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Starting a new blog is a lot of fun, but getting people to
actually visit the site can be very challenging and
frustrating. There are literally millions of blogs out
there, with more coming each day. With so many options it's
hard to make yours stand out from the crowd. Great content is essential to any long-term blogging plan if you want to be successful, but as a new blogger, if no one is seeing your content it really doesn't matter how good it is. At first you will have to get some eyes on your content, then hopefully people will take notice, keep coming back, and spread the word to others. Want to get that blog off the ground quickly? We'll look at 7 things you can do to start promoting that blog right away. These are promotional methods that have worked for many bloggers, and they are capable of taking a blog from nowhere to success. 1. Use Social Media Social media websites bring tons of traffic potential. Best of all, they are free to use and even new blogs have a chance to get some love from social media. For these reasons it is a must-use for new bloggers. In order to have success in terms of getting traffic from social media sites, you will need to be an active user yourself so that you can understand how social media works, network with other users, and start to understand what types of content the users react to. At this point you will want to create content with this audience in mind and try to get some help from your friends with voting for the content and promoting it. 2. Social Networking Site Profiles If you're already a user of networking sites like Facebook and MySpace you should add a link on your profiles to your new blog. This will not send a ton of traffic, but it will help to start getting the blog moving forward, and it will start your link building efforts. While this may not have huge results, it will only take a few minutes and will be worth your time. 3. Twitter Twitter is the hottest online trend right now, and it provides an incredible opportunity for marketers and bloggers. Use Twitter on a regular basis to build up a list of followers, then you can tweet links to your blog and posts. Be an active Twitter user, build up a list of followers, and you can promote your own blog posts and see immediate results in terms of visitors and re-tweets from other users. For those who already have an established Twitter account with some followers, this is an excellent opportunity. 4. Pay-Per-Click Advertising If you are willing and able to invest a little bit of money into the blog, adverting can provide a good return. Banner ads are a popular online option and they can be great for increasing your exposure and bringing new visitors. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads are another useful option. With PPC you can bid on certain search phrases and your ad will appear when people search for these words. You will only pay if someone clicks on your ad and comes to your site. 5. Participate in Blog Carnivals Blog carnivals are really nothing more than a collection of posts on a specific topic. A blog will host the carnival and other bloggers can submit links to their own posts on the subject. You won't get big traffic from this method, but you will easily start to build some links. You can find carnivals to submit to at www.blogcarnival.com. 6. Guest Posts on Other Blogs Possibly the best way to promote your new blog is to write posts at other blogs that have a similar audience. That way you can showcase your knowledge and expertise to targeted readers, and you will get a brief author bio that includes a link to your blog. You may get some visitors that click through from your guest posts, but not that many. Those that do will be highly qualified visitors. Writing for others is also a good way to build some connections with influential bloggers. 7. Link Exchanges Because links have such a significant impact on search engine rankings, link exchanges are very common. Getting some link partners (maybe 5 -10) in your niche can help to start to build the credibility of your new blog. You will start to get some inbound links to your site, which can help to enhance your credibility with the search engines. Steven Snell runs a blog about social media and blogging, which also includes a list of social media sites. |