Content may be king, but it’s nothing if you don’t know how to promote it. Even if you write the best, most enticing and most shareable post in the world and update your blog regularly, it means nothing if people aren’t aware it exists. In order to truly drive traffic to your blog, you need exposure. Obtaining it is a dual process of promotion and optimization.
We’ll start with the latter. The best advice I can give you here is to install a plugin like All-In-One SEO. Although it won’t do all the work for you, it’ll greatly simplify the optimization process, and make it considerably easier for you to deal with Meta tags and title optimization. Scheduling is one thing you’re going to have to do yourself – personally, I’d recommend that you update your blog in the morning, as t traffic is usually highest around 11 AM. You’ll also need to figure out your focus keyword (think of this as the primary topic of your post). More than just site and keyword optimization, however, you should also practice topic optimization.
What this means is that you need to find a specific niche into which you can fit your content, as well as a defined demographic to target that content towards. Naturally, you want to be sure you pick something you’re familiar with, as it’s much easier to write with authority on a topic with which you’ve experience – plus, it gives you a knowledge advantage over the competition. Additionally, If at all possible pay attention to conversational trends amongst your preferred readership; if they’re talking about something, they’re definitely interested in learning more about it.
Let’s move on to promotion – which starts with reader engagement. If someone posts on your blog (and it’s clear they aren’t a spammer or a troll), respond to them. Put yourself out there and converse with your audience. Make them feel welcome and important, and you might just net yourself a loyal fan.
Don’t just connect with people on your own blog, either. Visit related blogs and join the discussion there. Use Twitter to connect with both readers and other authors by posting about both your topics and the writing process. Set up a Facebook Page and share eye-catching images and video. Tweet and share not just your own content, but anything you find relevant, valuable, or interesting. Basically, you need to turn the process of promoting your blog into a hobby. If this process of garnering exposure for your site feels like a chore, you may be doing something wrong.
Now, promotion isn’t solely a manner of making yourself visible and available on social networks. I’d recommend that you round out your content strategy with tools like OnlyWire, which allows you to easily connect your blog with a bunch of different websites. You should also look into services like Patch.com to connect you to local audiences, while Pingler and Ping-o-Matic can go a long way towards increasing your strength on Google.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to offer an email newsletter to which your fans and readers can subscribe. You’d be surprised what that can be accomplished with email.
If Content is king, exposure is most definitely its queen. The most interesting and relevant blog in the world is nothing without proper marketing and optimization. Thankfully, as I hope I’ve shown here, the process of maximizing your exposure isn’t really all that hard – it just requires a bit of extra legwork.