Let us remember the good old fairy tale of Cinderella. We all know that she had a golden heart. But was it possible for the prince to notice her if fairy Godmother had not helped her in grooming and promoting her in grandeur in front of the prince? A good blog is a “Cinderella”. The content is good and informative but nobody is actually noticing. Why? Because it lacks promotion through the right channels.
So how to promote your blog effectively; effective enough to make the “Prince” (the audience) to sit and notice “Cinderella” (your blog)?
Promotion through Social Media:
The most effective way to promote your blog is to use social media. There are fairly high chances that people in your social network will check your blog link at least once. Even though the list of social platforms is long, sharing it on mediums like Blogster, Fuelmyblog, Itsmy, Jaiku, My Opera, Open Diary, Vox, Wooxie, Xanga apart from prominent social websites like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr takes your blog to the readers.
Promotion through indexing in search engines:
To promote a blog, it is very important to index it into search engines. It means that the search engine users will be able to find your blog through their search strings. Using webmaster tools like Google and Bing, indexes the blog faster.
Promotion through social bookmarking:
To get some instant as well as quality traffic to your blog, it is advisable to use social book marking sites. A reader creates his own library of websites of interest through social bookmarking sites. If your blog link is in his library, other readers can view it and add it in their own bookmarking library. Thus, the bookmark itself becomes the promotion factor.
Promotion through article directories:
Like a phone directory which stores your contact details and lets anyone reach to you, article directories make a reader reach to your blog. Putting your blog link in an article directory gives a back link tracing to your blog. More back links mean more people visiting the blog and more promotion.
Promotion through Blog commenting and Guest blogging:
You need to get in touch with the popular blogs and blogs similar to yours and offer to write guest blogs for them. Guest posts invite other bloggers to check your blog, making a silent promotion of your blog.
As a blogger, you need to be a voracious reader as well, reading other blogs and putting your comments there, to let people know about your views and your blog. However, promoting one’s blog link in each comment is not a good practice
Promotion in Discussion Forums:
Discussion forums let you know about the thoughts and the ideas running through the minds of your readers and the fellow bloggers. Active discussion from your side results in people noticing you and your blog.
Promotion through Community Sites:
Participating in popular community sites (like MMO SocialNetwork, Indiblogger, Blog Engage, BizSugar, Blokube, Inbound.org) makes you reach to the similar blogs.
Promotion through Q&A portals:
An excellent way to find and share information through portals (like Google Questions and Answers, Yahoo! Answers, LinkedIn Answers) help in promotion as well. There is no need to unnecessarily answer random questions. Rather, providing valuable answers to queries of your expertise acts as a promotional tool in driving traffic to your blog.
Promotion through Links and Backlinks:
Link building- the mutual exchange of the links of your blog with other bloggers and vice versa, acts as an effective way to promote your blog. Inter linking your blog posts also helps in promotion.
Promotion through RSS feeds:
How are your readers getting updated about the latest updates in your blog? Is it through the emails or through the RSS feeds? Concentrating on blog promotion through content feeds can let you have a large database of subscribers.
Image courtesy of Flickr, InfoDelhi Network