blogger dies anything. Am I supposed to think they will tell their audience to go read my missive?
Well, I did it. I posted something to my blog that I think is well written and asks a question that most people will not have thought about before. It’s here:
http://vener-art.com/beadblog/
So now I will tweet it. And maybe mention it in some guild forums. I’m not sure where else is appropos.
I used promotional techniques 2 (Twitter and Facebook), 3 (StumbleUpon), and 4 (added a “Recent Posts” widget to my sidebar) on my list post 5 great imaginary bands
I have made some comments on blogs, tweeted some and promoted some in my own blog (posts coming out during the week)
I am always happy to have guests on my blog as long as the content is relevant so just yell if you are interested!
I feel like a knob promoting myself, but I think I just have to get used to it! :o))
I’m grateful that I’m included in this course. I’m now encourage to be vocal and sideline my timidity. With the lessons I learnt and applied it in my blog, I’m now slowly increasing my blog traffic. One example of this is the post two days ago about 10 Well-Known Manny Pacquaio’s Business Interest Today. Here’s the url of the post: http://entrebankph.com/10-well-known-manny-pacquiao’s-business-interest-today/. It was the most viewed post yesterday.
I have Twitter show my blog updates. Never tried it with facebook, that may be something I have to try.
Thanks
My blog is about creativity and design in the the medium of quiltmaking and fabric.
http://artquiltmaker.com/blog/2009/04/creative-prompt-8-dream/
Sometimes it is great (and more portable!) to get out of the fabric medium. This post is the 8th in a series of creative prompts to help people do just that. Creative prompts are ways to get your creative juices flowing.
While this isn’t the list post we did the other day, I feel it is a better post and one I would be more comfortable promoting. I put it up on my Facebook status update and also on Twitter. I have FriendFeed set to feed anything I post on various social media to Facebook, so people will see the promotion in a different way. As well, Facebook posts back to FriendFeed, so my FriendFeed only friends will see it there, too.
Make a little doodle and join in1 We would love to see what your artwork is!
OK, I have been told by http://www.mymarketer.net that created a wonderful LIST called Mother of all lists, compiling all the lists we created for this days task that my comment giving my list was not here. I have not yet scrolled through all the comments but I want to make sure, by announcing it a second time that I have a list on my blog – here it is: http://lindylou-abbott.blogspot.com/2009/04/7-things-you-need-know-to-save-your.html
The list is Titled: 7 Things You Need To Know To Save Your Life
Yesterday we had a pretty severe tornado hit in TN and this is my most current post regarding it. I hope to have more pictures but it doesn’t feel right to be walking about taking pictures in front of people who have lost so much.
http://lindylou-abbott.blogspot.com/2009/04/murfreesboro-tn-tornado-rutherford.html
I know its day six, but here what I’ve done for this day three promote a blog post topic. Check it out, How to Promote a Blog Post – Best Contact Management Systems
Darren, you are BRILLIANT!!! I am so glad I did this. I wrote the list post and I decided to write on 97 ways to save money. Then to promote it I emailed 14 different sites in my niche and asked if they wanted to elaborate on a specific way to save money and I would link to them within the post. I have gotten a few responses and many of them are linking back to me.
Then, I decided to try the stumble thing – I stumbled it and I ordered “stumble backs” from entrecard (there was only 5 available, but I figured it was a start). I also posted a stumble link on the article. I have gotten over 500 hits in the last hour! My site averages just under 500 a day!!
I don’t know how this will translate to subscribers, but I am super happy with the hits! Thank you so much :-)
If anybody wants to check it out the article is here:
http://www.littlepeoplewealth.com/2009/04/97-ways-to-save-money.html
Hi Darren,
Before reading this post I had been very shy about promoting my blog particularly on Facebook but I tried it and didn’t die but still didn’t feel comfortable.
So I kept thinking about it and found something that worked for me. I wrote a complimentary entry about a financial blog, http://www.footnoted.org, framed the entry in terms that were relevant to my Facebook community (when your 401k becomes a 201k), posted the link there and on the financial blog with many compliments to the owner. She commented back on my page. This page now has my 2nd highest visit count.
Through this process, I’ve discovered that the key to feeling good about promotion that works is to find out how to benefit all the parties involved. Sounds super simple but working this out is definitely multi-faceted.
Thanks! Jennifer
http://curiosityquotient.blogspot.com/2009/04/for-love-of-footnotes.html
This approach has worked well for me so far. I set up a blog on green careers about 3 weeks ago and instead of promoting it, I sent out a link to a post to related discussion groups on Linkedin, yahoogroups and facebook. I got 200 hits mostly from linked in. So, I studied what people were responding to on the groups and did a more in depth post on a related topic called Best Green Jobs Meta-list: 56 Top Green Careers Recommended By 11 Authoritative Sources
http://greeneconomypost.com/green-jobs-metalist-green-careers-1174.htm and promoted it to linkedin, since that is where I got the most hits and I got 900 hits. My husband wrote “Smart Meters Open Up New Soft” http://greeneconomypost.com/smart-meters-new-software-sector-1182.htm and promoted them on some tech groups that I got him to join and he got about 500 hits.
