B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®

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Tips for Promoting New Blogs

TopRank Marketing Editor
TopRank Marketing Editor
Blog Marketing, Blogging Strategy

TopRank’s recent Blogging and SEO survey of in-house, agency and independent marketing, advertising and PR professionals revealed that 95% of respondents incorporate blogs as part of their online marketing mix. Nearly 88% have successfully increased measurable SEO objectives as a direct result of blogging.

Thousands of new blogs are started by companies and individuals each day. Yet getting a blog set-up, optimized, and launched are just the first steps. No one will know you have a blog to read, subscribe or link to unless you take an important next step: promotion. There are plenty of places you can promote and market a new blog:

  • Add A Link – If it’s a company blog, or if it’s attached to another site, add a link to the blog from the main navigation on the parent website.
  • Create A Badge – On the main website, add a badge to the homepage, or sidebar, that promotes the blog. Images are a good way to catch a visitor’s attention.
  • Email – Add a link to the blog in your email signature.
  • Newsletter – Announce the blog in the company newsletter.
  • Network – Announce the blog to your Twitter followers, Facebook fans, Linked in connections and any other social networks that you are apart of.
  • Press Release – If you feel that the blog is important enough to support a press release, put one out.
  • Submit – Submit the blog to blog & feed directories.
  • Share – Share your blog with co-workers, friends and others in your network. You never know when they might promote it for you.
  • Link – One way to get other bloggers to notice you is to link to them. Summarize someone else’s long blog post, expand upon someones shorter post, or just write your thoughts on a topic that someone else wrote about and link back to the original post.
  • Give Away – If it’s a product blog, run a promotion on the blog giving away one of your products. Sometimes the value that can come out of giving something away can be more beneficial than all the items above.
  • Guest Post – If there are other blogs in your industry, ask around and see if they’d allow you to guest post for them. In return, you’d get a link back to your blog in your profile, or post, on their site.
  • Ask – Tap into the social networks within the industry you’re trying to reach and ask them what they’re interested in. Here’s an example of a post that did just that on Twitter for this blog. Show interest in the interest of your audience and they’ll pay more attention and share your content.

Probably the best promotion tactic is to create good content, post often and share. The more content a blog has, the greater the footprint it has on the web in terms of pages to appear in search results and to link to from other blogs/web sites. Work on creating a posting schedule and according to resources and reader interest, try to get one to five posts out a week.

“Build it and they will come” doesn’t work with web sites and it certainly doesn’t work with blogs. Promote relevant and useful content to create awareness and the quality of your information will propel your brand to a much larger audience.

 

Comments

  1. jlbraaten says

    These are some great tips! In addition to your list, what about a poll? I put one in my blog post this week asking what topics folks wanted me to blog about. Perhaps some of the Top Rank readers want to come on over and add their thoughts. Thanks for the post… have a great day!

  4. Kate says

    Good ideas, seeing more and more people with their own blog, and there is usually a blog for everyone to read but sometimes people just go completely off the mark with their blog and then that is when you need to step back and take a look at how to utilise your blog to benefit your company's marketing and branding. I think there are a few companies that could take on board these tips.

  6. Rebecca says

    Thank you for this; we’re looking to revamp our company’s blog and will definitely be implementing these tips to help it get on its feet.

  7. heidipassey says

    Hi Thomas,

    Great tips. Thanks for the huge list of blog and feed submissions. I was looking for a list just like this. I'm currently working on a free product to giveaway on my site. I want to provide as much free valuable information as I can so that readers visit often.

    Thanks, Heidi

  10. SynapticLight says

    very cool. Applies to new and old alike.
    my blog has been going for a while (over a year on wordpress.com now self hosted) and I have tried implementing all those point except providing a newsletter.
    hmmmm – something I need to consider.
    Going to post for guest posts on my blog now – I think that that is a create way to not only tap into new networks but to also build a community

    • Karlheinz says

      Hi SynapticLight,
      was it easy to transfer your blog from wordpress to “self-hosting”? I just started a blog on wordpress and I am wondering weather it would be better to self host it? Or is it ok to start on wordpress and than – after a while – move it to your own domain (as you did it)? karlheinz

  12. MarcusSheridan says

    Thanks for this helpful article Thomas. Having recently set up my blog, I need articles just like this one to really beef up traffic. Also, thanks for the directory link, that was perfect.

