How to Promote & Market Your Blog: 20 Strategies

You might be wondering how to promote your blog after you’ve hit publish on a blog post. Dedicate time each week to promoting your blog through various methods so that you can gain readers and traffic. You can share your blog posts on social media, run ads, and use push notifications in your blog promotion efforts.

1. Run Ads

You can run ads on social media and search engines in order to grow your blog’s page views. I’m a big fan of Pinterest ads in particular because all it takes is a small ad spend to gain traction on a pin. When your pin has traction, you’ll have more eyes on your blog post. Often, this increase in traffic translates to more money, subscribers, and sponsorship opportunities.

You can start running ads with a budget of around $5 per day. Once you get momentum, you can keep running the ad or you can focus your ad budget on another blog post. If you’re using Facebook, you can pay to boost a social media post that points to your blog post, or you can run an ad campaign targeting your blog in general.

An example of an ad on Pinterest. Source: Louise Henry

2. Guest Post On Other Blogs

To guest blog on another blogger’s site, you are submitting a blog post for publication on another person’s blog. Typically, these posts can’t publish elsewhere because that can be bad for search engine visibility. The vast majority of bloggers who accept submissions will allow you to link back to your blog, which can increase visibility.

Some bloggers have a standard procedure for submitting guest posts, however, many don’t. You will need to send the blogger a pitch via email or a contact form. In this pitch, include some blog post ideas with some of your previous work. Don’t be afraid to follow up, because bloggers receive pitches every single day.

When determining which blogs to pitch, pay attention to its domain authority (DA). You can find the DA by using Ahrefs.com. The higher the DA, the more established the blog is. Try to target high DA blogs for maximum exposure—anything above 30 is pretty good.

An example of a guest post on a blog. Source: idyllicpursuit.com

3. Accept Guest Submissions On Your Blog

You might be hesitant to allow another blogger, particularly your competition, to write a guest post on your blog. That’s a completely rational thought, but I’d like to argue the case for allowing your competitors to write a post on your blog:

• The guest blogger wants the post to do well, so they’ll promote it to their audience.
• Search engines like when you can link to a high DA website.
• It allows you to expand the expertise and scope of your blog because you have another person contributing to it.
• It’s freeing up time because you have one less blog post that you have to write.

If you’ve blogged for any length of time, you probably get a lot of blog post pitches every day. Even if you don’t, it might be worthwhile to set up a standard procedure for accepting submissions. What these procedures look like is up to you, but I recommend not accepting blog posts from SEO agencies and link builders. You also don’t want to accept paid links. Search engines frown on these practices.

An example of how The Sits Girls accepts blog post submissions. Source: The Sits Girls

4. Add Your Blog to Article Bylines

A byline is where you list your name as an author either before or after an article. Many publications will allow you to include a very brief bio with this byline, which provides a great opportunity for you to promote your blog. These bylines are also sometimes called author bios, or author byline.

For example, my byline might look like this:

Kathy Haan, MBA: Business coach and consultant using her 21 years of online business experience to help people make money online. When she isn’t traveling with her husband and three children, she’s documenting their travel adventures on the blog Idyllic Pursuit.

If people like what I write, they’re more apt to check out my blog linked within my bio. Some bloggers will provide an incentive for readers to visit the blog by linking to a lead magnet instead of a general blog link. A lead magnet is a checklist, guide, e-book, or some other freebie given in exchange for the reader’s email. This way, a blogger will grow their email list.

An example of a blog in a byline on Medium.com. Source: Medium.com

5. Include Your Recent Blog Posts in Newsletters

Social media platforms come and go, so if you’ve built your page views through Pinterest alone, your traffic can suffer if the platform goes under or changes its algorithm. You want to establish an email list so you can send your blog posts and offers. A newsletter is a great way for you to nurture this email list.

Most bloggers send out a weekly newsletter with links to the blog posts they’ve written that week. Or, they’ll link to timely blog posts they’ve written before. For example, a food blogger might share last year’s Easter recipes around Easter time. Or, a health blogger might share tips for staying healthy during flu season.

You might be wondering, why shouldn’t I email my list every time I write a new blog post? There’s no hard and fast rule saying you shouldn’t, but if you write a blog post every day, your list might not appreciate getting a daily email.

Also, if you’re not a consistent blogger, your list will definitely know this if one week they get a daily email and then won’t get another for a month. It’s best to stay consistent and reliable when blogging, because you’re more likely to get long-term readers and fans this way.

The Budget Mom uses the top of her newsletter to highlight a specific blog post. Source: The Budget Mom

6. Repurpose Your Blog Posts

Once you’ve written a blog post, you can turn the post into so many other pieces of content. For example, you can snag a snippet or two from a blog post to share on each social media platform and include a link to that specific blog post. You can continually re-share snippets of the post over time, which will give the blog post more page views.

