11 Creative Ways To Market Your Blog

Congratulations! You’ve finally started a blog!

By now, you may have noticed that just writing a blog isn’t getting you a ton of traffic.

There may be some coming in through search, but you’ve figured out that it’s not a set-it-and-forget-it thing.

Your blog has to be marketed.

Today, I want to dig into what that means and a few creative ideas to do it.

You Need To Bring Attention To Your Blog, Especially Early On

When you’re new to the blogging game, you’re pretty much going to be unknown.

You’ve never produced content before, and nobody knows that you’re doing it now. Click To Tweet

It’s up to you to change that.

If you’ve been blogging for a while and aren’t seeing the traffic you’d like, it’s time to do something about it.

Without a great promotion strategy, you’re not going to see the traffic you need to grow your business.

That’s because search rankings take time to build before they’ll provide traffic.

They’re the only form of passive traffic there is.

Everything else is going to take promotion, and that all starts with you.

There Are A Ton Of Great Ways To Get Your Blog Seen

Look, I’m not about to write the total, comprehensive list of ways to promote your blog.

It would be too long, and you’d never read the whole thing.

Instead, I’ve got a list of 11 creative ways to market your blog.

These ideas are fun, they don’t take special skills, and they work at every level and in every industry.

They don’t require you’ve been blogging for long, nor do they require any level of success.

Best of all, they work if you do.

They’re totally under your control.

These tips are going to change your traffic for sure.

Jump Into The Comments Section

One of the first things you can do to get your blog posts noticed is to start interacting within your industry.

Find other blogs related to what you do.

Search them for articles on topics you’re familiar with.

This also happens to be an excellent opportunity to expand your own knowledge.

When you find an article that you feel you can add to, it’s time to head for the comments. Click To Tweet

Tap into one or more of the author’s points on the article.

Add to the information with additional commentary of your own.

Conversely, you can respectfully disagree with what was written and provide supporting evidence.

If you have an article on your blog that supports the content you share, link to it.

However, only do so if you’ve provided commentary that added to the reader’s knowledge first.

If you don’t yet have something about the topic, it’s a good time to write something.

Then link back to it from the comment.

The audience on that blog, who are already interested in the topics you write about, will be happy to find more value from your blog.

Reach Out To The Bloggers You Reference

When you create content, it’s normal to reference other authors.

By pointing to other articles on the web, you’re demonstrating that your content has authority.

So, as a natural course, the authors of those articles are reference points for your information.

Since you’re referencing them anyway, you might as well let them know.

Whenever you link to a piece by another author, send an email to that author (or at least the website owner) letting them know. Click To Tweet

There’s a pretty good chance they’ll opt to share your piece as evidence that their knowledge is valuable.

They will likely at least stop to read your piece.

If it’s truly valuable, they may even give a larger level promotion to it.

No matter the case, you’re going to get some level of traffic from it.

But in the best case, they’ll introduce you to their followers, driving all kinds of new traffic to your blog.

So long as you’re in the habit of creating valuable content, those new visitors will start coming back for more.

Since the reference is something you should be doing anyway, this is a quick and easy added step that should give your traffic a great bump.

Gather Up The Experts And Include Them

What if you could get exposure from lots of experts for the same article?

Like, what if you could get 10-20 respected industry experts to share your article to their followers?

Because it’s something that’s totally easy to do.

Start by reaching out to those 10-20 experts.

In fact, reach out to more than that if you want 10-20 to answer.

Ask them all the same 1 or 2 questions about your industry.

It could be anything about your industry, including recent developments or major news.

Gather up the responses to make an article out of.

I think you can see where this is going, can’t you?

By including their expert opinions and viewpoints in your blog article, you’re offering them an incentive to share.

Once you’ve published the article, send them the link and ask them to promote it.

Chances are you’ll wind up with thousands of new visitors to that article.

And, again, if you’re regularly producing high quality content, they’ll come back for more.

Study An Influencer’s Case

Your industry is full of influencers.

