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 hope you all are “above water” in this recession.
If you’re thinking about pursuing Temporary Work, her’s my introduction posts. I write this from my personal experience of doing Temp Work.
Temp Introductory Profile
http://sparklytempdiaries.blogspot.com/2009/04/temp-introduction-checklist.html
Recession and Temp Fear
http://sparklytempdiaries.blogspot.com/search/label/recession
Moving To A New City
http://sparklytempdiaries.blogspot.com/2009/04/moving-to-another-city.html
Great stuff Darren – Posted my list and promoted it on Twitter, FB, MySpace, LI and my blog has been on the signature of my emails. I do get visitors but I need to get folks commenting! Duh. I’ll ask a question for them to answer. Oh knew that V8 was good for something!
Promotion is the hardest part for me. I twitted the post, added it to my facebook and submitted through social marker. I also commented on a couple of other peoples lists. So far one person retweeted and added it to her favorites.
http://www.bizziemommy.com/7-websites-mom-entrepreneurs-should-visit.html
This is a great start. Thanks Darren.
I have some followers on twitter, so I posted my list post there (yes I’m, a day late..but I’m trying to keep up.)
Thank you Darren, I am really enjoying the challenges, they happened to tie in well with a class I just taught so I started working on a series of posts.
Yesterday I created my list post:
What is your Top Ten?
http://stamptildawn.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-is-your-top-ten.html
Today I posted a follow up on how to use the top ten lists.
Take your Top Ten to the next level.
http://stamptildawn.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-is-your-top-ten.html
Then I sent out my newsletter with links to both posts. I also issued a challenge in the second post that should get some comments and links.
First, apologies for the double-post. I mis-posted my links for the Day 2 challenge here.
The promote challenge uncovered a weak spot for me.
I did:
– promote my post on Twitter and Facebook.
– add some internal links in my blog
Fun. Useful.
But, clearly a limited approach that will get limited results (and has thus far).
I’m going to continue to improve promoting posts to develop it into a strength.
Thanks,
Ben
Hi Darren – I had a great response pushing out my list post on 20 Facebook Applications for Your Job Search http://blog.bincsearch.com/?p=1108. I have had 5 people link to me and two more are scheduled to next week! I have tried pushing out posts before but I guess that the content was never right.
Been catching up here (missed the first couple of days!). Mine isn’t a list post, but is of use to a lot of people, I hope. I always tweet any new blog post to my huge audience of a dozen or so people, but also keep an eye open for discussions on forums where I’ve written something appropriate that it’s easier to link to than reproduce in forum format. That sends a few folks over.
Never had any luck with Digg, to be honest – mostly because the big publishers seem to group-Digg their own work and get higher up. Ho hum. I Digged this one anyway: http://www.wordophilia.com/writing-and-plagiarism/
After reading another of your articles, I started a series of articles last week on General Aviation heroes. Today I posted a new article in that series on the founders of Cirrus Design. In promoting the article, I send an email with a link to a couple of my friends who worked for the company. One of them forwarded it to a VP and within an hour, I noticed that they had put a link to my article on their “News & Press” page. I never expected that. But it’s certainly fun to see how a little promotion can lead to pleasant surprises like this.
I use a Twitter plugin called TweetBurner to promote all my blog posts. I’ve gotten several positive responses from people on my Twitter list that way.
I also put a link to my blog at the bottom of forum posts, when I feel it would be appropriate.
Now I need to do more. :)
Hi Darren,
Just a short note to say a big THANK YOU for this challenge! On Step 1 (elevator pitch), I finally put my thoughts down on paper. On Step 2 (list), I wrote this article http://tinyurl.com/cyeadn and published it. On Step 3, I promoted this article and the response was enormous! It was RT’d and StumbledUpon many times today and it’s become my biggest post ever! Unbelievable. Can’t wait for the other steps. :-)
Best regards,
Keith
Thank you very much for this great information! Will have to work on my promoting, but now more focused than before. Seems like I need to do a lot more work :)
I’m promoting http://www.greensahm.com/4-places-to-connect-online-with-other-green-moms/
I regularly put my posts in my Twitter feed, and have gotten some good response on that sometimes. This one I also Stumbled, which I rarely do.
Will be looking at the others here too.
I really like this challenge. I hope everyone likes my blog on “28 sites to help you search Twitter and more”. If you have some sites you’d like to add please let me know.
Check it out at: http://www.jayphilips.com/2009/04/09/28-sites-to-help-you-search-twitter-and-more/
Thanks,
Jay
Ok, I took your advice. I added another list post to my blog and realized that my traffic does increase when I use list post. I also posted about another blogger’s list and that send lots of viewers to my site.
It almost seem illegal to link to other people’s blog.
Thanks for the advice.
Posted a link to the list post on twitter: http://twitter.com/soulpowr/status/1484457051
Also have a link to this blog on all of my Ning groups.
Also use #6 from time to time.
Will definitely work on some of the other suggested methods of blog promotion
Crap, I am already a day behind. Lots of good advice here. I am a beginner and haven’t managed to attract any visitors yet so I thought this would be a good way to learn.
