One thing new bloggers rarely understand is the importance of consistently and relentlessly promoting blog posts. For every hour you spend creating new content for your blog, you should be spending at least another hour promoting it.
Effective blog promotion strategies include guest posting, podcasting, and influencer outreach, all of which are pretty time consuming. There are a few quick steps you can take though, that will help promote your blog posts with minimum effort. Every time you publish a new post, do these 16 things to spread the word.
Disclosure: Links in this post (and anywhere on The Savvy Solopreneur) may be affiliate links. Find out exactly what that means here.
You can use this list every time you publish a new post. Why don’t you bookmark it or Pin it for later.
Interlink from older blog posts
Often we remember to link back to older posts in our new post, but forget to go back to other relevant posts and insert links to the new one. Make sure your internal links are dofollow, as this helps with your SEO.
Pin your post
Using Pinterest strategically can seriously impact your traffic. See this post about Pinterest marketing for more tips, but at the very least, pin each post to a relevant board straight after publication. Add a pin it for later suggestion to your post (just like I did above).
Pin to relevant group boards over next 24 hours
You can use a scheduling tool like Boardbooster, or Pin manually at intervals. Try and identify at least a dozen active group boards that are relevant to your niche and save everything you pin from your blog to all of them.
Not sure which group boards to join? I share over 20 great group boards for bloggers in this post. You can also head over to my Pinterest and scroll to the bottom of my page. You’ll see all the group boards I pin to regularly.
Tweet your post
Include a relevant image and hashtags. Images attract engagement on Twitter and hashtags help people who aren’t following you find your Tweets. See this post for a breakdown on how to use Twitter to promote your blog or business.
Copy Your Tweet to Just ReTweet
JustReTweet is an easy way to get a lot of ReTweets (and Facebook Likes) fast. I wrote a whole post on how to use the platform effectively here.
Add a link to your Facebook Page
Include a striking image, and a short description. If people on your friends list would also be interested in the topic you blog about, share to your personal profile (or make a separate list of people on your friends list who are also in your blog audience, and just share with them).
Stumble your post
StumbleUpon is a great example of a site you don’t have to be particularly active on in order to attract traffic, as long as your content is good, so always add each post to your likes over there if you have an account.
Share on LinkedIn
Share your new post to your general audience on LinkedIn and in any relevant groups you’re a member of.
Share on Google +
Share your link on Google + with a short description and make sure your post image is showing (or add another eye-catching relevant image manually).
If you want to connect with me on any of the above sites, hit those buttons over in the sidebar, or up in the header, to find me.
Add to any other sites you’re active on
Depending on your inclination and niche, this might include BizSugar, Reddit, Digg, etc
Share in Facebook Groups
Share over the next week (in relevant threads). See this post for more ideas on how to use Facebook Groups strategically.
Add to any linkups you participate in
There are linkups and blog hops in various niches going on every week. Sarah over at My Joy Filled Life has put together a list of over 200 linkups you can join.
Send the link to your email list
You can send out an email for every post you publish OR add it to your round-up of posts if you send a monthly newsletter. Just make sure you do one or the other. You don’t want your subscribers to miss any posts.
Consider republishing
You can republish your post in full on sites like Medium, LinkedIn and BlogHer. Have a little more time (and the desire to just keep creating fresh content)? You can publish a new, but related, post on these platforms and link back to the post you just published.
There are also niche communities where you can start your own blog within the community, and republish a post with a link back to your blog. Some of these networks are very niche, so you’re going straight to your audience. For example, if you blog about Yoga, you could check out Do You Yoga.
Consider publishing an excerpt
You can also publish a short excerpt on sites like BlogHer and SheWrites, with a ‘read more’ or ‘read the full post here’ link.
Notify anyone you mentioned in your post
If you’ve mentioned someone, reviewed their product, or referred to a post they wrote, you can politely reach out and let them know, either by email or social media. If your post is professional and shows them in a good light, they may share it with their audience.
You can use this post as a simple checklist, everytime you publish (just Pin it or bookmark it to refer to later). If you like checklists (and templates and cheatsheets) you might want to check out The Busy Blogger’s Success Kit. You can get it half-price right now when you subscribe to The Savvy Solopreneur.
