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. |
I always tweet the url of my latest post and also note that a new post is up on my Facebook page.
I’m in an interesting situation because folks send their posts to me to promote as I run the nursing blog carnival.
I did my usual promotion of yesterday’s post:
The Top Five Reasons for NOT Getting a BSN…BUSTED!
http://www.emergiblog.com/2009/04/the-top-five-reasons-for-not-getting-a-bsnbusted.html
But am now going to read about the other ways to promote!
This is turning into a great project! : )
Hi,
Day 2 task has motivated me to do a proper list post. Here I am, midnight 12.00 am in Malaysis. I have completed list post at http://perform-swot-analysis.blogspot.com.
Bloggers: I am a beginner, please give me input to improve
Darren, thanks again. I have to catch up day#3 task
Hi there,
So from time to time, I do internally link individually posts on my blog and will occasionally mention in emails that my blog was recently updated.
And I did post of a few comments on other blogs including a link to my list post. Which I also did on this blog yesterday and did see increased traffic.
But I’m thinking my list post from yesterday might be of less interest that my post revealing the Best Resource on the Financial Crisis, which you can check out here http://teamportugal.blogspot.com/2009/03/best-resource-on-financial-crisis.html, which also contains multiple examples internal post linkage. Peace.
I posted my list post to FB. New posts are automatically fed to my Twittter account. Will submit new post to FB & Twitter. Not so comfortable with doing the link to a blogger. Not yet anyway. I should have more courage by the end of the challenge – I hope.
Hi Darren,
Launched my post on schedule last night. 50 Important Web Development Guidelines.
I’m already in the habit of doing some light promotion, nothing too obnoxious so this is a nice post, and perhaps an easier day than what I suspect may be coming down the tubes at us. :)
Off to see what other people have done!
Cheers!
This worked wonders for me as well. I’ve never attracted more than 20 or so hits in a single day and after writing a list post – my blog soared over 100 unique views! Awesome. Several comments and ReTweets. The list post definitely worked for me and I’m psyched for Day Four.
This was a very interesting task! I decided to stay more focused with my promotion and NOT throw the net too wide. With that, I resisted the temptation to tweet about it as I don’t have a concentrated base for that. To review, I’m a singer with a singing website. With a specialized field, I decided a specialized promotion of my post: http://operamouth.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/top-10-tuesdays-your-songbook/ – see what I just did there? ;)
So, I did three things:
1. I actually have a collegue that has a website that posts auditions and, when you subscribe, sends emails to you of updated auditions in the area. I emailed her first because I know her and also, I honestly wanted her feedback on my post and asked her to put that feedback in the comments section. I also wanted to ask her if I could link to her website on my blog, which I actually had been meaning to email her about anyway.
2. Tapped in to my Facebook network which are all friends and singing collegues. I wanted to get their websites on my blog and also invite them to make comments about my post based on their own experience.
3. I commented here at your website and linked to my post.
We’ll see how it goes!
Hi again,
This blog is cool! It’s simulation learning which works best for me.
* My website is http://www.breakthepovertycurse.com
I am very passionate about poverty as I’ve been sort of an advocate for the poor over the years.
** My twitter is vsberkeley. Each day I post one or inspirational thoughts, or some tidbits. [Please follow me.]
On my website, I have a link to the Bulletin Board where my goal is to capture stories about poverty. I want to show how horrible and repugnant. We need to create awareness.
** Please log in and write your own horror stories or awkward moments due to poverty. It can help us gasp, laugh or cry. (think university student living on mac and cheeze or worst)
Lovin this blog.
Cheers,
Vaughn Berkeley, MBA
This is a perfectly-timed project for me, as I’m concurrently taking a web design course, which will wrap up mid-May. So my list post is:
8 sites to improve your site design
http://dcgrrl.blogspot.com/2009/04/8-sites-to-help-you-with-your-site.html
I’ve gathered many more resources, but I find once a list gets over 10 points, I get lost.
I’m off to Tweet about this, [http://twitter.com/dcgrrl] and hopefully gain some users for this crummy old site that I can convert when I launch my new site next month.
