While blogging is a viable way to earn home-based income, you have to include marketing in your daily blogging activities to make that happen. Success in blogging is all about content and promotion. The challenge of marketing is focusing on the tactics that give you the most bang for your effort and buck. Here are 10 of the best ways to get readers to your blog:
1. Create content readers want to read.
Ultimately, people come your blog for information or entertainment. Great content not only lures new readers to your blog, but also, it will keep them coming back, and will have them sharing your blog with others. So don’t post content simply to have something new. Bad content isn’t better than no content. Strive to deliver the content your target market wants to read.
2. Deliver content regularly.
I’ll admit, I’ve have a few dead blogs in the past, and of course, they don’t make money. I have the best success with blogs that have new content posted at least 3 days a week. To make it easy, consider having a set schedule of content. For example, at WAHS, Monday posts are always about work-at-home jobs. Wednesday’s always have a work-at-home success story.
3. Build an email list.
Too often, new bloggers, wanting to save money, put off starting an email list. This is a mistake. The real money in online ventures (blogging, affiliate marketing, etc) comes from having an email list. My blog income always goes up on days that I email my list. I use my list to let subscribers know about new content and special deals.
4. Announce blog posts on social media.
You can set up your social media accounts to pull your blog feed (Twitter and Facebook) and post it automatically. Or use a service like Hootsuite and its Hootlet to send your post to multiple social media accounts with one click. Another option to schedule social media right within your WordPress post is to use CoSchedule. This is what I use and I love it because I can schedule all my social media for that one post within WordPress. It includes analytics and several other cool features to insure I’m maximizing my social media exposure.
5. Connect with other bloggers.
While working at home is a solitary experience, that doesn’t mean you have to be alone. In fact, in today’s world, networking and connecting with others is crucial to success. A blog that exists in a vacuum doesn’t make money. Instead, reach out to others in your niche. This is easy and free to do by reading and posting comments on other blogs. Or submit a quality article to other blogs or websites. These strategies gets your blog in front of an audience that might not otherwise find you.
6. Post a link to your blog in your email signature line.
Your signature is like a business card. It’s a great opportunity to let recipients know about your blog and your email list.
7. Repurpose your content to use in marketing.
I wrote a post for Personal Branding Blog on how to maximize your content through repurposing. For example, you can turn a blog post into a slideshow or video, and post on another online platform. This not only expands your reach, but gets your content in front of people in a way they might be more likely to digest it. For example, many people prefer finding their information on YouTube over reading a blog. Having your article repurposed into a video gets you in front of these people.
8. Respond to comments made on your blog.
One of the advantages to blogging is that it’s designed to be fresh and interactive. Thank people who post comments or answer their questions.
9. Check your stats to see what posts are getting the most views and what marketing tactic is bringing in the most visitors.
I like Google Analytics, but there are other resources you can use to gather data on your blog. Sometimes data gathering can seem confusing and overwhelming; however, the basics to discover are what topics are most popular (what articles have the most traffic), what they’re looking for (keywords they use that help them find your blog), and how are people finding your blog (i.e. search engines? social media?). This information can guide you into providing the information your market wants or needs, as well as focus on the marketing strategies that work, while fixing or terminating the ones that don’t.
10. Look for PR opportunities.
When you have a guest post or article on other blog/website (#5), it increases your reach and your credibility. Publicity is similar in that it’s free and gives you clout. While you can send out press releases to media, I prefer to use the HARO report which lists resources looking for experts and guests for print, online, radio and TV media.
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