Using this approach of sending individual posts to targeted groups is helped us to grow traffic, subscriptions and climb up in rank fairly quickly. Our rank has climbed 500,000+ in less than a month.
This week I started to try to send out posts five times a day on twitter and that seems to also be helping us increase traffic. I hope to fine tune this strategy by identifying which posts people are responding to and which sources people are most responsive to. I have not yet figured out how to make stumbled upon, facebook, digg, nings etc work for us yet. I think if I can do this we could do this, we could experience another bid jump in traffic,
Ok, so as far as I can tell no one has been to my blog. Certainly no one has left any comments. This is depressing.
:(
I liked this one and retweeted it!
http://mysquiggles.com/mums/10-daily-survival-tips-for-mums/
Trying to see who I can promote to. Problem is, there’s very little on my blog as yet …
I love your stuff Patricia! I tried to leave a comment, but I can’t b/c you have to log in to wordpress to leave a comment on your site (I do not have an account). If you change that I bet you would get more comments!
I was going to email you to tell you that, but I can’t find a contact link. I hope you see this :)
Okay Darren, I often link and exchange links with other writing bloggers… but I’m going to stretch… I’m going to add two or three big blogs to my google rss reader and then approach them… I’ll post when I actually get those emails sent…
Anne Wayman, now blogging at http://www.aboutfreelancewriting.com
Heidi,
Ha! Apparently the newer versions of WordPress have the switch for users must be logged in and when I upgraded it changed the setting. Now people should be able to leave comments.
Yay. But I see I’m again behind on the WP upgrade. *sigh* At least I now know to check the settings!
And again, thank you for the compliment. You have made my day! :)
Patricia
@Patricia C: I visited, honest. Unfortunately I know nothing (absolutely nothing) about your particular craft and I can’t think in colour. Yeah, sad techie geek. This meant I couldn’t really respond to your question – though I would have if I had an artistic side. At all.
More great info!! I have been using twitter a lot lately to promote posts and it does bring a little traffic. I did do a tweet about my post and went back and linked it up to my Blogaversary post, which is the page everybody is coming to see at the moment. I will think about other ways to promote it.
http://stopnsmellthechocolates.blogspot.com/2009/04/9-benefits-of-blogging-for-year.html
Thanks for all of your help!
To Laura’s point, I think it’s a great think to transcend the idea that you’re promoting *yourself*. Presumably there’s some valuable information that your blog shares, and that’s what you’re promoting.
Welll, since my site and blog are dedicated to helping the Teen population succeed, I emailed the link to a posting on “Self Reliance”: some teachers at my daughter’s school and ask for their thoughts…and if they liked what they saw would they be agreeable to approaching the school to have my site listed as a resource for parents and students!!
The posting I used was:
http://teentriumph.com/wordpress/?p=122
Thanks!!!
I have promoted yesterday’s list post on Linkedin, Facebook and have added internal links. I also often put a link to my posts on Topix is they are localism or real estate oriented.
I’ll try to promote my blogs, but I think we should keep doing it every day. Otherwise you will see a spike in traffic for a week then go down.
I am absolutely stoked. My traffic has gone up over 75% in past few weeks. Checking the stats, this is attributable to (in order of highest to lowest) traffic via ProBlogger, direct traffic, twitter, one particular blog that I contribute to comments/forum and google search.
I’m hoping with the feedback I’m also getting from new readers to improve content even further and attract more.
Promoting your content is essential..
One of my personal favorite blog posts is
The Abc’s of Personal Growth :)
http://www.aboundlessworld.com/the-abcs-of-personal-growth/
Day 2 and still learning so much. Thanks, asking for links from other bloggers sometimes is my #1 traffic resource!
SpikeTheLobster, thank you for visiting. I don’t expect everyone to have the same or even similar experiences and inclinations. But you can’t really use being a techie as a reason because even technologivally oriented and scientifically oriented people can and often do have artistic leanings – and vice versa. For example, I have an advanced degree in Astrophysics and cut my computing teeth on BSD UNIX.
On the other hand, I am less skilled at sales and marketing stuff. :).
Great Idea darren!!
I missed your third post and I finished reading it now!!
Great list of promotion ideas, and here’s my submission for something worthy of extra promotion: Stuck Sucks!
Great tips as always. God Bless!!!
I promote my posts on sites that are in my field. I’ll try getting into that Digg thing.