These are the people that get attention and shape opinion about what you do.

They’re considered front runners and people to learn from.

If you ever want to be one of them, you need to learn from them.

They understand that, and they want to improve their industry.

That’s why they’re likely to answer your questions about one or more of their achievements.

Find someone who has done something that your audience would like to duplicate. Click To Tweet

Reach out to them to interview them about that achievement.

Find out how they did it, how they prepared for it, what it resulted in, and what they learned from it.

Then publish that interview as a blog article.

Like this interview I did with RankWatch.com about the future of SEO.

Clearly, when you’ve made a big deal about something an influencer has done, it’s a boost to their ego.

They’re going to share it.

Especially if you ask them nicely to.

That’s going to bring you a ton of traffic from their fan base.

It’s also going to have long-term SEO ramifications.

There’s a good chance you’re going to wind up on page one for that person’s name.

Especially if your industry influencers aren’t Richard Branson or Elon Musk level celebrities.

When someone searches for that influencer, they’ll find your content.

Then your name is going to become known, too.

Convert Your Content To Other Formats

You know blogs aren’t the only form of content, right?

Of course you do.

They shouldn’t be the only format your content takes, either.

You need to break down your information into other content formats and spread it around.

That’s going to include a list of things, including:

• Images
• Memes
• Video Clips
• Snaps
• Live Streams
• Long-Form Video
• Sound Bits
• Podcasts
• Text Bits
• Tweets
• LinkedIn Articles

And pretty much any other form of content you’d like to tackle.

No, that doesn’t mean you need to hit all of these.

But you do need to take advantage of as many as you can handle, both technically and logistically.

Creating quality forms of micro content makes your blog much more shareable and easier to ingest. Click To Tweet

Transforming your blog into video and audio formats allow advantages that text alone can’t.

And syndicated content gives you access to an audience you wouldn’t normally have.

All of these are eventually going to feed traffic back to your site and your other blog articles.

Especially if you’re doing a good job of optimizing your content.

You need to treat all of these additional formats as “top-of-the-funnel” content, designed to lead viewers to the next step.

If you can keep your target destination in mind as you create it, you’re going to have a ton more success.

More of that traffic will convert to leads.

Start Your Own Podcast

If you’re going to be checking out other formats, podcasts are worth the time.

Podcasts have several unique advantages over blog content.

Primarily advantageous is the fact that your audience can listen in while doing other tasks.

But if you want to use a podcast to promote your blog, you want to do something other than just convert your blog content to this audio format.

Use your podcast as a platform to make entirely new content. Click To Tweet

Think in terms of interviews with industry leaders, case studies of clients, and fireside chats about your industry.

Address current industry news, recent industry developments, and tips and advice your blog might address in further detail.

Create tangential information that you can then reference a blog article from.

In treating a podcast this way, you create a whole other form of media to distribute your blog content through.

As you optimize your podcast to find listeners, you’ll expose your blog to a whole new audience you’re building outside your site.

In listening to your podcast, that audience will grow to like and trust you.

That makes the information contained on your blog more valuable to them than it otherwise would have been.

When they start consuming your content through multiple channels, your influence on their buying decisions grows.

Have Readers Pay With A Share

For some content creators, a pay-for-content system may be a good choice.

However, maybe you’re not looking to earn money from your content alone.

In that case, having your audience pay with a share might be the right selection.

By leaving part of your content behind a share-button gateway, your audience can unlock the entire article with a quick promotion.

With enough initial value, you can let your readers be assured that they’re not sharing something that won’t help.

However, if they want the real gold, they’re going to have to help you promote it. Click To Tweet

It’s a win-win for you and your audience.

On most blogging platforms, it’s simple to add a pay-by-share button.

Usually all you need is a simple plugin, like WPMU’s Pay With A Like plugin for WordPress.

They’re usually not that difficult to setup and come with expert support.

Putting something like this in place allows valuable content to “go viral” much easier and lets you know what people really want to know.

Those shares work like a recommendation too, giving credibility to your content from your readers.

