How would I promote my blog if I had to start all over and had a very limited budget, say $100?
Important clarification: we are not talking about promoting your blog to your existing readership here, however small or big it might be.
Chances are your existing readers are already sold on you and that’s why they keep coming back to begin with.
Getting NEW potential readers to visit your blog and then convert them into the loyal readers and subscribers is what this post on promoting your blog is all about.
How to Promote Your Blog OFF Your Blog?
Below are some of the simplest, yet the most effective ways to promote your blog.
I am a big fan of getting my web traffic for free; most of the traffic generation methods I write about at Traffic Generation Cafe won’t cost you a dime – only your time.
However, it’s always great to have a small budget to invest in your blog; even a small amount like $100 can take you a long way when used wisely.
And I’ll be happy to share with you how I would leverage that money to take my blog promotion strategy the furthest.
1. Guest posting – FREE
Some of you already know this, some of you are even doing it, but let me tell you – this is the most effective way to promote your blog, whatever your niche, content, or readership size. Hands down.
Let me give you an example.
My friend Danny Iny of FirepoleMarketing.com.
Just a few short months ago, no one ever heard of the guy.
All of a sudden, his name started popping up just about everywhere around the blogosphere, including blogs like Copyblogger.com, Problogger.com, DIYThemes.com, Kikolani.com, just to name a few.
Actually, his first guest post showed up on Copyblogger.com in the beginning of 2011 – guest posting strategy with a bang!
Result?
Targeted readership most bloggers only dream of, personal connections with many A-listers, interviews with untouchables like Guy Kawasaki, a successful product launch not too long ago, and a book with contributors like Guy Kawasaki, Brian Clark, Mitch Joel, and many others coming out very soon.
All in LESS THAN A YEAR.
With guest posting being the cornerstone of his marketing strategy.
If you want to learn more about putting guest blogging to good use, download this free blogging book.
2. Start a Commenting Tribe – FREE
This was one of the very first things I did when I started Traffic Generation Cafe a year ago – I started my very own commenting tribe.
There were three goals I wanted to achieve with my tribe:
- Connect with other fellow bloggers.
- Provide social proof on my blog. Once other readers see that someone else (my tribe members) has left comments on a post, they are more likely to join in. Very powerful, yet simple technique.
- Bring traffic from other members’ blogs back to mine.
It was a success all around.
My tribe did provide this blog with the push it needed to get off the ground.
If you want to know exactly how I did it, check out this post:
3. Connect with Other Bloggers – FREE
I recently was pleasantly surprised to find an email from Kim Roach of BuzzBlogger.com in my inbox.
In her email, she told me how much she enjoyed my blog, that she was available to help me in any way she could, and mentioned one of her recent blog posts she thought I might be interested in.
It might’ve taken her all but a minute to write up that email, yet the result was the connection with someone she didn’t know before and now me writing about her in this post.
I did something very similar in the beginning of my blogging career when I reached out to Kristi Hines of Kikolani.com. As a result of that, she gave me my very first mention of one of my blog posts on her blog.
Of course, this strategy to promote your blog could very easily misfire, if you are not careful as to how you approach it – no one likes to get spammy emails full of self-promotion.
The following three techniques to promote your blog are interrelated and might not be as successful if used one at a time.
4. Create 1-5 Twitter Accounts – FREE
Yes, Twitter remains one of my main sources of referral traffic.
I use it in a very strategic way though, since I am not a big fan of hanging out on social media, plus I wouldn’t have the time even if I were.
Since I’ve written extensively on how to get more followers on Twitter in the past, I won’t repeat myself here.
Now, the main way I drive traffic from Twitter has nothing to do with the retweets I get and people clicking on those links.
My main way to promote my blog on Twitter is in the secret I’ll explain below.
5. Create a “Promote Yourself” Page – FREE
That’s right: promote YOUR blog by promoting other blogs, etc.
All you need to make this blog promotion strategy successful are the following ingredients:
- A page where your Twitter newcomers can promote their businesses. Take a look at mine here.
- A Twitter direct message automatically sent to all your new followers, inviting them to promote themselves on your blog.
- A way to consistently increase your Twitter followers, so that more people will follow your direct message back to your blog (see below).
I suppose you can use a similar strategy with Facebook.
However, Facebook is not nearly as hands-free and will cost you a lot more effort to implement.
6. Use TweetAdder – $55
This would be one of the tools I’d spend my blog promotion budget on.
In short, TweetAdder will give you the leverage you need to automatically add hundreds of Twitter followers to your account(s).
Between the five Twitter accounts I have, I follow about 2,500 people per day, about 20% of which end up following me back and get my direct message inviting them back to my blog – something I would never be able to accomplish without this tool.
==>Download your copy of TweetAdder
7. Download CommentLuv Premium – $67
Let other people promote your blog for you – that’s exactly what the new CommentLuv Premium is all about and it’s absolutely the best plugin to “incentivize” your readers to share your posts.
==>Download CommentLuv Premium
You can see the plugin at work in my comment section below.
If you’d like to learn more about the features, check out my full review of CommentLuv Premium.
If you feel that CommentLuv Premium is the right choice for your blog like it is for mine, click here:
How to Promote Your Blog Marketing Takeaway
Ahhh, the magic number 7…
7 great and mostly free ways to promote your blog – the exact strategy (minus CommentLuv Premium, since it wasn’t available back then) I used to get my blog from a brand new nothing to what it is now in one short year.
And I still use every single one of these strategies today.
Here’s a bonus point for those who are willing to invest another $37 into their blogging future: I highly recommend you pick up a copy of Kristi Hines’ “Blog Post Promotion: The Ultimate Guide” ebook.
You’ll learn everything you’ll ever need to know about promoting your blog all the way to the top with this one.
Every blog needs a constant stream of new readership. Start working on yours today.
Do you know of any other actionable ways to promote your blog? Would love to hear your opinion in the comment section below.
. Guest posting definitely sounds like a great way, and I’ll have to write an article to send a blog. Well, you got me thinking! Thanks for a great post!
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