11 Ways To Promote Your Blog

I’ve seen a lot of bloggers jump into the blogosphere and there seems to be a certain cycle of life they follow.

First, they start out timidly, not sure of what they’re doing. They make their first post then leave their first comment.

Second, they begin leaving more comments and when a few people finally start visiting their blog they begin to get a full taste of the wonders of blogging and they love it.

Third, they become addicted. They spend hours online, visiting and commenting until they reach the point of “How do I get more?” This can be more visitors, more money, more success, or more of whatever makes them happy, but they start to look at ways to increase their traffic and get more people to show up on their doorstep.

Building traffic really isn’t a secret, here are 11 very solid ways of accomplishing this goal.

Commenting

If you are commenting on other blogs you will most likely, eventually catch the attention of that blogger and other visitors to the site. There are some exceptions— momblogs in general are more social than other niches. I’ve only met a very small handful of food bloggers or craft bloggers that ever noticed any of their comments let alone responded to them (they tend to be a rather solitary lot).

But if you leave thoughtful comments—which means those that are more than just “Great Post!” or those designed to irritate—you’re likely to get some attention. Though if you leave comments designed to irritate you’ll probably get some attention (the bad kind).

I would suggest making sure you have an avatar (or a tiny photo) to go with your profile so that when you leave comments there is a picture for people to remember you by. It helps, too, if you use a real name rather than trying to use keywords because it’s hard enough to remember names when you meet someone face to face let alone through a comment. Give them something to remember you by, so they get the full taste of how wonderful you are.

Consider registering a profile in several blogging platforms besides the platform you’re using so when you comment on blogs from the other platforms your profile picture will show up with your comments.

Most blogs use Gravatar.com to show a commentators avatar.  Once you upload your photo, simply making a comment with your registered email address will display that photo with your comment.

Carnivals

After commenting the next most effective way to promote your blog would be participating in blog carnivals. What are blog carnivals? They’re events where blogs can submit posts on a particular theme. Carnivals can be hosted at a certain site repeatedly or they can be hosted by guest sites on a rotating basis, it just depends on how the carnival owner decides to run things.

Joining in carnivals builds a little visibility and it gets some valuable links from other sites—both good things. The best way to find the carnivals is to go to www.blogcarnival.com where every carnival you’d ever want is listed by category. Don’t get stuck in one category but only submit posts that really apply and then when the carnival is posted it’s polite to mention the hosting URL with a nice little link.

Contests and Giveaways

Holding contests and giveaways on your blog is a great way to get some attention. Everyone likes to win free stuff and giving things away is a great way to get people to your blog.

Alternately a contest can be a great promotional tool. Since I’ve started this blog I’ve held many contests which have helped to build my traffic. Participants get a link from me when I post the entries, I get a link from the participants when they post their entries on their blogs, everyone wins something. It’s just a great thing for everyone involved and it’s promoted my blog beyond my niche in ways I couldn’t have done on my own.

Business Cards

If you want to spread the word about your blog get some business cards printed up and ready to pass out when you meet people in real life. These don’t have to be expensive designer cards, there are sites such as VistaPrint that will print up free cards with their own promo included on the back of the cards, but get a simple card with your name and URL and blog title on it and don’t be afraid to tell people about your blog and pass them a card when they ask where they can find it.

Blog Conferences

If you can afford to travel then a blog conference is not only a great place to meet other bloggers but it’s a good way to promote your site and make some fun connections—and you never know where connections can lead you.

IzeaFest, Affiliate Summit, and Blogher are all good places to converge, each with their own unique slants and benefits for bloggers. Blog World Expo is for all bloggers and attracts the biggest names in blogging each October. Check out their websites and get to know what they specialize in and consider attending.

Guest Posting

This can be done two ways—either by inviting other bloggers to post on your blog or by pitching ideas to other bloggers to see if they’ll let you take a turn at their blog. Either way it’s a good way to meet a new group of people through the other blog’s readers.

One variation on this theme is to do a blog swap with another blogger. You take a turn at their blog while they take a turn at yours which conserves your writing efforts while still accomplishing the goal. You might both write on the same topic or do a “point/counterpoint” debate on an issue you both find pertinent but whatever you do don’t just look at bloggers who are bigger than you are, it’s more important to find people who have similar audiences and who have quality sites regardless of their traffic.

Email Signatures

Everyone has email accounts so why not put those accounts to work for your blog? Include your blog’s URL in your email signature—and don’t forget email accounts not associated with your blog. Let people whom you correspond with know about your blog and how to find it, it’s simple, it’s painless and it gets your site out there just a little bit more.

Local Media

This is helpful if you have a smaller community offline. Living in New York City or Seattle or Houston is going to make it difficult to gain the attention of your local radio station or paper but if you can contact them with an idea for a piece they could use—say a segment for their morning programming that gives ideas for cutting household costs, making money online, or organizing life with children—then they might give you a chance. If you have a unique opportunity give your local paper a call and see if they’re interested in free coverage of the event.

Use the unique opportunities blogging presents to help the offline media and you can create some valuable connections.

Newsletters

Use a service such as Aweber to create a free newsletter for your site, so that you can connect with your readers weekly or monthly outside of your blog. Use it to promote your blogging by listing upcoming posts or events, guest bloggers or exciting changes. Problogger has a variety of articles about newsletters and how to create them that I’d recommend if this is something in which you’re interested.

Write an eBook

Not only can writing a book be a good exercise for your writing skills it can be a great way to promote your blog as well as your career as a writer. You can sell and ebook through a site such as Amazon or you can give it away for free but regardless of whether you make money, it will be something to show your visitors that you’re a serious writer, that you have the ability to produce a book and (if it does well) that you can produce something that is successful and useful.

Good Content

The number one way to build traffic is to produce the best content you can conjure up. Consistent, quality content is what will bring people back to your blog and is what will get them to email your posts to their friends and tell others about this great new blog they’ve discovered. Have good content and participate in the community and you’re guaranteed to at least have a decent flow of visitors who will appreciate what you have to say.

In what other ways do you promote your blog?