Why Marketing Your Blog is Crucial to Its Success
Because blogging has become more mainstream, it’s not enough anymore for businesses to simply have a blog, publish some posts, and call it a day. Blogging has become its own unique cog in the overall branding and marketing machine, forcing companies and blog owners to additionally market their blog if they want to make it successful.
Marketing your blog and promoting the great content that you are focused on writing can help not only generate more blog traffic, but also get more referrals clicks to other pages of your website, especially if you are regularly linking to them within your blog posts (where appropriate).
Social Media
Most bloggers already know about social media, but there are a shockingly large number that think adding a social sharing widget to their blog post is enough to make a splash on social media. The fact remains that your blog posts should regularly be shared with your social media channels, as soon as they are available.
If you are promoting your own blog posts, you shouldn’t expect your readers to do it for you. In addition to getting more visibility, social media can also help drive conversation and engagement about the topics that are covered in your blog content.
Syndication
In addition to social media marketing, we should also look for available three posters syndication opportunities that will help get your blog posts more views, which leads to more traffic to your website overall. Search for “blog syndication” + “industry keyword” Opportunities to get your content notice. Be sure that all syndication links back to your original post or website.
You should also consider using a site like Repost.us, which makes it easy to syndicate content from any blog, automatically (they also offer a WordPress plug-in that allows users to automatically copy of posts to share it on their own blog).
Integration
Another part of getting your blog noticed his integration with your other marketing efforts, as well as any communication that goes out to clients and colleagues. For instance all employees signature should have a link to the company’s website and blog, and any email blasts are also an opportunity to include a link to the blog or to the last few recent posts.
Other places on your website are also opportunities for marketing your blog. Add a recent blog posts widget or plug-in to the sidebar on other internal pages of your website to get more views. Also be sure to link to blog posts whenever possible (and relevant).
photo credit: Mexicanwave via photopin cc
Kelsey Jones runs her own social media and search marketing business, MoxieDot where she helps clients grow their online presence. She was voted one of the top 100 marketers of the year by Invesp in 2009 and has worked for Yelp, Run.com, and Bounty Towels. Check her out at MoxieDot and on Twitter @wonderwall7.