  13. Chris says

    Thanks Thomas for the great list, definitely all great tips to keep in mind! I just revamped my personal blog for my post-MBA job search… so getting noticed is the name of the game.

    I recommend using Twitter to tweet links to ever other post, RT is a lot lower involvement for followers.

    And I recommend using hash tags like #in and #fb that cause your other status updates to copy that same tweet.

  14. 01 Systems says

    Hi all!

    I've started a couple of blogs so far and have been in the internet marketing business for over two years now. I must say i ignored the hype for some time and only started to take notice of wordpress recently. I must admit it is a great way for business and individuals to add new and interesting content easily, and your tips are great for the outset, however, i do have a couple of questions;

    Is wordpress the best software to use for blogging?

    What are the best plugins for blogs to allow submitting to twitter, facebook, digg and delicious etc?

  17. jaxonmarkell says

    Thanks for such a wonderful post. Some will be experts in generating traffic to their website. But some people definitely need the help of such posts to generate traffic to their site.

  18. cikguazhaan says

    hai my name cikgu azhaan…i”m from malaysia…your article is very good…hope can learn about online marketing….if your don't mine can you give the advise for my website

  20. WhChick says

    In light of Blogger not supporting FTP, I’ll be moving from a blog that is in a subfolder of my site to a custom domain. Should I panic? I expect the SEO on my main site will take a huge hit. Anyone having this issue?

  22. Joey Fratantoni says

    Excellent tips here. When I first started my blog about a year ago I could have really used this post. Up until now I have implemented nearly everything you suggest and it definitely helps. Another tip I would recommend is to leave valuable comments on similar blogs in your market. This sparks conversation and can get traffic coming back to your blog. But you always have to leave relevant and valuable content.

    Using social media is also a great way to get traffic to your new blog. For Twitter list it as your home page. For Facebook you can list it on your profile. For video sharing sites you can include it in the description sections. There are many more ways than this, but these should get your started in the right direction.

  28. Forest says

    Fantastic post, I have a blog with a large readership and a lot of daily visitors now but just can't get regular commenter…. It's much easier in some niches like make money online but I am finding it harder in other areas….

  29. paulyun says

    Great post.
    I believe there are more ways to promote your new blog, such social networking sites, social bookmarking sites, and Yahoo Answer.

  30. Linknami says

    Another blog marketing tip would be to run contests in order to increase your readership. People love contests and would frequently re-visit your site to check if there is another contest running.

  31. John S says

    Forum posting is also a great way to promote your blog if you're new to blogging. Along with writing guest posts on other sites, you can ask another blogger to write a guest post for your site; they will likely link to it from their site, and their fans will naturally click over to your site to browse.

  32. annejaa says

    Well that's amazing and helpful information you have given here!Blog is the best way to spread some helpful information among people.Well i like your post so i will keep visiting often.

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  33. seoconsultant1 says

    I like your ideas on the “Tips for Promoting New Blogs”…I have other techniques that I've use every time I promote new blogs but I guess some of the tips that you have mentioned was not in my list..with that I'll try to apply it..please post other tips about this topic, it will really provide me great information.
    seo consultant

  35. peteleyden says

    Great advice, as a keen fairly new blogger there are some great tips here. Interestingly our market (car and van leasing) there are many blogs so it can be difficult to attract people to ours. Clearly Twitter works as this is where I have found you

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  40. Gemstones says

    i wanna try to put my signature to my mail list friends. I dont know if this has big effect to promote my blog. but thanks i 'll try

  41. scottewart says

    I've been working for some time to drive traffic to my blog. This was very useful as there were several things I hadn't done. Another tip is to write articles from your blog posts and post to ezinearticles or articlesbase, linking to your blog. This will capture an audience looking for a specific topic on the article sites and will come to your blog looking for more information. Thanks again for the insight here, much appreciated!

  42. Scott Ewart says

    I've been working for some time to drive traffic to my blog. This was very useful as there were several things I hadn't done. Another tip is to write articles from your blog posts and post to ezinearticles or articlesbase, linking to your blog. This will capture an audience looking for a specific topic on the article sites and will come to your blog looking for more information. Thanks again for the insight here, much appreciated!