29 Effective Ways to Promote a Blog And Get Traffic

If you build a blog, will they come?

Not unless you promote a blog… Duh! 

Sure, you might get some organic traffic. But if you really want to produce viral content, you’re going to have to toot your own horn.

In this article, we’ll look at 29 ways that you can promote your blog.

1. Use Social Share Buttons To Promote a Blog

One of the best ways to promote your blog is to let other people promote it for you. How can you do that? With social share buttons. You’ve probably seen them when surfing around cyberspace. They’re little buttons labeled with the logo of social media sites. Visitors click on them to share content with their friends and followers on social channels. If you’re using WordPress, there are plenty of plugins you can snag to easily add social share buttons to your blog posts. If you’re not using WordPress, you still have options. Although you might need to enlist the aid of a developer to install some of that code. Once you’ve added the social share buttons, you make it incredibly easy for people to share your content on social media. All they have to do is click one of the icons. Along these lines, you should also clean up your Open Graph data. If you’re unfamiliar with Open Graph data, it’s the data that enables your content to look great when it’s shared on social media. Once again, WordPress has a plugin that will help you out. It’s called Yoast. If you’re not using WordPress, you should get a developer to clean up your Open Graph code. It’s pretty complicated stuff.

2. Share It On Your Own Social Media Channels To Promote a Blog

You don’t have to wait for other people to share your content on social media. You can share it yourself. If you’re using one or more social media channels to promote your business, be sure to post links to your latest content on a regular basis. That’s how your followers will see your articles. If they like what they read, they might just share the content with their friends.

3. Run Social Media Ads To Promote a Blog

If you’ve got the budget for it, you should promote your content with paid ads on social media. The trick with this strategy is to only promote content that people will really like. That will minimize your overall cost-per-click (CPC) costs. Remember: social sites let you pick your audience very carefully. Be sure to match the content you’re promoting with the people you want to see it. That will also help keep your costs low.

4. Run Native Ads To Promote a Blog

If you’ve got some really interesting content, you should promote it with native ads. In case you’re unfamiliar with native advertising, it’s an ad format that generally looks like editorial content on a website. Although it’s usually labeled with “Sponsored” (or words to that effect), it appears just like any other headline on the website.

The best way to use native ads is with content that you think has the potential to go viral. If you check out the ads that are currently running on some of your favorite websites, you’ll find that they usually have clickbait headlines. Follow those examples. Native ads aren’t usually cheap, though. So make sure you have the budget for them before you jump in. The two best platforms for native ads are Outbrain and Taboola.

5. Put Your Blog Link in Your Forum Signature

You might be using various online forums to promote your brand. You should also promote your blog in your signature. Fortunately, many forums give you the opportunity to create a custom signature. It will include your name and some other info and appear at the end of your posts. Include a link to your blog in that signature. If the forum allows you to make it clickable, so much the better.

6. Share Your Content on Relevant Forums To Promote a Blog

Although some forums won’t allow you to promote your blog posts on their platforms, there are other forums that are specifically designed to allow people to share content. Take a look, for example, at N4G. That site literally crowdsources aggregated content relevant to the gaming community. If you’re running a gaming website, you should share your latest articles on N4G. There’s a catch, though. Other people on the site have to “approve” your content. That’s why you need to make sure that what you share is something that gamers will really enjoy. Once it’s approved, the whole world can see it. If people appreciate your content, they’ll upvote it. Articles with the most upvotes appear on the front page. That’s going to do wonders for your brand. Usually, sites like N4G require you to practice karma. You’ll need to approve the articles submitted by other people before you can submit your own. One final note: even if people don’t approve your article on N4G, you still get a dofollow link from the site. That will help your SEO. Find the equivalent of N4G for your niche. Then, start sharing.

7.  Join a Social Sharing Group To Promote a Blog

Another great way to promote your blog is with a social sharing group. If you’re unfamiliar with social sharing groups, they’re comprised of people who promise to scratch your back if you scratch theirs. You share their articles on your social media accounts and they’ll return the favor. Just make sure that the articles you share are relevant to people in your target market. Otherwise, you could irritate some of your followers. If you’re looking for a social sharing group, the best place to start is Triberr.

8. Post Content on Slideshare To Promote a Blog

If you’ve got some great, bullet-point content that you’ve just posted on your blog, turn it into a slideshow and post it on Slideshare. Make sure you link to your original article in the description. That should drive some more traffic to your site. You can also include a link in the slideshow itself.

