Driving traffic to your blog should be a key tactic in your digital strategy. Your blog is an anchor to your site, a space you own, even if all social networks were to shut down. The content here is owned media, that is valuable for your audience, so why not drive the awareness of its presence?
Here are five ways to expose your blog to a wide variety of readers to gain visibility beyond your own social media profiles.
Commenting on Blogs
This is an easy one, and perhaps something you already do as a blog reader yourself. Sharing your thoughts regularly on some of your favorite blogs positions you as an authority sharing ideas on another blog. The discussion that follows is key to building those online relationships, enough that those you connect with may be interested enough to see what your blog is about and follow the posts that you share.
Now this reciprocation will vary from blog to blog depending on the blog’s level of interaction, but be sure to look at the comments consistently over a period of time.
Link Love
Give credit where credit is due when you are writing your own blogs. If you’re expanding on an idea that you came across, share where you got the original idea. Providing links to businesses, other bloggers, and persons of interest are all useful and will provide you some benefits in return. It shows your awareness of the industry and others who share ideas in your space. This strengthens the digital relationship you have with those you connect with and reference, and might be similar to the blogs that you find yourself commenting on.
Social Networks
If your editorial calendar is in good shape, then sharing your content on social media typically isn’t an issue, and likely one of the easier ways to push your content out. It’s a good idea if your account is active on a daily basis, has an active following, and that you in-turn have been sharing content from others. It’s not an accepted practice to just bombard your account daily with your content, but if you know your audience, then you know your peak times for sharing. Balance your posts, incorporate your content, and if you can, put some dollars behind it and you’ll reach people you would not have reached otherwise.
Newsletters
If your brand has a strong list of newsletter subscribers, then the newsletter can be a powerful tool to remind people of the content you’re sharing. Much like social media, you can always include evergreen content you posted in the past if it’s relevant and valuable to the immediate reason for the newsletter. It’s important to offer readers multiple ways to see your content, social media being one of the options, and the support of the newsletter makes your efforts just that much stronger. How are you using your email list?
Contests/Giveaways
A sure fire way to get readers for your blog post, is to give something away. I’ve seen sites give away memberships to exclusive areas to their site, computers, software, coupons, and other merchandise. Depending on what you can offer, readers will surely come to your site if you’re providing them something they want. Sweeten the deal by making sure they interact and leave commentary on your site by making that a part of the rules. Just a word of warning – don’t base your online existence solely on contests and giveaways. You want to be able to sustain your traffic because of the quality of your work and value of your content. So give it a try!
These are by no means the only ways to gain readers for your blog, but serves as a functional primer to start with. What works for you?
At Sweb Development we build things; mobile apps, websites, social media marketing campaigns, and everything in between. We have impossibly high standards and we’re the real deal: smart, creative, and fun people. Together, we’ll produce tailor-made, cutting-edge, captivating solutions. Let us know if you need help with your blog content. We can help you diversify your ideas and repurpose your content.
Read our article about Top 10 Mobile Blogging Tools.