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. |
If anyone is interested we could make a mini carnival out of our list posts. I am contacting people who commented on yesterdays post and are in the money/PF/frugal area to see if they are interested.
If you are let me know and we can set it up it would be a great way to all help each other
jasonrfisher at gmail dot com
My email newsletter goes out on Friday and I’ll be publicising my post then. I’ve already promoted it on Twitter and will mention it on FB later today.
I Tweeted that my most-viewed post is no longer relevant, and linked to a more recent, and relevant, article (regarding World of Warcraft addons).
I also repeated the tweet in a chatroom populated by World of Warcraft bloggers (if you don’t play, there are a lot more than you might imagine!).
Within minutes, that article was the second most-frequent landing spot on my blog (per Woopra), and the second most-popular article for the day (behind my most recent post, which behavior is to be expected).
Thank You for this post. I confess I often do feel timid when it comes to promoting myself online. I know I need to and have to but a part of me just thinks it may come across as arrogant. I will swallow my pride and tackle a few of the methods recommended and see what happens! Thank You
I still have so much to learn. If anybody has found the best way to go about promoting others blogs and your own in return, do share. Thanks!
here’s my list post http://www.itsfrugalbeinggreen.com/2009/04/air-fresheners-air-pollution.html about what you can do to make your house smell better instead of using air fresheners.
I promoted by post, 10 Reasons Mothers are More Political in 2009, by tweeting it )it was re-tweeted by a few people) and cross-posting it on the group political blog I write for, MOMocrats. I linked to the 10 Reasons post in today’s post — Oprah and the Mommyblogggers Should Go One Step Further.
http://punditmom1.blogspot.com/2009/04/oprah-and-mommybloggers-should-go-one.html
Writing about something is one thing. Self promotion is a whole different thing. I’m far from a new blogger, but I still find this difficult. That being said, if anyone is interested in knowing 9 Reasons Why Accessibility Matters, go take a look.
My list post was
10 Things I’ve Learned to Love about Dallas
You are right, people do like lists, and tonight I will follow it up with 10 Things I Still Hate about Dallas
I promoted this via facebook, twitter, and yelp.com’s Dallas talk section.
http://papuagirlindallas.blogspot.com/2009/04/10-things-ive-learned-to-love-about.html
I really like the Twitter idea, with so many of us we could potentially reach 1,000 of people that may not know our blogs are around. We should start a twitter listing here. We can then retweet each others posts. I’m totally open to retweeting posts to my followers. My Twitter account is:
http://twitter.com/sambuzin
Well, I’ve posted the links to the articles on Twitter and FB but am still thinking about how I could follow the other suggestions. Hm. Have a look:
http://murderingthetext.blogspot.com/2009/04/my-top-5-amateur-dramatics-resources.html
and
http://fionajphillips.blogspot.com/2009/04/my-list-of-creativity.html
I posted yesterdays post on my Facebook page. Does that count?
Thank for this. I have always bumbled my way through promotion. The post I promoted was a short and humorous one: 7 Places it’d be Funny to Pee On/Off Of
http://www.octavarius.com/2009/04/07/7-places-itd-be-funny-to-pee-onoff-of/
I went with Social Media, since the subject matter is a little juvanile (the website is about improv comedy), and I got a good response. I also use Facebook Connect, which helped a lot, because user comments travelled back to Facebook and notified their friends of the post. It didn’t get huge traction, but hopefully the same techniques will for a more serious post.
I’d just had a unique thing happen to my iPod – it being run over by a pickup and left in the snow – and it still works! As a photographer, I took pictures and chronicled the story. I submitted the story to Digg and Stumbleupon, as well as linked to it on Twitter.
We’ll see how it goes!
http://themosaicphoto.com/blog/04/ipod-snow/
Thanks for the article,
I generally promote my articles or posts via Twitter or Facebook. They are very powerful tools as you said. I also try digg & stumble submissions. Out of which I get more traffic by stumble.
Here are my two posts
10 Exceptional Web Designs on the Net-
http://tinyurl.com/dcayar
31 Best Logos of the March-
http://tinyurl.com/dd7stn
Blog updated with new post: Unite For Hunger And Hope
http://vinceong.com/2009/04/unite-for-hunger-and-hope/
stephen
April o8, 2009 3.27pm
Salutations,
I am new to blogging so please forgive my greenness at this. Although under normal circumstances I am not easily impressed, but on my son’s urging, I have found this blog to be quite refreshing.