9. Guest Post To Promote a Blog

Webmasters usually approach guest posting as an SEO opportunity. However, you can also use it to promote your blog. Just make sure that you include a relevant link to your content in the guest post. Also, put a link to your blog in the “About the Author” section at the bottom. That typically looks something like this: “John Smith is a digital marketing expert who runs the digitalexperts.com blog.”

10. Submit Your Content to RSS Directories

Real Simple Syndication (RSS) is a true blessing to bloggers. It gives you the opportunity to promote your content throughout cyberspace. Fortunately, there are plenty of RSS directories to choose from. There’s no reason you can’t use them all, though.

11. Do Some Old-Fashioned Keyword Research

Quite a bit of digital marketing begins with keyword research. Promoting your blog is no exception. Grab a tool like SEMRush and find keywords related to your niche. Ideally, you’re looking for keywords with a high volume and low competition. Those are the easiest to target.

Then, create content around each of those keywords. Be sure to include the keyword in the title, opening paragraph, and throughout the article itself. Avoid keyword stuffing, though. Google will penalize you if it looks like you’re trying to force a keyword into your content in too many places. Just make sure the use of the keyword looks natural throughout the article.

12. Promote a Blog: Target Long Tail Keywords

Long tail keywords consist of several words. For example, “what is the easiest method of sharpening a pencil” is a long tail keyword. One of the best ways to get the jump on your competitors is by targeting long tail keywords that they’re ignoring. That will bring some highly targeted traffic to your site and let people know about your blog.

13. Tag Influencers To Promote a Blog

A “longshot” way to promote your blog is to tag influencers when you link to content on social media. For example, if you’re running a blog about digital marketing, you should gather a list of influencers in your space. Then, when you link to your own content on social media, tag one of those influencers who you think might appreciate what you’ve wrote. If the influencer likes what he or she sees, you might get a share or retweet. That will give your blog more publicity.

14. Turn Your Article Into a YouTube Video

If you’ve got some really great content that you’ve just published, consider turning it into a YouTube video and linking to your blog from the YouTube description. The tricky part for most people with this strategy is producing the video. That can be a time-consuming process involving a pretty steep learning curve. Once you’ve mastered the tactic, though, it will be easy to make videos for new content. There are a few ways you can convert an article into video. One of the easiest is with an explainer video. You’ve probably seen explainer videos. They’re usually in cartoon format and they’re often used for marketing purposes. Unfortunately, explainer videos can be expensive. You can check out the prices at sites like Video Explainers and Yum Yum Videos. If you don’t want to go that route, consider making a “talking head” video. That’s where you just point a camera at yourself and explain your article in a conversational tone. A talking head video is one of the cheapest, least time-consuming options. Finally, consider turning your article into a video slideshow. Just grab an After Effects template (obviously, you’ll need After Effects) and use stock photos/videos alongside bullet points to explain your article. If you do make a video slideshow, you should include some music in the background.

15. Turn Your Article Into An Infographic 

Folks in business love infographics. That’s because they make it easy to mentally digest a lot of info in a short period of time. If you’ve got some great content that’s filled with facts and figures, consider turning it into an infographic. Unless you have a lot of graphic arts experience, you should probably avoid trying to make the infographic yourself. Fortunately, infographic creation sites like Canva and Piktochart exist. When you create the infographic, make sure you prominently promote your blog within it. That way, people will know where the data came from. They also might visit your blog to see what other cool content you have online.

16. Create a Press Release To Promote a Blog

A press release might seem like “old school” marketing, but it’s still a great way to drive traffic to your site. Once again, you should avoid trying to write a press release yourself. Unless you’ve got some experience with writing (and journalism in particular), you might end up producing something that doesn’t properly elevate your brand. Fortunately, there are plenty of press release distribution services that you can use. Be prepared to pay for the best services, though.

17. Host a Contest To Promote a Blog

Contests are a great way to find new followers, generate engagement, and attract more people to your blog. Of course, if you do decide to run a contest, you’ll need a prize. That’s going to cost some money. You might be able to save some bucks on that, though, if your prize is one of your own products. Even better: when you offer one of your products as a prize, you’re appealing to people in your target market. There are plenty of different contest types you can run to get the word out about your brand.

18. Run AdWords and Bing Ads To Promote a Blog

If you’ve got some content that you think is really great for a competitive keyword, you might want to bite the bullet and just run an AdWords or Bing ad to get that content to the very top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). You’ll spend some money but it’s the cost of doing business. If you attract people in your target market who will ultimately become paying customers, you could see a positive return on investment (ROI).

