Marketing your blog is very important. Creating great content is important, but useless unless anyone can see it.
1. Online Marketing
The best thing you can do for marketing your blog is creating great content. If Google likes your website, they will rank it higher in search results when people search for information that is in your blog. This traffic is the best traffic there is. because the people getting to your website this way are actually wanting to read what you write, and possibly buy your products. Don’t lose out on this opportunity. I will cover SEO, or search engine optimization, at a later time.
This is all great and stuff, but if nobody goes to your website, you get no traffic, and no love. It is important to create an online marketing strategy to get your blog in front of your readers. You need to find out what social media channels are best for your niche and how you will utilize them to spread your message around the internet and drive readers to your blog.
You should get your Social Media in order for great online marketing. Influencer marketing and the shares it can generate create a great traffic opportunity.
- Secure your username on social media platforms. This is part of proper branding. Consistency is paramount for your blog image. This helps people find you easier. For an example, My name is Becorath and I have secured the name across all social media channels, even if i’m not currently using that channel. If your Blog is Daisies to Dynamite, Changing it to daisies-2-dynamite, daisy to dynamite, etc can be confusing and troublesome for people to find you.
- Create a Social Media Plan! Figure out what your reader wants and stick to it. This is again where branding comes in. make sure all of your imagery have the same look and feel and do not make any radical changes to the style. It’s ok to make small changes as you go and your brand evolves, just avoid drastic changes. You should work on how and when you will post and on what social media channels you will focus on. Work on you image sizes, filters, styles, graphics, and so on. As long as you created a detailed branding guide this should be relatively painless. Canva is a great tool to make the graphics and keep them consistent easily. If you have the skills, Photoshop is even more powerful!
2. Email Marketing
Something many people ignore or simply don’t focus on is their email list. Your subscribers are dedicated followers that CHOSE to follow you. These are the loyal customers that are more likely to return to your blog. They are more likely to buy whatever you are selling, and to share it with others. Your subscriber list is used in one or all of the following ways.
- Send out a newsletter with updates on new blog posts with links. Subscribers click the link and boom, more website traffic.
- Send out information or a sale on a new or existing product, the subscriber clicks and buys!
- Send out information on a sponsored brand and get paid based on clicks, subscribers, etc.
You should work on creating a great strategy to encourage email signups, and not just “sign up for my newsletter”. Try a few things until you see what works.
There are a couple of options out there for email sign ups.
MailChimp and Constant Contact are the most popular options out there. Check them both out for yourself and see what features work best for you!
So, asking for email addresses… you want your sign up to be easy to see and use. Popups, unfortunately, work the best. However, you do not want your sign up to pop up immediately when someone visits your website. Give them at least 30 seconds before you ask. Give them time to decide if they even want to visit your website again. I like to trigger the pop up for after 30 seconds or when they go to leave the page.
One of the best ways to ask for an email address is to give them something in return. An example would be that if you Click THIS LINK you will see a pop up with a sign up form for my Email List. and if you provide your email address here, you will receive my Email Scheduling eBook ($37) FREE!
3. Offline Marketing
Yes, Offline Marketing will help your online business.
- Business Cards! Carry them everywhere. If you are a food blogger and you visit a great restaurant pass a card to the manager or owner and offer to promote them. Pass them to people at events and throughout your day.
- Network! with any other business owners you come across. The thing about being a successful blogger is to make your own opportunity. Work to make things happen and then, eventually, opportunity will come to you!
- Attend Conferences! This is one of the best ways to network with other bloggers and professionals. Embrace other bloggers most of us are in slightly different niches anyway.
- Get your name in print! Write for niche magazines and newspapers.
The hard work will eventually pay off!
Continue to Part 6 in this Series!