So you have a blog, it’s been around awhile, and you’ve gotten comfortable with publishing excellent content regularly. You take care to write well. You add images, format the post well, and do as much SEO optimization as can be expected from someone who isn’t an expert. You’ve built yourself a small audience, but still you wonder how to get your blog noticed so it can go from being a clichéd sideline to something that actually matters.
It’s not easy but it’s not as impossible as it seems.
Zero in on your target audience
You probably have an idea who your target audience is, but it’s time to get specific. You can’t market your blog just to people who are interested in interior design or gardening or whatever generic category your blog fits. You need a much more specific target, so create an avatar–ideally more than one–that represents the kind of person who would read your blog. It should be something like this:
Jane is a young professional who has just upgraded from her first post-college apartment. She’s got an active social life so she wants interior design ideas that will look fabulous to her guests while staying within a budget.
Once you have done that, figure out where Jane goes on social media (Facebook Groups, Twitter Hashtags, Pinterest, Instagram, wherever) and make sure to share your content there. Spamming is not how to get your blog noticed. If you’re exposing your content to a group, participate in the group. The best way to attract people is to be a person.
Jane is a young professional who has just upgraded from her first post-college apartment. She’s got an active social life so she wants interior design ideas that will look fabulous to her guests while staying within a budget.
Once you have done that, figure out where Jane goes on social media (Facebook Groups, Twitter Hashtags, Pinterest, Instagram, wherever) and make sure to share your content there. Spamming is not how to get your blog noticed. If you’re exposing your content to a group, participate in the group. The best way to attract people is to be a person.
Contact some influencers
In every industry there are people who have popular blogs and social media feeds. You can tap into a slice of their audience by interviewing them. If you bring them to your site and you have good stuff to offer, some of them will stick around.
It’s best not to concentrate on the blogs that have the heaviest traffic. It would be great if they would agree to an interview, but the reality is that they are bombarded with interview and guest post requests constantly. You have a much better chance of getting a positive response if you aim for the folks who are just a little bit more popular than you are.
And as with anything when approaching someone else, be polite, be positive, and expect to be ignored or rejected most of the time. When someone does agree to an interview, be respectful of their time. Be professional. Get your questions to them quickly, and notify them when the post goes live so they can send it out to their followers.
It’s best not to concentrate on the blogs that have the heaviest traffic. It would be great if they would agree to an interview, but the reality is that they are bombarded with interview and guest post requests constantly. You have a much better chance of getting a positive response if you aim for the folks who are just a little bit more popular than you are.
And as with anything when approaching someone else, be polite, be positive, and expect to be ignored or rejected most of the time. When someone does agree to an interview, be respectful of their time. Be professional. Get your questions to them quickly, and notify them when the post goes live so they can send it out to their followers.
Automate posting to social media
Everyone will tell you that posting to social media is how to get your blog noticed. It's true to a point, but your audience is global and isn't necessarily on social media when you are. Even if they were, the way social media posts fly by these days, your audience could be actively looking for your content when you post it and still miss it just because their stream if flying too fast. Automation can help.
On some sites it might be inadvisable to post the same content more than once or twice a day. In these cases, find the optimum times for your target audience and post then. On something like Twitter where there are a million messages in your stream every five minutes, posting multiple times a day won’t be frowned on as much so you can post a new post every other hour. Just make sure that you’re participating and not just spamming. If someone replies or retweets, respond or favorite their retweet just because people like to be acknowledged.
Of course you need tools to automate. Tweetdeck can do some of it, and there are countless Wordpress plugins that will work. Jetpack is a popular Wordpress plugin that automates social media and also provides a host of other handy tools.
But our favorite is Buffer. Buffer allows you to build up a list of posts to be posted, and a list of times and sites to post to. It will go through posting what’s in the queue whenever the next scheduled posting time occurs. There’s a Chrome plugin and a mobile version that ensure you can add to your queue no matter where or when you encounter something you want to share.
Building an audience is hard, but it is possible. Just remember: In all things, be a person, be polite, and have fun. It’s a slow process, but the rewards can be tremendous. And remember, nobody knows all the secrets to how to get your blog noticed. If you have an idea, try it; it just might be your breakout moment.
On some sites it might be inadvisable to post the same content more than once or twice a day. In these cases, find the optimum times for your target audience and post then. On something like Twitter where there are a million messages in your stream every five minutes, posting multiple times a day won’t be frowned on as much so you can post a new post every other hour. Just make sure that you’re participating and not just spamming. If someone replies or retweets, respond or favorite their retweet just because people like to be acknowledged.
Of course you need tools to automate. Tweetdeck can do some of it, and there are countless Wordpress plugins that will work. Jetpack is a popular Wordpress plugin that automates social media and also provides a host of other handy tools.
But our favorite is Buffer. Buffer allows you to build up a list of posts to be posted, and a list of times and sites to post to. It will go through posting what’s in the queue whenever the next scheduled posting time occurs. There’s a Chrome plugin and a mobile version that ensure you can add to your queue no matter where or when you encounter something you want to share.
Building an audience is hard, but it is possible. Just remember: In all things, be a person, be polite, and have fun. It’s a slow process, but the rewards can be tremendous. And remember, nobody knows all the secrets to how to get your blog noticed. If you have an idea, try it; it just might be your breakout moment.