You can also turn your blog posts into podcast episodes, videos, e-books, and physical books. In fact, if you have written a lot of blog posts, you can hire a ghostwriter to compile each blog post together into a well-written book. You can find ghostwriters on freelancer platforms like Fiverr or Upwork to help you write or make these materials. Expanding your blog to selling complementary content is a great way to make money blogging.

I wrote a blog post about my trip to the Amazon, and snagged some of the copy for an Instagram post. Source: @KathyHaan

7. Use a Reciprocal Sharing Site

A reciprocal sharing site is a website that brings together bloggers who want to share each other’s content. Reciprocal sharing sites include Tailwind, Triberr, and Viral Content bee.

My favorite site like this is Tailwind because of the detailed analytics I get on my Pinterest account, and its Tribes feature. A Tribe is the reciprocal part of the site, where other bloggers share my Pinterest content.

If you’re on a budget, you can find Facebook groups specifically for bloggers to share each other’s content. Most of these Facebook groups will have a dedicated thread each day for sharing on certain platforms. For example, on Mondays, you will need to share this blogger’s blog post on Twitter. On Tuesdays, share this blogger’s blog post to Pinterest.

An example of a reciprocal sharing site. Source: Tailwind

8. Share Blog Posts on Bookmarking Sites

A bookmarking site is similar to a reciprocal sharing site, except it isn’t just for bloggers. It works a lot like Pinterest does because you share your blog posts to these sites, and if other users like your post, they’ll share it with their own audience on the site.

Examples of bookmarking sites include reddit, Mix, Flip It, Flipboard, and Digg. A word of caution when using reddit: users are notorious for spotting and calling out any self-promotion, so share your own content sparingly and focus on giving value above all else.

Known as “the front page of the internet,” reddit is a bookmarking site with users from all over the world. Source: reddit

9. Let Influencers Know When You’ve Mentioned Them

When I write blog posts, I love to share as many examples as possible in both written and visual form. Whenever I mention another business, product, or person, I will email the company or person to let them know. They appreciate the publicity, and will likely share it with their own audience.

To make it super easy for an influencer to share with their audience, consider including a snippet for them to use. Using the example below, I can email Chantelle Adams the following:

If you can include a screenshot or graphic for the influencer or company to use that will make sharing your blog post even easier.

After I wrote about Chantelle in this article for Fit Small Business, I let her know so she could share it with her audience

10. Network With Other Bloggers

I know what you’re thinking—didn’t we discuss reaching out to bloggers in tip # 2? Yes, but this is different from guest blogging. Instead, this is a link-building strategy. Remember when we discussed domain authority? You build domain authority by creating excellent content that other people view as so valuable that they link to your post.

Sometimes, the best content in the world doesn’t get the visibility it deserves. To increase this visibility, you can reach out to bloggers who’ve written about topics in your niche. For example, if I wrote an article on the benefits of coconut oil, I can find a blogger who wrote a post about the different ways to use coconut oil. I’d ask the blogger to link to my post because it supplements what they’ve already written.

It’s really important that you’re targeting blogs with a high DA and a healthy backlink profile, both of which metrics you can find in Ahrefs.com. You want to make sure the blogs they’re linking out to are not spammy because then search engines will associate you with that spam blog.

An example of an email I received from another blogger. He wanted me to link to an article he wrote on a similar topic.

11. Use a Content Discovery Platform

A content discovery platform adds your blog posts to the bottom of other website’s articles and posts as an ad. However, the content looks as though it’s native to the site rather than an advertisement. Examples of content discovery platforms include Taboola, RevContent, and Outbrain.

When using these platforms, know that blog posts that work best have sensational headlines. While I’m not a huge fan of clickbait, the sites that run these content discovery ads often cater to breaking news and entertainment articles.

An example of a website using Taboola. Source: Business Insider

12. Comment On Other Blogs

Most blogs have a comment section below every blog post. After reading another blogger’s post, leave a meaningful comment. This does a couple of things—it will encourage the blogger to check out your blog, and other people will see the comment and might look at your site, too.

When I comment on other blogger’s posts, I try to stay within my travel niche. I do this because I want other travel lovers to read my articles, and the best way to find travelers is to comment on travel blogs.

An example of a comment section after a blog post. Source: idyllicpursuit.com

13. Upgrade Old Blog Posts

Search engines want to give people the best answers to their questions. This means that when your blog post thoroughly answers the question, search engines are more likely to rank your blog higher than a blog that doesn’t answer the question as well. The higher you are in search engine results pages (SERPs), the more traffic you’ll get from search engines.

In order to stay relevant, you must update your blog posts periodically. If I have a blog post with a ton of traffic, I will update the blog post on a quarterly basis. If the traffic is so-so, I will update the blog post on a semiannual basis. You may find that you need to update your post more or less, depending on your traffic and niche.

