How Do I Market My Blog?

A long-time client who has been blogging regularly, recently emailed us asking:

I need advice/mentorship/assistance with the “Blog” we do… Do you have any Tutorials on blogging or advise on what I can do right from the site?

Entire books and online classes have been written on blogging (I’ll recommend some at the end of this post), so I can barely scratch the surface on the top in a single blog post, but based on my experience blogging since 2006, I’ll share with you my…

Top 7 Blogging Tips

1) Just do it! Blogging yields a ton of benefits. It allows you to help others and to demonstrate your authority on your topic. It engages your visitors. The regularly published new content can be indexed by search engines, can motivate others to link to your posts and your site, and motivate visitors to share your content and your website.

2) Write for your readers not for yourself. Some bloggers write about whatever is on their mind. They write to express themselves. Those bloggers usually have one reader – their mom. Successful bloggers are always thinking, “What can I write to help my readers?”

3) Grow your email list. It’s difficult to grow a blog if all it gets is one-time readers, people who happen across the blog and then never come back again. Successful blogs provide a way for visitors to subscribe, turning that first-time visitor into a regular reader. You can gain “subscribers” on social media like Facebook and Twitter but Facebook posts and tweets are only seen by a small percentage of the people who follow you. Email is the best way to regularly communicate with readers.

4) Interact with your readers. Allow your readers to comment on your posts. Reply to comments. If you share your posts in social media, don’t just broadcast, read and respond to comments & replies.

5) Engage where your audience already is. Who is your audience? Think about what type of people will be most interested in your blog. Now find where they already are. Are they in some social media groups? Reading and commenting on blogs similar to yours? Go to those places, interact, help people, comment, share, and every once in a while share your blog posts there.

6) Learn from other bloggers. Successful bloggers read other blogs. They observe the way their websites & blogs are structured, their writing style, the types of posts they write, they way they engage with readers. They ask questions. They are constantly trying new things in an effort to improve.

7) Build a tribe. The most successful bloggers have a cause and surround themselves with like-minded people who believe in the same cause and believe the blogger is advancing that cause. The cause could be spiritual, political, it could be helping people get better in a particular field, or helping people live out their mission online. 😉

To learn more about improving your blog, read our many blog posts about blogging.

I also highly recommend Darren Rowse’s site ProBlogger.net. Several years ago I led a group a blogger through his ebook 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, and it was awesome! Some of the posts in that series have more than 200 comments on them.

What say you?

• Which of these 7 tips resonates most with you? Why?
• What advice would you give someone who wants to grow their blog?