My web site is http://www.caniofferyouacigarette.com
After smoking 4-5 packs daily for 16 years, I quit cold turkey twenty-two years ago. There is actually a way that an addicted smoker can quit, and I have written my book to provide hope for those wishing to quit. Its easy, all you have to do is to want to quit. I am an advocate for healthier lungs, cleaner air and prevention of smoking related diseases in children.
My twitter is father_author
There is a link to link to the bulletin board, where you can unload some of you timely or ghastly orjust simply bizarre smoking stories. I’m sure it would provide some form of entertainment or edification, depending on your sense of humor.
I look forward to hearing from many of you smokers.
salud,
stephen Father-Author-Teacher
Created a digg account and added a post on ABCs of Self Defence.
http://digg.com/educational/ABCs_of_Self_Defense
Hey Darren,
THanks once again. Is this commetn counted as a promotion. Perhaps I can say, “Please Darren, promote my blog post”
Any way, I took the list we created for yesterdays homework. Posted it, and tweeted it. I ma also, I suppose in a way, promoting it here.
So people please take a look at the top 10 web design mistakes and add any points of your own. It can be found at http://www.integralwebsolutions.co.za/Blog/EntryId/193/Top-10-web-design-mistakes.aspx
I also use a new service called pimpthisblog.com. Try it out. I have gotten 5% more traffic this week. Not a lot, but everything counts right.
This is the perfect followup to creating a great list post – making sure we promote it properly. I am submitting 8 Ways to Use Delicious and Social Bookmarking on StumbleUpon, Digg, Twitter and other sites. Please join me on those sites to share in article promotion!
Well, didn’t know I’d be ahead of the game. Yesterday after I wrote my list post I automatically tweeted about it. So as in high school, I’m ahead of the curve!
I posted a link to my post on Facebook and got about a hit every minute for a half hour. Great ideas, and these will definitely expand my promo. Thanks!
I’ve had a lot of luck promoting by blog using these mthods today. I’ve also came in contact with at least 3 new bloggers as a direct result of this challenge. I can’t wait until the forums get up!
http://manvsdebt.com
http://twitter.com/manvsdebt
Self promotion? You bring the thing that’s most uncomfortable for me to do to the table on the third day? BAAAGGGH!
I’m still pretty new to blogging, still gaining my bearings, so this made me almost pee my pants. I could only bring myself to do #s 2, 4, and 8. Actually, I didn’t promote the ‘list’ post, but the the piggyback post.
I’m sensing this thirty day challenge will actually be challenging…
“Your Nose Is Not A Garden. Stop Digging.”
http://itsabeautyfilledlife.blogspot.com/2009/04/your-nose-is-not-garden-stop-digging.html
It may be worth reflecting back on the first task, the elevator pitch. This is important because the way in which you promote your blog, and who you try and promote your blog to, should be consistent with your ‘mission’.
Much as I’d love to hit the top of Digg or get referenced by an “A list” blogger, it’s more important to me to be read and recognised by local (well UK at least) companies. I’m also using the blog to promote my business development consultancy, so Facebook is less relevant than LinkedIn.
So I tweeted yesterday’s list post http://www.jbsh.co.uk/2009/04/07/5-critical-lists-for-business-development/ and shared it with a BizDev group I manage on LinkedIn.
Looking forward to the rest of the Challenge!
:)
I like to let my posts ‘stew’ overnight for a final edit before I publish, so my list post only went live this morning.
http://crystalsquest.com/7-ways-your-self-esteem-is-holding-you-back/
So far: twitter, facebook, and linkback from my comment here. But I’d like to go for the treasure chest: number 1.
Darren, how about you do a list post of your own, including some of the posts you find in your comments, on the range of topics being covered by your 31 days participants?
I’d love it if you’d include my post in it! ;)
Regards,
Crystal
My traffic is way up, in fact I set a new record today for this site. THANKS! I’ve read several articles about what percent of people will leave a comment and does it matter. . . are the comments as important as the number of subscribers?
I’d love for everybody to take a look, and I hope you enjoy my piece of the world!
http://marblefalls.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/6-reasons-to-choose-the-texas-hill-county-reacquaint-yourself/
Jem
Great challenge so far! My list post, 5 Hurdles to Getting What you Want – How to get Over Them by the wonderful inspirational writer Steven Aitchison is now being promoted on StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Propeller, Delicious and Twitter. You are more than welcome to visit the article and leave a comment and subscribe. If you love the article (like I do) you can help to promote the article using the Share/Save button at the bottom of the article.