Asking a blogger to link to me? That’s hard for me to do…
Hi Darren,
I did it! I asked 4 people to link to my article on last minute preparation for a fun run – marathon http://www.ameliaburton.com.au/2008/09/last-minute-preparation-for-a-marathon-half-marathon-or-fun-run.html
2 people were regular readers, and 2 I picked from top blogs from the Forbes website. It’ll be interesting if they get back to me…
I also offered to return them the favor suggesting articles I liked. Plus I stumbled, dugg and twittered it…
My question is, should you always target blogs bigger than yours with more traffic, or start small?
Amelia
Hi Darren
What a great project!
This month I am also on a challenge to write “thirtypoemsin30days” with the blogsite to match…
I have just posted a list of best books…
http://estherpoyer.wordpress.com/resources/ (healthy writing habits for the cool creative)
Thanks for being fabulous.
Darren:
You mention a con of article marketing being duplicate content ‘penalties.’ Republishing and syndicating content, so long as you do it with quality publishers and each offers value, is unlikely to create penalty:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/demystifying-duplicate-content-penalty.html
Scraping content or being a thin affiliate can cause issues. Having many copies of a piece of content can cause attribution and linking issues. But it’s not really about ‘penalty’ so much as it’s about working against oneself.
Okay so I am a little behind on the days, but I did promote two of my blog posts on Digg, which is something new for me, one of them my list post from day 2.
I usually just post a link to it via Twitter and Facebook, so Digg is a new one. I normally get a fair amount of action from Twitter, but I am still new to it all so I think it maybe another site is a waste of time when no one is really looking for me yet? Not sure.
So here is my blog posts http://jaimelyerly.blogspot.com
and the link on Digg links – http://digg.com/arts_culture/Encaustic_Painting_Monoprint_Art_Technique_Tutorial
http://digg.com/arts_culture/5_books_to_help_Artists_to_Live_their_Creative_Dreams
Would love to see some more action to my blog!
Let me know what you think.
Hopeful – Jaime
I usually update my twitter with new posts, I plan on doing the same on all the web 2.0 sites I’m a member of. My site is dedicated to a hockey player, and I love hockey, I’m already a member of a few hockey forums and sites, but plan on joining many more as that’s where my target audience is. That should increase traffic a lot, but before I get there I really want to get my blog spruced up, specially with the new 2009-10 season starting in October, I plan on hosting a “launch” party that will match the beginning of the hockey season.
Hi,
It was nice to see your tips to promoting blog posts…
This is very helpful…
Thanks…
Darren: I promoted my blog post to my Facebook group which I created. It is a group of students who are sitting for their GCE O Level Examinations this year.
This is exactly how I did this: I send a message to everyone in the group. I previously had just left it on the discussion board which might not have the members looking at it so now by sending a message, I hope to get to them directly.
We shall see how it goes about.
On top of this, I have DIGG the post. (http://www.singaporeolevelmaths.com/2009/03/27/video-e-math-popular-exam-question-finding-ratio-of-areas-in-vectors-includes-3-strategies-revision-of-similar-triangles/)
Cheers!
Blog promotion is something I ain’t really doing. But I will start to be more conscious on this aspect.
Thank you!
Hi Darren
I attached this to an email:
P.S. want to make your home greener this spring? check out my latest post at grengds.blogspot.com
hi
i prompted my article
http://www.speechstarter.com/you-only-need-these-5-easy-tips-to-survive-recession/
using twitter,social marketing, Internal Links , linking in to previous post ,commenting on other blogs.andi have few mil subscribers.
i will use also inviting other people and write a marketing article about
thanks
I’m one of those who falls into the ‘wary of promoting my blog’ category. Aside from a tweet, I don’t really promote my blog posts. I’ve tried to inject some of today’s suggestions into my list post, which was fairly painless. It’s: Five Things to Look for When Buying Clothing if anyone want’s to have a look.
Just promoted this blog post via Twitter, Facebook, and through an RSS Aggregator.
Would love to know what you guys think of my List Post from yesterdays task:
http://themattbrown.com/write-a-list-post-day-2-of-31dbbb/
It is a list of 10 of my favorite recent Identity redesigns.
Ah – this post is so good for me! I’m a new blogger and very timid on “pushing” my blog on others. I’ve been reading on how to drive traffic, but still can’t seem to get myself out there to do it yet. This post has given me more ideas on how to do that. Still taking baby steps! ;-)
Hi!
I promoted by blog via Twitter and Facebook. My list post is 10 Places to Market your Virtual Assistant Business.
Hi i’ll swap a link on anybodies blog for a link on mine.
http://www.bitsnbobsshowntell.blogspot.com
I have loved this series so far. The daily tasks have been really helpful. So, here goes. I am:
http://www.marzipanmama.com
Check out my post about losing baby weight!