Marketing Your Blog: 10 Essential Tips You Should Know
By Edward Khoo.
1. Target Your Content To A Specific Readership
Unless you want to throw all of your marketing budget and precious time on people who could care less about your blog, then you must pay attention to determine the preferred audiences to whom you would like to target. Before posting any piece, determine if it hits the sweet spot of your demographic.
2. Be Original, Be Honest
Don’t follow the herd within your sphere of interest. Followers aren’t innovators and innovation keeps readers reading. So, don’t simply spin the same old post. Take an original slant on a common topic.
Be honest. Verify your facts and provide links to additional verification. Readers trust you to be a good reporter, instructor, mentor or inspiration so keep it honest at all times.
3. Don’t Be Afraid Of A Little Controversy.
Controversy sells. You and I know that. If it is a part of your business model, be prepared to engage others with differing opinions because, guaranteed, lots of readers will disagree, and you may even encounter a few trolls and haters who frequent blogs for no other purpose than to post inflammatory garbage.
4. Post As A Guest Blogger
Don’t post to just any blog within your realm. Submit your best pieces to the prestigious blogs – the ones that already have a substantial following. For example, Hongkiat.com is considered by industry insiders to be one of the best blogs for designers, marketers and freelancers. Getting one of your posts published on a top of the line blog is a great way to drive traffic to your blog where readers can find tons of content – all your archives – just waiting for a bookmark.
Of course, getting published on a well-established blog requires insight and something new to be added to the discussion. A rehash of conventional wisdom, regardless of the field of endeavor, won’t make the cut with top tier blogs within any industry or area of interest.
5. Simplify Subscriptions
Don’t hide your RSS button down the page together with your WordPress theme credit links, make them visible & clear for your reader’s eyeballs by taking the following approaches:
- Add an RSS chicklet at the top of your sidebar so visitors can easily load your posts into their RSS readers.
- Offer email subscriptions.
- Provide links to mobi feeds so readers can access new content from their cells or iPhones.
- Provide one click subscriptions using reader links to PageFlakes, Google Reader and other remote site readers. You can build a big following fast if you make it easy to find your blog again. And again, and again.