19. Advertise Your Blog to Your Email List

Hopefully, you have an email distribution list. If not, you should start building one. Then, promote your latest and greatest content to the people on that list about once a week. If your list consists of people who really want to see what you’ve written, consider doing it every day. Be sure to use a clickbait subject line. That will get people to open your email. Then, promote the best articles you’ve recently published. Check your analytics so that you send emails at the best times for opens and click-throughs.

20. Promote Your Content On Reddit Promote a Blog

Whatever your niche, there’s probably a Reddit community (called a “Subreddit”) for it. Get on that community and use it to promote your content. Be careful here, though. If all you do is use Reddit to post links to your site, you will certainly get shadowbanned. That’s when you’re effectively banned from the site but it doesn’t look like you’re banned. A good rule of thumb is to post relevant content from other websites 10 times for every 1 time you post content to your own site. Also, participate in the community. Upvote other great articles and add comments of your own. In other words, contribute value instead of just spamming your own blog.

21. Answer Questions on Quora

When you answer questions on Quora, you get a two-fer. You demonstrate that you’re knowledgeable in your domain and you get a backlink to your blog. Include a backlink in your Quora signature. In some cases, the answer to the other person’s question might be in one of your blog posts. If so, summarize the post and include a link. Also, make sure you answer questions relevant to your niche. That’s how you’ll appeal to the correct audience.

22. Share Stuff More Than Once

This is a clever trick that not enough bloggers are using: share your newest content more than once on Twitter. Why? Because it’s not likely that all your followers will see your share the first time you post it. They’re not all online at the same time. So consider sharing your best content on two separate occasions, twelve hours apart. That way, you can maximize your impressions. You can try sharing content multiple times on other social media channels, but that’s usually not as effective and often gets interpreted as spam.

23. Use Hashtags To Promote a Blog

Here’s a great way to reach people who aren’t necessarily following you on social media: tweet out a link to one of your articles with a relevant hashtag. That helps because some people literally follow a hashtag like they follow accounts. That means you could give your content broader exposure. Just make sure the hashtag is appropriate for the content. Otherwise, you’ll get branded a spammer.

24. Pin Your Best Content to Your Profile

You probably know by now that Twitter gives you the ability to pin a tweet to your profile. When you do that, the tweet stays at the very top of your timeline so people see it before they see anything else. So here’s what you should do: find a tweet to your blog that got an unusually large number of likes and retweets. Then, pin that tweet. Now, when people view your profile, they’ll see that tweet at the top. When they see the large number of shares, you’ll get some social proof as a bonus. Also, they’ll probably click the link to your blog and check out the article. Likewise, you can also pin your most popular content on your Facebook page.

25. Join Pinterest Groups To Promote a Blog

Head over to PinGroupie and find Pinterest boards relevant to your niche. Join those groups and post content that other members will appreciate. Note: that doesn’t mean you only post content from your blog. It means you post content from a variety of sources, one of which should be your own website. Don’t take advantage of the situation by spamming your own site. That will create some ill will.

26. Use a Web Push To Promote a Blog

One great way to alert people every time you post new content on your blog is with the aid of a web push. You’ve probably seen a web push on one or more sites you’ve visited. It’s a popup that appears and asks if you want to receive a notification when new content is published. If you click “Accept” on that popup, then an alert will appear on your browser whenever the owner of that site adds new content. Roost has a good web push solution. In fact, you can see the web push in action when you visit the site.

27. Push Notifications to Mobile Users

You can also send push notifications to mobile users. Head over to Pushbullet and get set up. Sending push notifications to a mobile audience is a great way to gain an advantage over the competition. Not too many people are doing that even as mobile is becoming a more and more popular platform with each passing year.

28. Use Sitemaps to Make It Easier for Search Engines to Index Your Content

If you want your newest content to get found quickly by search engines, you should use a sitemap. What’s a sitemap? It’s an XML file that informs search engine bots about your site. It includes links to your pages. If that sounds high-tech, don’t worry. WordPress offers plugins (such as Yoast) that will create the sitemap for you. That’s not good enough, though. You also have to submit the sitemap to the search engines. Do that in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

29. Ask for Shares

Finally, ask people to share your content. Put a call to action at a couple of points within your content. One in the middle and one at the end tends to work well. When people click the call to action, they’ll share your content on a social media site. You’ll likely find that some of the people they share your content with are in your target market. Some of those folks might become lifelong customers. And it all started with an ask.

Promote a Blog Now

There you have it: 29 different ways to promote your blog. Now that you’re armed with that knowledge, get busy boosting your brand online.