I’ll let you know tomorrow how the promotion went. Should you use only one or two of the above methods per post promotion or should you use them all?
After just 20 hours my post is ranking 2nd on Google for the title tag phrase and I’m going to probably have my highest unique visitor day of all time.
Thanks!
Hi, Darren and everyone! This is gettin g exciting by the day. :) I apologize for not being able to do the tasks on time because we are celebrating the Holy Days (Week) here.
In any case, every time I have a new post in my blog, I always put it on Twitter, which also lands on my Facebook. Sometimes, I also Plurk about it. Yeah these social networks do help generate traffic.
I’m looking into the possibility of linking to a blogger, and is choosing a blogger that writes about what I write, too. Perhaps you can help me? ;)
Meanwhile, I will put my link post on Digg and StumbleUpon.
Hiking with Bathmophobia – 7 hiking trips that won’t scare you to death (too much) !
Enjoyed creating this list post here: http://frankinoz.blogspot.com/2009/04/hiking-with-bathmophobia-7-hiking-trips.html
I am loving this challenge.. I am a promoter already using Twitter, Twitwall, Digg and Stumble… although I am not stumbling as much. I also use other social media and am wanting to move into using Facebook. In fact my DIL is setting up a Facebook for me.. HOW good can it get? Love this challenge! THANKS
We enjoyed doing this task as it reminded us the different ways to promote a blog post and loved the suggestions that we are not doing. Liked the exercise so much I wrote a blog about it:
http://activerain.com/blogsview/1025589/Promoting-Your-Blog-Day-3-of-Build-a-Better-Blog-Challenge
Hi Darren,
Love your post.
I guess it is time to get out of my comfort zone. I know that it would boost my blog and expertise in the field.
Many Blessings
Well, things are still going good. To promote my blog I; used #2 Social Networking on Myspace, Facebook & Twitter. AND also #8 Followup Post. I am new to blogging so I have to keep it as simple as possible right now. I will use Problogger in the future to help me build more later.
Thanks for the kick in the pants for 31 days Darren.
7 Lighting Tutorials to Make Your Photos Stand Out
http://www.photographybay.com/2009/04/09/7-lighting-tutorials-to-make-your-photos-stand-out/
I did the Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter and Facebook thing. Good response from friends and contacts thus far.
I published a list post today that was one of those “blog awards” that go around and of course linked to a bunch of people and then went and notified them of the award so they could pass it on and link to me in the process. They’re silly but fun.
I am getting better at using Twitter. Also, although I am not crazy about the new look of Facebook, I am getting more traffic from there, even from non-bloggers, because of how much easier it is for them to see my notes (really my blog feeding in) and even stuff I share on Google Reader!
I have made some changes today on my blog, added links and chenged the look.
http://bettinasettlesrealty.com/Blogspot.htm
Not having a clue…but trying. Too timid to promote so please see Five Ways To Boost Your Creativity
Darren,
Thank for all the ideas. I have been promoting posts on Facebook, twitter, and my personal circle. I like the suggestions about asking for links.
I have a marketing success story — I’ve started to line up interviews by successful published authors (to create a community of experts and up-and-coming writers), my first interview with Kathi Macias, author of 30 books, has been very well received. I just started a campaign for a chance to win one of her books for those who comment during the month of April.
What I love is that I am able to promote a great writer who is willling to share her expertise with others, and in the process, readers get an inside look at the writing life of one who is doing what they want to do. It is a win-win all around.
Here’s the post: http://writingtoserve.net/?p=223
Looking forward to experimenting with new ways of promoting not just the posts, but truly the content which can benefit all involved.
Maria
hi,
your training project was excellent. your guidance will help me to boost my blog.keep rocks.all d best.
my blog – http://www.readycashforu.blogspot.com
I’ve used the internal link recommendation in this post
http://selfreliance.choseit.com/2009/03/17/self-reliance-is-interdependent/ and have a recent posts widget installed. Also, article marketing has been part of my plan for the blog but I seem to have difficulty with creating blog posts of much less than 1,000 words…which, when sufficiently reworked and fleshed out begin to look like short stories rather than articles. :-( I’ll get some articles out there yet, but may have to start them from scratch rather than expanding upon a blog post as had been my original plan.
Here’s what I did to promote the task in Day 2.
http://limetouch.com/archives/promote-a-blog-post/
Well, how about this? I will feature every blogger’s blog, that writes an article about one of these three articles of mine:
Google Scams -> http://www.icantinternet.org/2009/02/google-scams/
Getting Started With Adsense -> http://www.icantinternet.org/2009/03/starting-with-adsense/
Top 5 ways to increase adsense earnings -> http://www.icantinternet.org/2009/04/top-5-ways-to-increase-your-adsense-earnings/
I submitted my article to Digg, and Tweeted about it.
Whereas these two ways work a little, I’ve found out that using a reference to your article in a Yahoo answer (where the link is VERY relevant to the answer and the question of course) yields much more results, in the long run (sometimes even more then 6 months later).
Furthermore, I would like to co-operate with some other Internet-Marketing Bloggers, to exchange articles/links/experiences!