Hi Darren,
I appreciate the email that was sent to share the link for this blog. I have been using this technique and found some blogs that I will add to my RSS feed.
Hopefully, when the forums are up, we can share our areas of interests to find other like-bloggers.
Until this happens, would you mind if the participants put a quick blurb/tags that share the topic(s) of your blog? (e.g. weight loss, fitness, personal) This would be easier than having to check each commenters link to find out their area of blogging.
Thanks!
@Tamikka
weight loss, fitness, personal
Posted it on twitter and emailed it to a couple of related parties. Not the type of thing that would make the front page of Digg, and I’m hesitant to submit too much to StumbleUpon; will post on Facebook shortly.
http://www.tynansanger.com/2009/04/top-10-quotes-from-english-language.html
I started doing this to my posts a few months ago and saw a dramatic difference in website traffic. It’s more targeted traffic too, which I love. You’ve mentioned a few things I haven’t tried here as well, I’ll start to use other methods you’ve mentioned in future posts.
I asked for a link on a prestigious blog.
I twittered, facebooked, and Linkedin, I dugg, and stumbled. I have to get to drawing now.
http://arthub.ca/2009/04/07/10-online-tools-for-artists-and-illustrators/
Done and done! I linked to my homemade biscuits article in an article I wrote a while back about cooking from scratch (which is one of my promoted articles on my homepage.) While doing that, I realized there were a few other recent posts that could be linked to in that article as well. I’ll have to get on that. :)
I also tweeted of course, but I also added a new line at the bottom which now displays right above the Share/Save button: “Like this? Click on that little Share/Save button and do something about it!” Do you find that stuff like that works/helps? We shall see I suppose. :)
Writing a guest post for another blog and linking from it to another article on your blog works well. Also having someone guest post for you and including a link to a similiar article on your blog.
For a laugh: 7 Pregnancy and Newborn Myths http://likeawarmcupofcoffee.blogspot.com/2009/04/7-pregnancy-and-newborn-myths.html
Love the post, Darren–the vast majority of my blog traffic comes from links posted on Facebook and Twitter (14% and 25%, respectively, on my list post from yesterday).
That being said, I will qualify that by stating that, to me, creating high-quality content still seems to be the key, even if it is as simple as a list. I get more than twice the number of site visitors when someone other than me sends out a tweet about one of my posts that they have found useful. Combining the best content that I can with indirect pitches to other bloggers via social media (especially Twitter & Facebook) seems to be the most effective way that I have found to promote specific posts.
Looking forward to the next task!
Facebook tips:
– If you want to drive traffic to your actual blog, don’t incorporate your RSS feed as Facebook notes.
– Don’t put the URL in an ordinary status update. Instead, add it as a link. If your post has a picture, the thumbnail will make it “pop” out as people scan Facebook.
– When add a link, Facebook will show your post’s “description” tag, so make sure you include that in your posts if you can.
I love the 11 tips on blog promotion. The tip on promoting a post is well taken as targeting content is one of the best ways to satisfy readers.
When dealing with self promotion, product promotion or company promotion blogging is the way to go. For me, article marketing got the best response over all.
Thanks,
Jorge Olson
A great many of my hits come from linking individual posts in my forum(s) signatures. Especially if your blog is specialized this is a good way to generate traffic.
Ok, I did write a list post. Probably my first list post in 2 years. Just realised that this is the kind of post that I like reading myself on other sites … Hope this one gets some traction on SU and Digg
http://onlygizmos.com/the-5-point-check-to-rate-a-gadget/2009/04/
For the first time I just took the step to nudge some other bloggers, where my post is related and adds some value for their readers.
I mentioned that most of the blogs I tried to contact had a lack of possibilities of doing so, because they don’t have any contact information. If they read this right now, I want to suggest to participate in this challenge (lol).
One blog asked to put the link on deicious and tag it ‘for:their-sitename’
I learn new things every day. It’s exciting.
This task is one that I know I’ve ignored, so it was a good assignment for me today.
What did I do? I searched for other construction blogs and left specific comments on three of them and linked back to my blog. I know I have to keep doing this, but it takes more time than I have some days.
