Setting up a blog isn’t difficult these days; just create an account with websites like WordPress or Blogspot and grab one.
Once you have a blog account you may start posting blogs every day, weekly, or monthly.
But do you think that’s the only purpose of having a blog?
Don’t you want your blog to appear in search engine listings and get huge traffic?
Don’t you want to monetize your blog?
I know the answer to all these questions will be ‘Yes‘ but if I ask you “Does your blog meet any of these objectives?” then the answer would probably be ‘NO’ (for most of the readers here).
In this blog post, I will share a few points which you could follow to do blog marketing for yourself. I have shortlisted a few valuable points which are useful for blog promotion:
1. Valuable Content
The basic objective of any blog should be to write original and informative content so that the readers can get first-hand information. The loyalty and revisits of your readers completely depend upon the quality of your content; the higher the quality of your blog post is, the more will be the number of visitors. Writing valuable content should be the first and foremost activity in every blog marketing plan.
2. Post Frequently
Along with the quality of content, the quantity also matters. Writing & posting blogs frequently will encourage your readers to visit your blog again and again. It’s not only about users, but posting blogs regularly also helps search engines to identify you as a regular blogger and the search engine crawlers will start visiting your blog frequently. Therefore there would be more chances of getting your blog posts listed in noticeable positions in search engines for specific keywords search.
3. Open Comments Gateway
For effective blog marketing, you must have an option for your visitors to write comments on your blog posts because this feature starts a 2-way conversation with your visitors. At the same time, your visitors can also express their thoughts on your blog post (if they are in the same domain). The longer the list of blog comments is, the more it will become popular among your readers. You should also make sure that you respond to those comments actively; don’t worry if they have written good or bad comments about your post, just fairly reply to them.
4. Appropriate Tagging
Whenever you publish any blog post, try to use the tagging option at its best. You must focus on the keywords that you have used in your blog post and the keywords that you would like to target for incoming traffic. For eg., if I am writing this post to share blog marketing tips, I may use tags like ‘blog’, ‘blog marketing’, ‘SEO’, ‘blog promotion’, ‘WordPress’, ‘Blogspot’, and so on.
5. Be Social
There are lots of social bookmarking websites which you can use to promote your blog posts. Maybe you can start with the best ones like Technorati, Digg, StumbleUpon & Reddit. These social bookmarking websites can send you instant traffic to your blog and can also help you to build your readers’ loyalty. Other than bookmarking websites, you can also sign up with social networking websites like FaceBook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc., and integrate your blog with these networking websites so that whenever you publish a new blog post, it will be reflected in these networking websites as well. But remember, the key to mastering social websites is to be regular and fair.
6. RSS Feeds
Your blog may also have an option for the readers to get subscribed to your blog so that whenever you publish any new blog post, the subscribers will get notified through email. You can also submit your blog’s RSS link in various directories that accept RSS links along with the description and title of your blog. This is one of the best ways of doing blog marketing.
7. Keywords Oriented Content
You must do intensive research on the keywords that are relevant to the topic and content of your blog post. If you are not sure about the list of good keywords, you may refer Google Keywords Idea tool https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool and get a huge list of relevant keywords. The biggest benefit of using keywords in your blog post is that your blog will have a higher chance of getting listed on top search results on the search of your keyword(s).
8. Guest Blogging
There are lots of blogs that allow users to write a blog as a guest and let them put a link within the blog post. This is very useful in getting a good amount of traffic from blogs that have high SERP listings and allow posting guest blogs. Do not forget to put a keyword as a link within the blog post which will help your blog to get higher positions in search engines.
9. Social Sharing Widgets
It would be a nice idea to use social sharing widgets with every blog post which will help people to share the content with their friends on various social websites like FaceBook, Twitter, etc. This widget could be at the top or bottom of your blog post so that the users don’t face any difficulty in locating these buttons.
By using the above tips for your blog marketing, you will surely get a good amount of traffic on your blog which will further help you to build the brand for your business and blog as well. If you don’t get enough time to work on your blog, you may consider hiring a blog marketing consultant for you.