My list article:
http://www.icantinternet.org/2009/04/top-5-ways-to-increase-your-adsense-earnings/
I promoted my list post http://eatingconsciously.blogspot.com/2009/04/ten-stupid-questions-vegans-get-asked.html on Twitter, as I have well over 1,300 followers which also posts directly to my Facebook. I have had many responses and RTs in a short period of time. I also turned the list into an article for the Examiner.com, which seems to also be driving more traffic to my blog. It looks like traffic doubled yesterday!
We purchased some PPC from stumbleupon for our list post ( http://www.excitedbylife.com/happiness/8-famous-quotes-on-loving-life/ ). stumbeupon ended up delivering so much traffic at the same time that it crashed our server!! None of it stuck unfortunately, probably because the server was down for most of it. We might try a more “news worthy” list article next time, like http://www.excitedbylife.com/happiness/7-ways-to-get-high-naturally-and-legally and limit the number of clicks per day.
Hey Darren,
Thanks for all the help.
http://www.thebushman.ca/journal/from-the-yellowknifer/
I mentioned my post on Twitter, or the topic of the post with a link to the post that I was promoting. I also did a blog about the blog on ActiveRain a real estate network… or the post is kind of about the blog on my WordPress.org The post on ActiveRain was about the Flickr photo I found to use in my list post.
I’m going to comment in some blogs and forums today that are relavent. I fall into the group of timid bloggers so I do need that push to reach out to others. I’ll keep #1 in mind as I write the next post.
I’m pretty nervous about promoting my blog, but I’m giving it a try. I’ve tweeted about it, and will check out Digg and StumbleUpon as well. I’m thinking about doing some promoting with other bloggers as well. I know a couple of writing blogs that might take well to sharing my link.
In case anyone else is interested, here’s the link to the post – 7 Places to Find New Story Ideas:
http://amispencer.com/blog/2009/04/09/7-places-to-find-new-story-ideas/
Great ideas! Your article gave me the courage I needed to Stumble one of my posts :) I already was tweeting most of them, but I need to do it consistently each time. Two other ideas I have fun with:
Enter contests for things I am interested in. Just adding the link to the contest entry is good (often more than one entry). This can often result in one or more new visitors as they notice your site name. If you win, you will also get links back and forth regarding the prizes. And since many of the contests I enter are small, I have been excited to be a winner a few times. Fun prizes, new friends, and great links :)
I also watch for blogs in my niche who are offering mutual linking opportunities for fun posts. For example, I entered my site in a couple of holiday joint projects at Christmas. The hosting sites asked for people to enter posts about holiday projects your site was posting about. I entered my site, and enjoyed quite a few new visitors as a result. They were a lot of fun, right down my site’s alley, and resulted in extra visitors to both sites. Win-win for us all :)
Great lesson, it’s good to know that I was already doing some of this stuff, but I suppose since I’ve been blogging the better part of 2 years now, I should have figured something out on my own.
Now I’ve added Twitter to my armamentarium, and am looking into Share This and Add This, and other social networking groups…my readership has dropped somewhat compared to last year, and I think that correlates directly to my activity on the social networking front (bloghopping “clubs” and other n’ing type of links).
I tend to utilize social networking often in promoting my posts, and will soon be using the follow up posts to help as well.
My list post is a first in a series of tips on using Twitter, broken down into bite-sized steps so anyone can use it confidently:
http://mymeanbean.com/Blog/?p=1877
I’ve been enjoying the series already, thanks Darren!
To me, this could be by far, the toughest lesson of the 4 we had so far, especially Darren’s 1st suggestion. Not that the previous ones are any easier, at least we would try to research something out to accomplish them, as for this one, we may need to deal with our inner timidity, and get a little thick-faced when needed. But it’s true, sometimes we all need a little confidence to knock on a door, a higher ground even.
Will try to cover as much notes as mentioned above… hopefully.
Quite many links shown here, so I twitted a few about blogging-related subjects for some. Good luck. ^^
@wchingya
Social Media/Blogging
I promoted my list Bristol Green Bloggers on Stumbleupon, twitter and facebook. I got a couple of clicks from twitter, 60+ clicks from stumbleupon and wordpress states 12 more visits but does not account where the come from.
Though having checked these stats the disappointing bit was finding only 1 person had clicked a link, so conclusin is that stumbleupon can deliver numbers it is of a very low quality.
Promotion is by far the hardest of the blogging skills.
It requires people to go from providing good content to showing it off. It can be a difficult balancing act and one that many people struggle with.
I’m curious as to how folks feel about plugging your own blog posts. Is it considered shameless? Is it better to just hope that others find your post and tweet about it?
Thoughts?
Sean
@seanrnicholson
http://www.intranetexperience.com
Hi Darren,
Thanks for the tips
I have changed my blog appearance
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http://www.cadumps.blogspot.com
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@Sean R Nicholson: Promoting is all part of the game, these days. Personally, I wouldn’t go as far as putting a link in every reply to every post on every forum (for example), but promoting where appropriate and having the URL in your signature is acceptable and not too “in your face”, IMHO.
Twitter worked really well for the post (in this case the list post from yesterday); it was even RT’ed by a few people.