Anyone here who has any interest in the construction industry is welcome to follow my blog and/or my twitter feed @pcba
I was running short on time yesterday, so I went ahead and combined it with today’s.
http://psynister.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/new-paladin-updates/
I am going to be saying similar things here – hard to promote yourself etc, etc, and Darren hits it on the head about moving out of your comfort zone.I am not a natural Facebook candidate either. However I have found something that bridges two of my areas of writing interest so I am pretty pleased.
http://www.nativespain.com/six-examples-personal-empowerment-being-native-spainer
Hi Darren,
Like you, I have a blog all about blogging. I have a previous list-post (not yesterday’s) that I think is good and relevant to your blog:
http://wordpress2go.com/7-habits-of-extremely-effective-bloggers/
Would you consider linking to it from your blog? If not, please could you say why not? (I won’t be offended!)
If anyone else wants to Digg (or Stumble or…) this post I’d be very grateful. I’ll happily digg other blog posts in return.
Sarah
Consider myself promoted..I have pimped my photography list on twitter. Once last night, once today. Yeah!
Hi Darren,
Yep, once again, you’re right. As bloggers, we DO have to promote more than our homepage URL. By promoting specific posts, we can cater that to a specific audience and thus, broaden our audience as a whole.
My blog is for mom entrepreneurs and as someone who has “been there, done that”, I know how valuable it can be for mom entrepreneurs to get some good media coverage. So, I promote the heck out of http://www.themogulmom.com/2009/02/23/the-mogul-mom-featuresyou/to help them do just that.
Thanks so much for the 3rd great lesson!! :)
Heather
Thanks Darren – I’m loving this project.
My blog is very niche-oriented (fly fishing travel) and by far my best source of quality traffic has been posting specific articles on fly fishing related forum sites. Yesterday I posted a link relevant to an even more targeted site (fly fishing with spey rods – not my list post since it won’t run for another week) and my daily traffic nearly tripled from its average. Even better, the traffic from the niche forum site spent almost 5 minutes more time on my blog than average!
Here’s that post–
http://blog.deneki.com/2009/04/steelhead-rig-roundup.html
Andrew
How funny is this. I actually wrote my task yesterday ( write a list blog) on a list of ways to promote your blog postings. Try this http://www.kymberstyle.com
Happy Blogging!
Interestingly enough, I didn’t see much of a swing in traffic from posting in the comments, but maybe it’s because I’m focused narrowly on food and most of the bloggers here seem to be in other industries.
I’ve worked on promoting my post via the ideas above. Here is the post for anyone who missed it yesterday:
10 Unique Uses for Hard Boiled Eggs
Please bookmark if you enjoy it!
Allen
Follow me: @eatingoutloud
Darren,
One decent referrer that I have had good luck with is Linkedin. I installed the WP app on LI. When I have a new post my connections see the update and traffic follows.
One other tip that has helped on social networks is asking a question to get people thinking and then clicking.
Cheers.
Excellent thoughts on blog promotion and marketing. It seems to me that I get the best results from posting to my social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, etc…and using sites like Digg and StumbleUpon. I also receive a majority of my traffic to a new blog post through RSS feed updates, that are sent to reader’s emails or feed readers.
Thank you for the tips!
Good post, Darren.
Sometimes I promote my posts in my personal message on MSN Messenger, so my contact names can see the url and read my post. You can also do it with Skype.
It’s so sickly amazing how many people take part in this, here are 33 strategies to Creative Capital
Re item 4: I just added “Recent Posts” to my sidebar. Never considered it before because I assumed people generally saw the home page. But most of my traffic is coming from searches which land people on individual posts, so having “Recent Posts” visible everywhere makes sense!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and knowledge Darren. I have been writing my blog about eight types of prayer for almost a year now, but have not done anything to promote it. This is great information. I am enjoying the challenge.
I have to tell you Darren… it was not easy! I was never a salesman so having to do this requires special attention. But I made it… I’ve sent a couple of emails to others bloggers in my niche… Let’s see what they say.
Thanks Darren! You are doing a great job!
