In our current digital environment, many businesses have caught on to the importance of blogs to attract internet users to their sites. One part of this, that some aren’t as in tune with, however, is the next step of promoting the blog itself. A savvy approach to blog promotion will help maximize its reach and ensure all your efforts to write and maintain a blog aren’t in vain.

For this article, we’re operating under the assumption that you’ve already optimized your SEO for your blog since that by itself is its own big old important strategy. If you haven’t already done that, we’ve got more information on how to improve your SEO for your blog in, not coincidentally, our own blog.

So, without further ado, here are five effective methods to achieve just that:

Use your social media (and use it well!)

We’ve discussed before the importance of social media, and while certain platforms can overall feel vapid at best, that doesn’t have to be the case on your end. Just like with the content on your site, you can build up a quality, informative, and interesting social media presence that attracts users and acts as an introductory spot for your blog and business.

Of course, the most basic part here crossing over between your site and social accounts, whether Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or others, is just posting new blog entries on them! Yeah, that’s kind of (super?) obvious, but sometimes we overlook the basics.

This is also where we should bring up the importance of headlines, subheadings, captions, and visual accompaniment. There’s a reason why photojournalism is important, or newspaper headlines become iconic — they resonate deeply with readers. Now, you’re probably not going to be publishing something as groundbreakingly historic as the Miracle On Ice Sports Illustrated cover or “Dewey Defeats Truman,” but the same principle is nevertheless true; a visual and written hook is important no matter the medium.

In a related vein, when applicable, infographics and relevant statistics in the captions or visuals help readers contextualize the point of your work, making them more likely to read further and, just as important, share.

Other than your content itself, there are other aspects of social media that are small things that have a pretty big impact.

This can be something as simple as engaging with your audience and responding to some comments, ranging to bigger endeavors like collaborating with other like-minded bloggers. On the non-organic front, social media paid advertising is also something to be open to.

And lastly a reminder: If you don’t have the bandwidth to run a social media account consistently and well, it’s often better to not have an account on that platform at all.

It’s better to have high-quality, well-run accounts on one or two platforms than to spread yourself too thin and have a dozen accounts that barely post and look amateur. The latter just ends up making you look unprofessional, delegitimizes your brand, and can even sometimes confuse potential customers about the state of your business.

Focus on quality in all facets and build out from there.

Related to that is the next approach:

Engage with online communities and show you value them

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One could argue this should be under the umbrella of the last strategy since communities of people tend to congregate on social media — Reddit and to an extent Quora are popular gathering places — but we’re including it as its own thing because the approach itself is pretty distinct.

Good examples of this are the sunglasses brand Pit Viper and the college apparel business Homefield, particularly on Twitter, and previously the hockey equipment brand STX on Reddit.

Pit Viper and Homefield have cultivated extremely engaged followings because of their high energy, and personal engagement with the communities that value them. This especially contrasts with other corporate accounts that are neither responsive nor have a voice that shows they “get” their communities, unlike these two.

These are good case studies in identifying how casually versus traditionally professional you want to represent yourself online, and developing a voice based on that within your communities.

STX, meanwhile, was in the past a fantastic example of using Reddit to help inform interested users, chime in with relevant information, and cheekily “sell” your brand — although please note the quotes around that. They didn’t spam or actively try to sell their products on Reddit; many subreddits would ban your account if you tried to do that, and even if they wouldn’t, it makes you look awful. (You’re here to build genuine connections with your people, not spam them and make them hate you.)

But if someone were to ask the community, for example, for suggestions for glove models that were form-fitting and flexible, STX’s Reddit account might chime in “Well hey there, we’ve got the RX3 gloves which are low-volume and good for skinny hands, or people who want a tighter fit.”

And once again, on a related note:

Cross-promote and guest blog with other blogs and businesses

Again, this is all about building community and expanding your visibility at the same time.

Making connections with other blogs that have your same values and relevant interests is, of course, a symbiotic relationship. By guest blogging on their site, for example, you can provide them with high-quality work that adds value to their site while also extending your own reach.

This goes without saying — and would naturally be enforced by the business with which you’re collaborating — but keep any guest posts relevant to the host’s site! An example could be, say, an HVAC company collaborating with a veterinary clinic on the clinic’s site, discussing on a blog post about how air purifiers can help minimize dander and other allergens in your home, increasing the health and quality of life for both the humans and animals in the family.

If they fit in naturally, it’s also a good move to include the occasional link back to your own relevant blogs within a guest post, but don’t force them if they don’t make sense. (This can be especially helpful if you include UTM parameters to track how much traffic you get out of a given guest post.)

Generally speaking, collaborating with other bloggers and businesses who you value allows you both to promote each other’s work and help introduce each other to a wider audience.

Don’t forget email

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Depending on what you do, this can be huge. Like, make the difference in your business or career (if you’re a freelancer or one-person business) huge. We know people in certain industries who have completely made their career via strategic social media posting and using that to funnel people to sign up for their email list.

What can make email lists so effective is that people choose to sign up for them. For this reason, those that you’re hitting via email are a self-selected group that have a baseline level of interest in you and have essentially said “Yes, I actively want to be hearing from you.” That’s a receptive audience.

For those users that are on the fence — interested, but maybe not initially wanting to commit to getting your emails, you can offer incentives such as discounts that will tip the scales.

As for the email contents themselves, just like your blog, you should make them engaging and informative. People will realize quickly if you’re trying to take shortcuts here, and foisting upon them lower quality work. Readers aren’t dumb, and that unsubscribe button can look pretty tempting if you give them a reason.

Lastly, take this moment to track engagement metrics with which you can improve your emails in the future. Some providers such as MailChimp offer native tracking options, while you can otherwise use UTM parameters if the native tracking isn’t available.

Don’t turn your nose up at paid advertising

Sure, you don’t want to disproportionately rely on this, but good old-fashioned “paying for ads” has stuck around for a reason.

Pay-per-click advertising platforms like Google Ads are helpful for supplementing organic efforts to expand your blog’s visibility. This option is most effective if your primary goal is to increase brand awareness and just general site traffic.

Much of this strategy follows pretty standard processes that are associated with all PPC marketing. For example, it’s imperative to first define your target audience and execute on that by writing compelling, engaging copy for your ads. You’ll need to then set a budget and, after launching, monitor the performance of your PPC campaign regularly. We nag about this all the time, but once again: You can’t set it and forget it in PPC land and expect to get a lot out of all the effort you put in!

Regardless of which of these strategies you prioritize, measuring the results of these promotional efforts is crucial to understanding what’s working and what’s not.

Web analytics tools such as GA4 or Adobe Analytics can help you track blog traffic, user behavior, and conversions. From here you can identify areas to improve on and make decisions informed by concrete data.

All things considered, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach that will universally work the best here. Everyone’s goals, audience, and the environment in which they inhabit are different, so it’s up to you to figure out how to weigh these strategies so your process is as effective as possible.

What is universal, is that consistency (and persistence) is the key. It may take a few months — even up to a year — before you start seeing consistent, solid results from your work. Without consistent effort on this front though, you’ll never give your efforts the opportunity to get off the ground. You just gotta keep at it and recognize that turnarounds don’t happen overnight.