Become A Guest On Someone Else’s Blog

A great way to get more people in front of your content is to put your content where there are more people.

Guest blogging for others in your industry does that.

Imagine what it would do for you to place fresh, new, relevant content in front of a pre-existing audience that’s interested in what you know. Click To Tweet

Then imagine if that audience had a quick way to get to the other content you’ve created.

Do you think you’d have the kind of traffic that could create a lot of leads?

By providing guest content to others in your industry, you get to build your reputation within your industry.

You’re also getting a kind of endorsement from the blog owner you guest-posted for.

And, as long as you provide real value for the blog owner, you’ll likely get more opportunities to guest post in the future.

That’s going to lead to some great SEO results, like quality backlinks that prove relevance.

Getting permission to guest post on a blog in your industry isn’t difficult, either.

It does, however, require patience.

You’re going to need to contact many blog owners before you find one that will give you a shot.

Once you do, and you do well for them, opportunities will come more frequently.

Try To Get Onto Podcasts

If you’ve applied any of the principles I’ve shared so far, it’s likely that you’ve gained a little fame for your blog.

That means you are becoming an expert in your field.

When that happens, your knowledge becomes an asset to other influencers in your field.

They’re going to want you on their podcasts.

However, many podcasters have no idea that you’re available for this, so you have to reach out to them.

Find other influencers both above and below your level of fame.

Email them with an offer to bring value to their podcast.

Inevitably, some of them will take you up on the offer.

Most of the time you won’t even need to leave your own podcast studio.

With software like Zencastr or Cast, you can join a podcast remotely.

That’s going to put you in the reach of podcasters all over the world, allowing you to reach audiences you never thought you could. Click To Tweet

And if you bring value to their show, their audiences will end up checking out your content.

In the same way that you gain new traffic through guest-blogging, you’ll wind up with new traffic as a result of other podcasters.

When that traffic finds the kind of value you produce on a regular basis, they’ll keep coming back.

Ask For Expert Advice

This idea is going to take your “Expert Roundup” to the next level.

Instead of solely relying on experts on your field to provide the information, ask them to provide feedback on an article you’re writing.

For example, let’s use this article.

Specifically, the section on podcasting.

Though I didn’t reach out to anyone for it, I could have potentially reached out to podcasting expert John Lee Dumas.

He would have given some feedback about the power of podcasting for small businesses as a content model.

After all, he runs one of the most successful entrepreneur podcasts of all time.

He’s sure to have some sage advice.

I could then include that advice within the podcasting section.

If I did that for every section, my content value would increase dramatically.

I could then ask @johnleedumas and every other contributing expert to share the link once the article is published. Click To Tweet

With that kind of distribution, again, I would reach thousands of people who had never heard of my blog before.

And they’ll stay around if I’m providing more of the value that brought them in the first place.

Invite Others To Write On Your Blog

Now that you have some decent traffic and are seeing what the real value of a blog can be, it’s time to let others benefit.

In the same way you were struggling to become a guest writer for other influencer’s blogs, there are others out there trying to get their content seen.

Some of them may have followed the tips here and reached out to you already.

It’s time to get some guest writers of your own.

Reach out to up-and-coming bloggers in your industry, as well as major influencers. Click To Tweet

Give them the opportunity to write content for your audience.

As an added value, offer to write content for them.

Obviously, they’re going to promote the hell out of that content because, just like you, they’re looking for more traffic to their sites.

Their audiences will come for their content and stay for yours.

That’s the way cross-promotion works.

Because of the added exchange if you’re also writing for them, they’re going to put your name in front of their blog’s audience.

You can expect the same results as you would any other time you guest post.

Promoting Your Blog Doesn’t Have To Be Rocket Science

With a little creativity and willingness to work, you can get your blog in front of thousands of new readers.

Like I said, you don’t need any technical skills.

Just the ability to keep asking people to help.

If you can take the no’s until you get yeses, you’re going to see that traffic grow exponentially.

Just make sure the quality always comes first.