How You Should Market Your Blog
There are many ways that you can gain readers and visitors and I like to think that over the time that I’ve blogged, I have come across some great ways to get traffic when you need it. This isn’t about link bait posts or anything of that sort but other ways that you can market your blog to help gain readers and visitors.
1) Market Yourself In The Blogosphere - One of the best methods that works for me is when I go around the blogosphere and check out other blogs and leave comments. This helps me in getting out there and helps people recognize who I am. Be careful though, the type of comment you leave is a first impression as it indicates what someone can expect when they visit your blog.
2) Writing On Universal Topics – If you have a MMO blog there are ways that you can gain extra traffic by going a little outside the box. For example, if you talk about a particular ad network that blogs of other niches can use or if you talk about certain video blogging techniques that other bloggers can use, then you’re writing on a universal topic. A topic that is not confined to your particular niche will help you reach a larger audience specially through search engine results.
3) Responding To Advertiser Emails - A lot of times I get emails from individuals asking me to check out their website or try out their product and by checking out their website and leaving a comment or by trying out a product you can gain a new audience. The advertiser may link back to you or mention you in one of his posts and it can help you gain more readers. This is different from commenting on other blogs because it involves being contacted by an advertiser or a new venture blogger first.
4) If You May, Offer Your Help – If youre the giving type then offering your help to bloggers and helping them succeed can play to your advantage. Its not that you have an ulterior motive but its an added benefit of being helpful and friendly. Most of the times when I help a blogger they mention me, become a committed reader and link back to me. This helps me maintain a relationship with the blogger as well as have them help in improving my traffic from time to time.
5) Interviews, Sponsoring, etc – I recently did an interview with Market Leverage and I have even sponsored a contest recently but doing things such as interviews and sponsoring contests can help raise your awareness in the blogosphere. Most interested individuals will decide to check out your blog if the contest you are sponsoring includes a great prize or you come off as natural and approachable in an interview. It can definitely boost your traffic.
I would like to know what are some other unconventional ways that you use to gain traffic. Its common to see things such as hosting contests, link bait posts or anything of that sort. What are some of the things you do that seem to work for you?
Nice tips… Actually there are ton but what you specified here are the topmost strategies. If I would add another one, then its Pay Per Click. I can say most of my readership came there on my first month
PPC does help quite a bit, I just figured I would focus on the free methods of marketing your blog however PPC is a really good one.
Thanks for the wonderful info Nabil.
Its really useful for me since i am struggling to pace up my new blog.
Thanks , I would also add guest posts on blogs
I like all of those, I mostly use commenting/networking but all of them are great. I like the idea of universal posts as well!
I’ve never done a contest, but interviews are also great sources. I’m not sure how I feel about guest posts just yet, I know how I treat them on my regular blogs I read, I usually skim over them and wait for the regular writer to return lol.
Yeah, sometimes guest posts do help depending on what blog you write a guest post for but universal posts, as you mentioned, have really worked for me.
guest posts, offline advertising, and less-competitive advertising….I don’t necessarily use these, but they are good ways to get traffic and I have gotten some decent traffic to some of my radio posts via Google simply because there isn’t as much competition there.
Its simple. Promote yourself, promote your blog.
i am thinking of starting an unique contest on my blog, a contest which nobody has seen ever on web.
Responding to advertisers, that is a new one on me. Interesting tactic I suppose. Are you ever worried that they will continue to spam you or is just some bogus email trying to send you a virus or something?
I guess the more you know about technology the less you are worried about this stuff, huh?
yeah i think helping other bloggers, especially the newer ones without asking for anything in return will have some long term benefits. because if and when they start growing, chances are that you can benefit from some of that growth too.