Anyone can become a blogger in literally a couple of minutes, but only those who're dedicated enough to blog on daily basis can hope to achieve some sort of success. The success, of course, translates to opportunities, money-earning capabilities, and the development of your community.
As a small business owner, you not only want to save money where possible; you want to be able to gain the biggest return for your investment, which in this case would be your thoughts, and a bit of your time. Lets take a look at some blog promotion tactics that we can implement right away. Share your own in the comments!
1. Make It: Stand Out
Your first promotional tactic should be the goal of making a unique blog focused on your niche. It can be really tempting to copy competitors, or to use outdated standards - but the reality is that people are looking for something that stands out for them; resonates with them. You can make your blog stand out by doing any of the following:
- Help Out - Give your community members a sense of peace by being helpful whenever you can, even if that translates only to a comment that needs replying.
- Uniqueness - Never blatantly try to copy someone else, instead - focus on what you think are your unique qualities, and then cultivate them even further.
- Storytelling - There is no better way to capture users attention by being a good storyteller.
- Back Up Your Claims - Whenever possible, back up your claims by quoting original research; sources; etc.
- Trends - Following the latest trends is going to yield you a couple of good content ideas, though possibly recognition from other networks if you get there first.
there are surely more things to consider, but this is a really great start for anyone who wants to increase his readership.
2. Keyword Research
You can write great content all day long, but if there is no demand for it - what is the point? With that in mind, we should put some of our focus on things like keyword research. Find online tools that work for you, and use them to better analyze your choices of content to publish.
tip: don't assume it's impossible to rank for high-demand keywords, focus on quality of content!
3. Visual Optimization
I see bloggers using 'lightweight' themes all the time, and clearly one of the reasons for doing so is the expectation to have better search ranking results - due to the pages being very light, and loading quickly. But, it's not all about the speed; or the simplicity of the site. Great designs contain many media elements, but if put together professionally - become seamless.
Here are a few things to do in order to optimize your blog visually:
- Unique Images - There is no shortage of stock photography online (both free and paid), but neither does it take long to produce your own unique images.
- Text Overlay - You can experiment with transmitting visual content through your images; something as simple as text-overlay for a picture can make the difference between a social share, and not.
- Social Media - Always allow your images to be shared on sites like Pinterest, Facebook, and even Twitter (since the cards release); otherwise you're losing on potential traffic and revenue.
- Content Design - It's rare to see websites that get read 100% through, by which I wish to say that you should carefully craft the look of your content pages. Make everything unfold naturally, and don't force people to do things they don't want to do.
you can also invest a bit of energy into visual content creation tools; those will allow you to build unique images, infographics and more of the same type visual content.
4. Relationships
Just like in real-life, in the World of blogging there is also a thing called relationships. These are usually all about trust and gain. The thing to keep in mind when it comes to cultivating blogging relationships is that the ones that you can hold on to - are the ones to pay attention to.
It's much easier to connect with someone when you both are on the same page, rather than connecting with random bloggers who only send you a link to their latest article. Though, this particular tactic could be discussed on its own.
You can do quite a few things to improve the quality of your current blogging relationships: you can start by building an audience, then begin focusing on sharing other peoples content, and finish up by proving that you're a capable human being who can act as a real person on social media, rather than just another account who sends out links in tweets.
5. Get to Know Your Audience
The last tactic is to finally meet your real audience, to learn about the needs of your audience, and what are their expectations. Every niche has a specific audience, a group of people who share similar interests and desires about a particular topic. It's the best feeling ever when you can put together the two pieces of the puzzle: relevant content + relevant audience.
Now that we've consumed all this, what are the steps that we're going to take in order to improve our overall brand visibility?