I like these ideas a lot and have used them in the past. But I wonder if my blogging topic is too obscure for any kind of mainstream audience. I’m wondering if I am really only blogging for myself.
Thanks for the excellent info, Darren. I put my blog into my LinkedIn profile using BlogLink, and I’ve done some grass roots promotion using my social networking outlet. I’ll check back later today and see if there’s an increase in traffic.
I’m wondering how people put in those “digg this” or “stumbleupon” links into their blog so that the post is dug or stumbled right there in the same screen.
I’m happy to say I’ve been all over this one for quite a while. My blog is routinely syndicated by the Chicago Sun-Times, the Sun-Times News Group and for quite some time, Reuters.
I promote in my sidebar with “Latest Headlines” and “Most Popular.” Also, I have a tab that lists Best of Blog Harbor. I’ve placed selected posts in StumbleUpon and Twitter as well as commenting frequently on other blogs. My email signature has a link to my blog…I also am more than happy to take the URL of a post to message boards that are topic-specific to my post.
My traffic has gone way up since adding all of these methods.
The one thing I’ve yet to do: A newsletter…
….and that’s next. :-)
Okay, I have finally caught up on all the lessons for this 31 day challenge. I thank you Darren for giving your all so we may be as great as you are. 10 bows to you!
If anyone so pleases to visit my site and comment here on what they think about it that would be great. I am in the herbal remedies niche, but I also have other niches if you would like me to link to your niche. I would be glad to…
http://www.naturalherbalremediesblog.com
I wrote my first “list post”…boy, was that strange…but interesting, so we’ll see how it goes. I also updated my “About Me” page to focus more on prevention than remedies and I rewrote my tag line to emphasize this. So if you have the time I would appreciate some feed back. http://www.naturalherbalremediesblog.com/about-me/
I normally do the social thing as well as write an article for any posts I do. I also do Technorita but I was banned from Digg (I didn’t get any traffic from them anyway) because someone wanted my user name so it’s not a big deal.
Some of the other ways to get links I didn’t think about so now I have something to think about :)…thanks for today’s lesson.
Sara Smile
Hey, I just so happened to already have a list post for yesterday’s challenge almost finished when the challenge stated to write one, so I simply finished and posted it. It’s a list of five ways to boost your everyday happiness by being kind to your body.
5 Body Based Paths to Happiness:
http://www.bloggingguy.com/2009/04/5-body-based-paths-to-happiness.html
Awesome advice, these are great tips to add to what I already do for my posts. I always tweet my latest post but that’s in addition to tweeting valuable and sometimes personal information—I don’t follow those on Twitter who *only* tweet about their blog/product and I wouldn’t expect the same. I sometimes Digg a post if I think it’s especially helpful, and that really increases my visibility on Google.
I digress…thanks for the tips. (If you like reading about baby names, check out my blog here: http://www.nameisms.blogspot.com)
One down, one to go:
I placed a post on a Forum I frequent about my mini-blog site that deals with eCovers for bloggers, etc. http://eCovers.Solo-Dad.com
I’m also going to link to it in the sidebar of BlogAsReligion.com.
IMPORTANT note on step 11 regarding article marketing:
First, a great place to be putting your blog posts is at EzineArticles dot com. It will take time to build some traffic, but I hear when you get to the point of having 25-100 articles, it’s a great resource. Plus, it’s targeted people for your Niche and gets TONS and TONS of traffic.
Now, Darren mentioned that it’s not a good idea to write duplicate posts on Article Marketing sites, however, there is a way around it. What Google doesn’t like is you writing the same exact post on an article site, and then linking to your blog, with the SAME exact article. There are two ways around this:
1. Instead of linking back to your blog page, link to an opt-in page. For example, my main site is at http://www.TheMindsetApprentice.com ; When I link to it from EzineArticles however, I link to http://www.TheMindsetApprenticeNow.com, which is my opt-in page.
2. Rewrite the article by about 20%. You can do this by changing a few paragraphs…you could reorder your lists, etc.
Hope this helps guys! Whatever you do, DEFINITELY start submitting your articles at EzineArticles!