It helps to check out what your competition is doing, too—who is ranking high on SERPs? What can you do to make your post better than theirs? When updating your blog post, consider adding infographics to visually explain the post. You can also add new sections, or delete irrelevant or outdated data.

Pay attention to what has the snippet on a SERP, which is the box at the top. Google has determined this particular video provides the best answer to my question, so I want to do my best to make my blog post better than this video. It might also mean I need to include a video in my blog post.

14. Create New Social Media Images

If you create evergreen content, which is relevant for more than just a season, you must create new images for every blog post on a systematic basis. You will then share these images across your different social media platforms periodically so that you’re bringing in new followers. The images should be eye-catching and pop off the page—think about what kind of image makes you stop scrolling and take a closer look.

There are some platforms, like Pinterest, that prefer new images versus sharing the same image over and over again. To make the design process easy, I have a private Pinterest board full of designs I love. Any time I come across a pin with great design, I add it to that private board. When I’m ready to create new Pinterest images, I look at the board for inspiration.

A screenshot of my private Pinterest board full of design inspiration

15. Speak at Industry Conferences and Events

One of my favorite ways to grow my audience is to borrow someone else’s. This means speaking on stage at an event or conference I’m not hosting. I’m a pretty animated speaker who loves to share personal anecdotes, so inevitably I get to talk about my business and blog.

Depending on the rules of the event, you might even get to offer a lead magnet or freebie from the stage. I love using a service like Textiful, which makes it easy to give the audience a number to text a specific keyword to get added to my email list. If I’m speaking at a travel conference, the lead magnet is travel-related, so make sure your freebie matches the event.

An example of how you can set up the text message service to deliver slides from your presentation.
Source: Textiful

16. Submit Blog Posts to Relevant Roundups

A roundup is a collection of blog posts from many different bloggers within a particular niche. It can also sometimes mean a collection of blog posts you’ve written on the same topic, but for the purposes of growing your list, I’m specifically talking about the former kind.

One of the best ways to find relevant roundup requests is to join Facebook groups meant specifically for bloggers. There are even groups dedicated to roundups, like RoundupPalooza.

When I post a roundup request, I will typically write the following:

• ISO: the type of post I’m looking for
• FOR: www.idyllicpursuit.com
• DUE: ASAP or when I have enough
• By leaving a link, you’re allowing usage of one photo with a link back to your site

An example of a roundup I did of strawberry recipes. Each blogger shared this to their own Pinterest boards. Source: idyllicpursuit.com

17. Use Plugins to Make Sharing Easier

You want to make sharing your blog post super easy for readers. The best way to do this is to use plugins. Some of my favorite sharing plugins include Click-to-Tweet, which gives readers an opportunity to tweet any section of the post they highlight, and Social Warfare, which adds social media icons to the top and bottom of my blog posts. When a reader clicks the social media icon, it shares the post to their social media account.

An example of what Social Warfare looks like on a blog post.
Source: idyllicpursuit.com

18. Give Every Blog Post a Call to Action

A call to action (CTA) lets your reader know exactly what their next steps are after reading your blog post. Sometimes, the CTA tells the reader to make a purchase. Other times, it tells your reader to subscribe to your newsletter or share your blog post on social media.

Every time you provide a CTA, you encourage your readers to interact with your blog in some way. Other examples of CTAs include leaving a comment, starting a free trial, and booking a call.

This CTA asks readers to sign up for a free course after the blog post.
Source: inspiredbudget.com

19. Consider Using Push Notifications

A push notification is when you notify your audience about new features and blog posts. This is sometimes done via email, but you can also send a push notification on the reader’s browser any time a new blog post goes live. To enable browser notifications, you need a plugin like VWO Engage or PushEngage.

An example of what it looks like when your visitor is asked to enable push notifications.
Source: VWO

20. Make Each Blog Post SEO-worthy

While sharing your blog post in emails and through social media can bring in traffic, you don’t want to neglect optimizing every blog post for search engines (SEO).

Each blog post should:

• Provide a thorough answer to your reader’s question, which usually takes around 2,500 words to do.
• Contain phrases and keywords people actually search for (learn how to do keyword research).
• Have skimmable headings so that a reader can take action without reading the details of your post.
• Have a detailed meta description that is also succinct.

A plugin like Yoast SEO can help you identify what you need to do to your blog post to optimize it for search engines.

Bottom Line

Promoting your blog can lead to more page views, subscribers, and money. It can also help grow your impact as a leader in your niche. Some blog promotion efforts take time to implement, while others are super quick to do. There are even marketing strategies that run on autopilot for you—like content discovery platforms and ads.

No matter what type of blog promotion strategies you choose, you don’t have to do all of the work yourself. You can outsource graphic design using a freelancer platform like Fiverr. For as little as $5 per graphic, you can have new graphics by the end of the weekend. Get started today.

Visit Fiverr