Why Blog Promotion is Important

When it comes to creating a blog supported by a large, passionate audience, writing great content is only half the battle. Knowing how to promote your blog – understanding how to leverage your content to gain as wide an audience as possible, and keeping that audience engaged and interested over time – is equally important.

So, how can you make 2021 a spectacular year for your blog, and how can you grow your audience without breaking the bank?

It all starts with developing a plan.

Having a plan (and sticking to it) can get the ball rolling and keep the momentum flowing. And, developing this plan now will allow you to devote more time down the road to the fun part of blogging: content creation.

Starting this process of developing a plan is important. Garnering attention becomes much easier once the base is built. Laying the groundwork by applying the right SEO practices positions the algorithms to take over the promotional side of blogging for you.

The five proven promotional strategies below are ones you can begin working on today. When integrated into your plan, these strategies will assist in helping you grow a devoted audience amid a changing landscape in 2021.

1 – Promote Your Blog by Leveraging Social Media

Everyone and their grandma are on social media nowadays. That means there’s no better place to begin – or ramp up – your blog promotional efforts. Social media, however, is not a one-stop-shop. Creating a presence across a range of platforms (from Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, to even LinkedIn and Reddit) is essential. Doing so guarantees that you are exposing your brand to the widest possible audience. Further, individuals are spending more time communicating on these sites than ever before. So, the moment has never been riper for garnering visibility and attraction.

4 Social Media Strategies You Can Apply Today

• Repurpose your best content across accounts on different platforms. If it’s your best work, it should be seen. Repurposing and reposting the content that highlights why your blog is unique and worthy of readers’ time will allow you to gain traction among a wider following.
• Interact with supporters – Take the time to respond and connect with those who read your work. Thoughtful communication can foster that sense of connection often absent in online interactions. Show readers their support is meaningful by spending time responding to and engaging in dialogue with them. A like and follow can go a long way.
• Connect with like-minded individuals. Creating professional or personal connections to individuals pursuing initiatives similar to yours can open up a whole host of opportunities down the road.
• #Hashtag! Using hashtags positions your social media content to be found by casual browsers interested in a specific topic. Choose to tag only those words that are the most relevant to your topic. This will ensure that interested parties will find exactly what they are looking for when they click on your content.

The Seattle Web Search team has written extensively on how to effectively utilize social media to promote your work. I would invite you to spend some time and go further in-depth on our website.

2 – Promote Your Blog by Optimizing Posts for Given Keywords

If you’ve done any online reading about blogging, you’ve surely come across the advice to optimize your posts for SEO to increase your site’s visibility and presence online.

The Seattle Web Search team has produced a myriad of content on this topic, so I won’t go too in-depth here. Instead, I have chosen to include just two of the most pertinent tips. You should absolutely spend some time taking a more in-depth look at the linked posts on our site if you are unfamiliar with (or interested in learning more about) SEO strategies.

• Consider your focus keyword when choosing a title, writing your meta-description, and including images.
• Utilize sites like Ahrefs to see how keyword specificity and length can be tweaked to promote your SEO-related goals.

3 – Promote Your Blog by Engaging Effectively with Email

Even in the age of social media, email remains one of the most surefire ways to expand your outreach and foster connections with those who frequent your page. Creating an email list is the first step in doing so. Once you have your list assembled, you can notify your audience when you post new content to your blog.

Email – as with social media accounts – can be utilized to help establish connections and make audience members feel valued. Including emotional language and personalizing emails, when possible, are also likely to increase the likelihood of engagement.

With this being said, be wary of going overboard with emailing. Inundating your followers with email after email is a quick and easy way to alienate or annoy your subscribers. Be cognizant of how many times you’re clicking send. If the message is an important one, consider sending a follow-up email to those addresses that didn’t interact with your original message. Engagement may increase if you include an alternate headline.

4 – Promote Your Blog by Considering Visual Elements of your Posts and Website

Making your work pop will immediately catch the attention of those who traffic your website, which is why the visual elements of your page – everything from the color scheme to the images included with posts – should be at the forefront of your promotional efforts. The more visually engaging your content is, the more likely a reader is to spend their time reading your writing.

It’s well-known that before reading through an article or post, many viewers will scroll through the page in its entirety to see what they are getting themselves into. As such, it is all the more important to include visual elements – pictures, charts, graphs, etc. – that are enticing and pertinent.

When choosing graphics, the message you are trying to convey should be the predominant consideration. At the same time, keep in mind how attributes such as colors and fonts can convey emotion, give your image more depth, and add another layer of meaning to your blog post as a whole. Include enough graphics to give your writing substance, but not so many that readers will feel bogged-down.

5 – Promote Your Blog by Knowing Your Audience

Being familiar with the types of individuals that make up your audience – their demographics, interests, dislikes, etc. – opens up a host of promotional opportunities and will allow you to tailor your promotional efforts to meet the group’s expectations and increase engagement.

For example, knowing that your audience skews older might affect the times at which you choose to post on social media or the way you structure your website.

Keep in mind that understanding your audience goes hand-in-hand with making those all-so-important connections; the more time you spend conversing and engaging with viewers, the more you can learn about their likes and dislikes. Once you know the faces behind the clicks, you can tailor your content to fit their interests, wants, and needs. And, a solid grasp of this information can inform how you go about recruiting a wider audience.

To Conclude

The five strategies above are designed to help you effectively begin your promotional efforts. They can also assist you to ramp up what you already have in place. Understanding your goals – both big and small – is important as you consider which of these methods are most applicable to your brand, and what you should be spending the most time on.

Begin a list of tangible steps that you can take to promote your brand. This will help you decide which elements to prioritize. Doing so ensures that time the time you devote towards promotional efforts is well-spent.

Lastly, remember that you don’t need to necessarily apply all the strategies we’ve discussed here. But, the more you put in, the more you will get out.