Blogging is critical to establish brand awareness, increase conversions, and grow business online. However, generating traffic to a blog requires effort. You must promote your blog to expand your audience reach and drive traffic to your blog.

I often hear bloggers needing help attracting traffic, essential to making the most of their online business. You may have the most valuable and creative content, but it would only help you achieve business goals if your blog gets consistent traffic flow. Therefore, promoting a blog is critical for the success of your content marketing strategy.

This post will discuss 14 proven blog promotion strategies that can help reach your target audience and increase traffic to your blog.

Strategies to Promote Your Blog

1. Send Newsletters

Sending newsletter subscribers is a great way to promote your blog. Most online visitors will only return to your blog if you keep reminding them how your content can benefit them. Email marketing is a low-cost strategy for targeting a large number of audiences across the globe. It also enables businesses to improve their marketing campaigns and create content according to the readers’ needs.

Another benefit of email marketing is sending targeted campaigns. You can segment the list of subscribers and send only relevant news, announcements, and offers based on subscribers’ interests.

However, for effective blog promotion, building email lists, improving email open rates, and using the correct email automation tools are critical.

Ways to Build Email Lists

The crucial part of email marketing is collecting email addresses or increasing the number of subscribers. Ideally, you should have a subscription form on each blog post. You can also make use of pop-ups asking for a subscription.

Remember to include incentives for subscriptions, such as offering free resources, free trials, or discount coupons. You can also ask for email addresses when readers leave a comment on your post. Additionally, assure them you will keep their email address private from everyone.

Improve Email Open Rates

You can only succeed in promoting a blog through email marketing if subscribers are opening your emails. Therefore, it is essential to improve email open rates using the following tactics:

• Use catchy and short subject lines. One way to craft catchy subject lines is to use words that perform, such as “new,” “upgrade,” “celebrate,” and “available.”

• Use the recipient’s first name.

• Resend emails that went unopened.
• Use a human sender name.
• Send campaigns at the right time. You can learn about the best timing by sending emails at different times and days and measuring their performance.
• Craft mobile-friendly emails using readable fonts, optimizing images, keeping content concise, and avoiding excessive links.

Email Automation Tools

I recommend using a tool to create, send, analyze, and optimize your email campaigns for successful email marketing. Some popular tools leading bloggers use are Getresponse, Aweber, Mailigen, ConvertKit, Pabbly, ActiveCampaign, and Brevo(formerly Sendinblue).

Email marketing tools automate your marketing campaigns and give you the following major benefits:

• Enable list segmentation to send only relevant campaigns to the subscribers.
• Allow sending personalized emails.
• Help improve marketing strategy by providing analytics to measure the performance of email campaigns.

2. Build Backlinks

Building backlinks is another proven way to promote a blog, but it takes time to implement. Backlink building refers to approaching other websites to include links to your blog on their pages.

Backlinks help in promoting a blog in two significant ways:

• They direct traffic to your blog from their site.
• They help you rank higher in SERPs by significantly impacting your domain authority. Remember, Google’s ranking algorithm considers the quality and quantity of backlinks when determining how to rank a website or blog.

There are several link building strategies you can use to build backlinks, a few of which are:

Build Broken Links

One practical and comparatively easy technique to earn backlinks is to identify your competitors’ broken links and replace them with your content. I recommend using SEMrush as it allows tracking your competitors’ backlinks and provides a list of pages that refer to those links. It also helps to create customized emails to web admins, offering them substitute links.

Link Gap Analysis

It is yet another technique that requires you to track and analyze your competitors’ backlinks. If a website links to multiple competitors, it will likely link to your page, too. Again, you can use SEMrush to track your competitors’ backlinks, but for those looking for a low-cost alternative, Linkody can be a good option. Linkody tracks and analyzes competitors’ backlinks and notifies whenever your competitor gains a new link.

Testimonials and Reviews

This technique can get you backlinks but is less popular than other techniques. You can write honest reviews or testimonials about a product, service, brand, or business to tempt them to share your content on their website.

Enable Trackbacks

If you are using WordPress for your blog, then for every post, you will get an option to enable comments and trackback. Allowing trackback sends an automatic notification to the website you have linked to in your blog post. Because of this, your link may get featured in their comments section if approved.

3. Write Guest Posts on Other Blogs

Your target audience is already present online, yet they must learn about your presence. One of the most effective ways to connect with those audiences and promote a blog is to post on similar blogs as a guest.

There are blogs in your niche with an already established audience, and posting on those blogs will make your presence felt. Let your target audience know you have the desired knowledge they can gain from you. As a result, some readers will divert to your blog, increasing the blog traffic.

Frequent guest postings on multiple blogs will also increase your authority as a writer. You will become known to people and other bloggers, which is critical to promoting a blog.

First, list blogs in your niche with high-quality content to start guest blogging. Conduct thorough research and ensure the shortlisted blogs rank higher in search results. Remember, your goal is to look for places where your target audience is already present.

Once you have identified the blogs with great content, you can start reaching out to their owners, offering them to write a guest post for their blog. If you cannot find the site owner’s email address, you can use Hunter.io. It is a tool used to find and verify professional email addresses.

However, you must be patient and consistent when contacting different blog owners. You may get frustrated and disappointed, facing rejections at the start. But, as soon as your first guest post is accepted, it will become easier to post on other blogs.

4. Reach Out to Influencers

Social media influencers or influential bloggers have an enormous fan following, making them a significant source for promoting a blog. Reaching out to influencers is yet another proven way to get substantial exposure.

However, consider number of followers and engagement rates when choosing the right influencers to promote your blog. The number of followers shows popularity, while the engagement rate identifies how well their content performs.

