The 7 Steps of New Blog Promotion

You’ve done your homework, attended Content Camp religiously, and written some great blog posts. It’s now time to hit “Publish” and send your awesome thoughts out into the world wide web.  But don’t forget the most important part of starting your blog – Getting readers!

The 7 steps of new blog promotion:

1) Friends, Family & Industry – Oh My!

Do not be afraid to email everyone you know and love and ask them to read, share and comment on your blog. In fact, the more shameless the better. (My best friend threatened me with string cheese if I didn’t promote her blog. She now has 9,000 monthly visitors). Also, put together a list of industry contacts and customer that you think would appreciate the content. Send them an “exclusive” invite asking for their comments and asking them to share the blog too!

2) Don’t be a wallflower at the party

Find other great industry blogs and publications that have comments open on their stories. If you can, leave a thoughtful comment and include a link to your blog in your contact information. This will show your thought leadership and draw in readers that have an interest in your industry. Set Google Alerts for industry news stories so that you can comment on those too!

3) Press release

If you have some available budget, consider doing a press release with PR NewsWire or PRWeb. You can specify certain aspects of the release – just be sure that you weigh the costs against the options you pick.

4) Open your blog to guests

Find and ask people in your industry or complimentary industries (e.g., you do window installation and you have a friend who does drapery design), if they would be a guest blogger. Not only do you get a free blog post (win!) but they will most likely link to the post from their site and share it with their network of readers too!


5) Don’t let that email signature go to waste

Have every employee add a Check out our blog! Blog.URL.com link in the signature of their email. If it turned Hotmail into the email provider with the most members, it can work for you!


6) Teach others in your neighborhood

Contact your local Chamber of Commerce or industry guild. See if you can be a speaker at an upcoming event. The best part about that is your information (including your blog) will be included on all the marketing materials and you can also throw it out during your talk as well. (And even if people at the talk are not all in your industry, there is a great chance they know someone who is!)

7) Bartering is so 2011!

Is there a newsletter, industry publication or email group that has the audience you’re trying to reach? Contact the publication and see if you can do a trade! Placement in the newsletter in exchange for your product or service. It never hurts to ask, since the worst you can hear is “no”!

Key Takeway: You’ve done the right thing by rallying the troops and launching a blog. Make sure you take some easy steps to get traction in readership.

Image used with permission: Altemark