I like that these challenges provide just an extra bit of motivation – I’ve occasionally promoted individual posts on related forums when I think they answer questions that are relevant and although I’ve been used to posting my posts to Twitter – I haven’t used the social bookmarking sites much .. yet!
I made a list that not only promotes a popular post on my site it promotes your site as well.
http://www.reallifepurpose.com/promoting-a-blog-post/
Thanks fro the great advice,
Greg
Thanks for the great post!
I’ve had some great success by just submitting my posts to stumbleupon before, but I’m going to try the targeted ad campaign after reading about it here.
We’ll see how it goes, but keep up the great work!
Darren, Thanks for doing this. Such a cool idea. So far, I’ve revised my “about” page a bit based on your elevator pitch suggestions. I’ve done list posts before, and since I have a couple regular features I do, I haven’t done a list post yet this week, but I’m going to write one and keep it on hand to post in a couple days. I’ve been promoting posts using Twitter and Facebook, and a while back I sent a link to one post to a blogger I really admire, and she ended up linking to it from her site — total lucky break for me. I got a huge spike in traffic, which gradually tapered off again, but I still think I gained at least a couple long-term readers out of that, and I caught the eye of a notable blogger, which was encouraging.
Great tips. I’ve increased my traffic by leaving comments on other blogs.
Your other ideas are helpful. I’ll get up my courage and try them.
What about StumbleUpon? I read that if you try to promote your own articles, the site will not like it and not feature your posts anymore. Is that true?
Rita at http://boomersurvive-thriveguide.typepad.com
Great list Darren. Started to do your steps and its not that hard in fact. I am taking baby steps in learning all your how to’s.
Thank you
Tweeted about yesterday’s list post. :-)
Also, I’m really glad you’re making all this info available to us, Darren. This week has really forced me to get my bum in gear–in addition to completing all your daily challenges, I’m finding myself writing content ahead, contacting other bloggers, and finally dealing with some theme issues I’d had with WordPress for a long, long time. I am loving it!
From my WEEDS AND SEEDS SWAP blog today, I hope to see what I can do about promoting this post a bit later:
10 HARD TO KILL GARDEN HERBS AND PLANTS
http://www.weedsandseedswap.com/10-hard-to-kill-garden-herbs-and-plants/
Thanks for another great lesson!
Claudia
Yes, I did this last week…found a link on HARO and followed up and this is what I got out of it…
http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=7841329001620837825
Grateful for other tips today…am going at it now!
I keep a list of places I submit my posts to. After publishing I go to these places and submit the link to my new recipe/post.
I am lucky being in the food category we have many awesome submission sites such as Tastespotting, FoodGawker, and Photo Grazing. I also use Facebook and Twitter to promote/share my recipes/posts.
Having a really great time with this series – I look forward to tomorrow.
Here are some links to my list post on the above mentioned sites….
FoodGawker – http://foodgawker.com/post/2009/04/08/21308/
Tastespotting –
http://www.tastespotting.com/detail/39645/What-to-Buy-Organic
I tweeted the post (the “10 easy tips for building a cookbook library”) and it was picked up and RT by a couple other folks. One of them also stumbled it. I’m now going to contact another blogger who routinely links to my content….
It has driven a little bit of traffic to the blog – I think I’ve had a 10% increase, maybe more.
I already always promote my blog posts via Twitter – automatically on my blog’s own Twitter account http://www.twitter.com/pooloflife and the ones I think are most relevant to my followers on my own personal account: http://www.twitter.com/lcdavis.
I also have a Twitter account for a fashion blog I co-write http://www.twitter.com/stylecity and one for the arts content I write for the newspaper I work for: http://www.twitter.com/LDParts. The fashion blog has a Facebook account too which is a good source for stories.
When I set up the Pool of Life blog I contacted some other Liverpool local history bloggers and said I was including them in my rolecall of blogs. They all responded to say they would add my blog to theirs too.In my experience, if you are willing to show interest in someone else’s blog then they are likely to reciprocate.
Seeing hundreds of comments for every post here is great. But I am afraid it will help any meaningful conversation. I am really sorry guys, i am not adding any value through my comment but anyway I completely agree with darren with the means of promoting the post