Although you can find the influencers using Google search, as shown below, I prefer using a tool like NinjaOutreach and BuzzSumo.

For example, using BuzzSumo, you can find influencers on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, or TikTok using a focus topic.

5. Interview Industry Experts or Influencers

Another effective way to get industry experts or influencers to promote your blog is by interviewing them. However, you can only succeed in getting hold of them if your approach is unique and tempting.

For example, do thorough research and compile a list of questions you would like them to answer. Remember, you must exclude questions they have already answered in previous interviews. Make your questions interesting and valuable.

Similarly, providing them with alternate ways of participating in the interview is equally important. Leave it up to them to decide if they will answer your questions in person, over video call, or in written form.

Please share the link with the interviewee after publishing the interview on your blog or citing their answers in your content. The interviewee will likely share the link with their followers, giving exposure to your blog.

6. Collaborate with Other Blogs

Collaborating with other blogs is beneficial for several reasons, the most significant of which are:

· You can create precious, linkable content. For example, you can collaborate for industry studies, research, or infographics.

· You get an opportunity to learn from others.

· You get to tap into their audience, expanding your reach.

· Sharing resources helps you save money and expedite the content creation process.

 7. Repurpose Your Content

Repurposing content can multiply your blog’s traffic. Let me explain how.

The more content you create, the higher the number of blog posts ranking in search results, promoting your blog. Similarly, repurposing content into different formats also increases your organic traffic. For example, repurpose your best-performing blog posts into YouTube videos or podcasts.

Repurposing content into different formats ensures you are catering to a diverse audience. Those who prefer videos over text can watch your YouTube videos. Meanwhile, those who prefer text can visit your blog.

Either way, you are establishing your authority and promoting your blog. However, remember to include a link to your blog in your videos, podcasts, presentations, infographics, etc.

8. Allow Bloggers to Write Guest Posts for Your Blog

Like guest posting on other blogs is beneficial for blog promotion, inviting others to write guest posts for your blog can significantly increase traffic. Guest bloggers share their posts with their audience, bringing traffic to your blog.

However, be mindful of what brings value to your readers. You should not compromise the quality of your blog by accepting every content without any selection criteria. Mention the guidelines and accept only those posts that add value to your blog.  

9. Securing a Publication Column

Online publications are another great way to reach out to your target audience. Like guest posting, you need to search for relevant online publications that have established an audience in your niche.

Remember, securing a publication column requires time and effort. Well-established online publications are interested in well-established writers, and as a starter, you must focus on smaller niche-focused publications. You must be patient and give yourself time to improve your writing through practice.

As a blogger, you will write for multiple magazines and publications, of which few will pay. Whether you get paid, writing for magazines will increase your loyal followers. First, ensure the online publication has at least a few hundred thousand monthly readers and their content gets sufficient social engagement, such as shares and comments.

After you have gained credibility by writing for smaller niche-focused publications, you will be better positioned to secure a column in mainstream online publications. Since mainstream publications have millions of readers, writing for them will promote your blog.

10. Using Social Media Strategically

There are several social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, Google+, Instagram, and Snapchat, that you can use to promote your blog. However, you should focus on only two or three platforms to maximize your blog promotion.

Promoting your content on every platform will exhaust you. Therefore, experiment to figure out what platform works best for you.

Different social media platforms are suitable for varying niches and have different audiences. Below is what each platform is best suited for:

Facebook: Selling services and products, tutorials.

Instagram: Sharing photos, quotes, and stories.

Twitter: Sharing news, blog posts, and articles.

LinkedIn: Promoting freelance services, growing professional network, and sharing career news.

Pinterest: Sharing visual content like infographics.

Google+: Blog posts that aim to rank higher in search results.

Reddit: Sharing knowledge about your niche to make followers.

Remember to add social media sharing buttons on your blog posts so readers can share them. Novashare is a widely used tool that enables users to include social buttons on their WordPress websites.

11. Taking Part in Groups and Discussion Forums

The ideal places to find your target audience include online forums, groups, and communities. People ask questions there, looking for expert knowledge. By responding to their questions and participating in discussions, you will gain an audience for your blog.

According to the most successful bloggers, participating in online forums like Quora and Reddit, benefits you more than social media platforms regarding blog promotion.

Active participation in online groups and discussion forums will not only promote your blog, but you will also learn from other bloggers. You might come across some strategies that will help you in future blogs. Also, you will bond with other experts and writers, helping you in your journey.

12. Comment on Other Blogs 

It is another practical way to promote your blog. Many bloggers already have hundreds of thousands of monthly readers. Comment on their blog posts to share valuable information, give suggestions, or appreciate their work.

Identify the famous bloggers in your niche and make a habit of commenting on their blog posts. This way, you will get noticed by the blogger and the community members. Once people know you, you can get traffic to your blog.

13. Get Featured in Round-ups

Most new bloggers are unaware that several blogs carry weekly or monthly round-ups of articles or blog posts. It is an opportunity to get featured in any of these weekly or monthly round-ups, as you will get noticed by a broad audience base.

Identify the famous bloggers in your niche carrying out round-ups and email them, asking them to include your blog post in their upcoming round-ups.

14. Content Syndication

Content syndication is publishing an article or post on more than one website. For example, you can republish your blog posts on other websites or networks that accept content syndication. Carry out a little research and look for networks or blogs that republish content while giving credit back to you.

Conclusion

Increasing traffic to your blog is a complex task. It requires time, energy, and devotion. However, you must promote your blog to succeed in the long run. Although there are countless strategies to promote your blog, you can see a significant jump in traffic using the tactics mentioned above.