Thank you for linking to my BoardBooster post! 😉 As you mention in your last tip, it’s worthwhile to reach out to anyone you link to. I’m going to share this post, and I know others would too!
Emily recently posted…SEO: What the Heck Does That Even Mean?
Thanks so much for sharing, Emily, and for writing such a comprehensive post on Boardbooster. Love it when I get the opportunity to link to informative posts like that to give my readers even more value!
Karen recently posted…Affiliate Marketing Best Practices
These tips are awesome! Thanks for sharing!
Natalie @ A Tiny Traveler Blog recently posted…Her Success Is Not My Failure + Giveaway for Uninvited Book
Thanks for stopping by, Natalie. Glad you found it helpful.
Karen recently posted…Ten Tips for Making Affiliate Sales on Social Media
Love, Love, Love this post. I actually just signed up for Stumble Upon! Thanks so much for the great advice.
So happy you loved it, Megan. I don’t like to advise people to sign up to every social or bookmarking site because it can get so overwhelming, but I find you don’t have to be super active on StumbleUpon. If you just add each post (and if your content is good) you will get some traffic trickling in from there with very little effort.
Karen recently posted…Five Simple Steps To Increase Your Affiliate Sales
Posting pins to relevant group boards have been a traffic game changer for me. Great post!
Yep. Me too Ike. I went from getting a handful of RePins a week to hundreds! With not that much change in my number of followers. Most of them are coming from the group boards, and a lot more traffic is coming from Pinterest.
Karen recently posted…How To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing
I’ve been doing most of these and thought about giving up on StumbleUpon, but some of my posts have been getting good traffic on there. I guess it’s good to keep trying!
Hi Alexis. The thing is, it takes me about a minute to add each post to StumbleUpon. And then when I’m browsing blogs and there’s a great post AND if they have a StumbleUpon button I’ll add those too (it’s just the click of a button. Then a couple of my Facebook Groups have a ‘stumble thread’ where we all add each others pages to our likes. Total time investment = less than ten minutes, a WEEK! Yet I see traffic rolling in from SU in my analytics. Definitely worth it, I think.
Karen recently posted…How to Systemize Your Online Business
Hi Karen,
Thank you for this informative and well researched post. I’ll thank my VA for posting your link on one of my Facebook pages, and am so glad she did as while I do some of these, I realize I still have a long way to go in promoting each post. Interestingly the post I wrote over the weekend had some thoughts on this topic as well. One that I found particularly interesting is posting to group boards on Pinterest, which I’ve never done, but will add to my promotions.
Thanks again for a very informative post.
Yvonne A Jones recently posted…How to Start Building Relationships with Other Bloggers
Hi Yvonne. Thanks for stopping by. Definitely give the group boards a try. I’ve found my engagement on (and traffic from) Pinterest has increased significantly since trying that strategy.
Karen recently posted…Six Habits of Insanely Productive People
such a nicely written article about twitter tips keep it up !! Thanks !!
Hi Karen, excellent post you have here. I have always been overwhelmed at the share amount of time required for content promotion. But. you simplify everything here. Thank you so much.
Hephzy Asaolu recently posted…The Campfire Effect: How To 10x your email list with Content upgrade
Hi Hephzy. I know what you mean. It can seem overwhelming, but that’s why I find it so useful to have a simple checklist like this. I’m glad you found it useful, too.
Karen recently posted…Best Books For Entrepreneurs
I am really happy to glance at this weblog posts which consists of plenty of valuable facts, thanks
for providing these information.
Mercedes recently posted…Mercedes
Thanks for all the great ideas. I’m always looking for new ways to promote my posts.
Thanks for stopping by, Leesa. Glad you found it useful!
Karen recently posted…3 Ways To Make Your New Blog Look Professional
Awesome advice! Finding online traffic is not easy especially
if you don’t know where to look.
But the lessons provided here really helped. I also recommend that you check out at
this article:
How to Write Profitable Blog Posts That Actually Bring in Sales
http://10krealvisitors.com/how-to-write-profitable-blog-posts-that-actually-bring-in-sales/
It’s also very useful.
Jack recently posted…Jack
I am very happy to take a look at the posts of this blog, which consists of many valuable facts, thank you
To provide this information.
I like your blog post. Thanks for sharing such an amazing article.