–Sean Patrick Simpson
**The Mindset Apprentice**
Twitter @vpsean
@Marc,
Your post was funny, but why have I to register or login to facebook to comment? I think this withholds many people from commenting, what’s a shame.
Kind regards,
Mario
Darren, the promtion worked fine for me! My list ( 100 Articles to Help You With Blogging ) is now most reviewd post ever(from my blog) on Stumble Upon and is getting good traffic.
A great post Darren and I am now starting to enjoy it and I think that this post is most important of the three because it is what concerns many bloggers. I really think that this contest is worth my time and it will help me improve my blog.
Mohammad Afaq
Free Website Traffic
A great post Darren and I am now starting to enjoy it and I think that this post is most important of the three because it is what concerns many bloggers. I really think that this contest is worth my time and it will help me improve my blog.
Mohammad Afaq
http://afaqtrafficblog.blogspot.com
Hi Darren,
I am definitely working on promoting my blog- I guess I will just have to get out there and ask other bloggers. I also put the link in the bottom of my e-mail signature and updated a link on facebook. Thanks for your help!
I’ve generally gotten good coverage from Twitter, none from Digg, and occasionally a bump from StumbleUpon.
If you belong to a discussion group that’s topically aligned, that’s a great place to promote where you’re likely to see a very high click-through. Be a good citizen – don’t make it “all about you” – a great way is to post your blog link along with an open question so readers have their chance to join in.
10 Books to Make You a Better Product Manager: http://www.cindyalvarez.com/roundups/10-books-product-manager
What’s the most useful business/technology business book YOU’VE read lately?
I have an alternative lifestyle blog, and most mainstream methods won’t work for me. I never include the blog I’m developing here because the comments never make it to be published when I do.
I love love love Blogger’s new style of Bloglist because it lists according to new posts, so if I can get on someone’s blog roll it will automatically promote my new content. This also tends to target my niche market because they use the free blogging platforms more than self hosting with domains.
Twitter is great too, if you get people who believe in RT’ing. I use Twitter for my site with decent success in these first 3 months.
I find that if I cross post the first paragraph on social networks I’m in I can bring traffic over occasionally.
Some super tips for promotion. I would say get the article re-tweeted a few times and you will be able to promote pretty well.
Another great article, and I have to agree as a new blogger I’m timid in promoting my blog but realize I need to do this! Our blog is a travel blog, and we’re in preperations for leaving on a year long trip and need to get everything working smoothly before we go.
We’ve installed Wordbook for our wordpress installation, that puts a message in our Facebook feed whenever we make a post. We’ve also created a Facebook Group and we had the idea to post the last couple of blog topics out to the group.
Our next step is to start using Twitter more and see how it goes!
cheers,
Scott
Darren, I’m enjoying and learning a lot from your discussions. I’m also glad that you pointed out that to leave a comment on a blog which is basically a self promotion gambit is inapporpriate.
Oops! Too late for today, since I posted a new blog recipe yesterday – but the next one I know just who I’m linking to. And I’m happy to say there are many food bloggers that will link to you – often without letting you know. So if you do link to someone’s blog or recipe, send them a little message so they know. Still working on Day #1 :)
Darren,
Thanks for running 31DBBB. I am also a big fan of the ProBlogger book.
I launched my own niche blog one month ago and my very first post was a promotion of other blogs in my niche that have been tremendously helpful to me.
Here is the post:
http://www.ocdqblog.com/home/do-you-have-obsessive-compulsive-data-quality-ocdq.html
Looking forward to the rest of 31DBBB.
Best Regards…
Jim
I have had some success with this list post i wrote last week. Often the things you list about can be over-arching themes that could be good for “most popular post” link lists too.
I’ve been using Facebook and Twitter to promote posts, but I have not been good about adding related links to the bottom of every post. Since I’m doing a theme each month, I decided to make the intro post to the theme the “go-to” post and then update it with the link to each new article as I write it. Then the new articles only have to be linked back to the first one.
If someone is interested in a theme, this gives them a way to view all the posts and read any or all of them without a lot of work on my part linking. I have to keep in mind that the series lives on long after this month and people need a way to find out more info. Great idea – thanks!
This is how I did it: http://budurl.com/8wbj
And a sample followup post: http://budurl.com/jp2t
Now off to find a blogger or two for my pitch on this month’s theme of decluttering!