How to Promote Your Blog: 21 NEW Strategies

In today’s post, I’m going to amusement you precisely however to beforehand your blog.

In fact:

These are the aforesaid strategies that I utilized to turn my blog to 553,682 monthly visitors:

Let’s dive close in.

• 1. Guest Post Bonuses
• 2. Publish Data-Driven Content
• 3. Update and Upgrade Old Content
• 4. LinkedIn Syndication
• 5. Facebook Boosted Posts (With Retargeting)
• 6. The Super Simple Newsletter
• 7. Cross-Pollinate Your Audience
• 8. Collab With Other Blogs
• 9. Super Personalized Outreach
• 10. Eye-Catching Social Media Images
• 11. Turn Blog Content Into YouTube Videos
• 12. Reply to Every Single Comment
• 13. Write Blog Posts connected NEW Topics
• 14. Podcast Bonuses
• 15. Speak astatine Events
• 16. Publish Posts astatine The Right Time
• 17. Leave Super Helpful Comments connected Other Blogs
• 18. Create a Blog Alliance
• 19. Reader Case Studies
• 20. Create Cool Visuals, Charts, and Images
• 21. Double Down On List Posts
• Bonus #1: Start List Posts With Your Most Unique Tip
• Bonus #2: Add Tweetable Quotes To Your Content

1. Guest Post Bonuses

If you’re conscionable starting out, guest posting is simply a GREAT mode to turn your blog.

There’s lone 1 problem:

It’s REALLY hard to get radical from your impermanent station to your website.

In fact, one manufacture study recovered that the mean impermanent station brings successful lone 50 visitors.

The solution?

Guest Post Bonuses.

With a Guest Post Bonus, you don’t conscionable flip successful a nexus astatine the bottommost of your post.

Instead, you connection radical thing that makes them WANT to sojourn your website.

For example, a portion backmost I published this impermanent station connected The Buffer blog.

Yes, I had an writer bio link.

But I besides created a Guest Post Bonus conscionable for readers of my impermanent post.

And that azygous impermanent station brought successful 471 visitors successful the archetypal month:

And tons of those caller visitors signed up for my newsletter.

Nice.

2. Publish Data-Driven Content

Data-driven contented is BLOWING UP close now.

And for a bully reason:

Content with information is simply a large mode for your blog to basal out.

For example, a fewer years agone we published this monolithic search motor ranking factors study.

Overall, that station led to thousands of shares connected societal media.

And a ton of backlinks.

The lone occupation was:

This survey was insanely hard (and expensive) to propulsion off.

There were servers. Crawlers. Data partners. Bugs. Problems. Millions of information points. And tons more.

Yes, data-driven contented takes much enactment than a database post.

But it doesn’t person to beryllium THIS hard.

For example, aft the hunt motor ranking factors study, we published this survey connected dependable search.

Make nary mistake: this took a batch of work.

First, our CTO had to manually inquire his Google Home instrumentality 10,000 questions.

Then, we transcribed the answers.

Finally, we analyzed the data.

So yeah, it wasn’t easy. But this survey was astir 20x easier than our large Google study.

And it inactive did GREAT.

In fact, we got a immense spike successful postulation connected Day 1.

And radical inactive nexus to and mention our survey each the time.

All anyone truly needed to propulsion this disconnected was a Google Home instrumentality and idiosyncratic consenting to enactment successful the work.

We conscionable happened to beryllium the archetypal to bash it.

3. Update and Upgrade Old Content

A fewer years ago, I started a Manhattan Project for the Backlinko blog:

Update each azygous station connected our site.

It wasn’t easy.

But this mega task helped boost Backlinko’s wide postulation by 25.71% compared to the erstwhile year:

Now, 25% whitethorn not dependable similar a lot.

But that 25.71% summation = 410,322 much yearly visitors.

(Which is a lot.)

With that, let’s dive into the steps.

First, spell to the past leafage of your blog feed.

Then, update and amended each post.

For example, I hadn’t done a large update to this station successful YEARS.

Most of the strategies successful my station inactive worked.

But a batch of the contented was obsolete.

So I went successful and overhauled the post.

For example, I replaced aged visuals and images.

Removed aged strategies:

And overall, made the station MUCH much up-to-date.

Finally, I pushed the changes live… and changed the “last updated” day connected the post.

Which boosted the wide postulation to that leafage by 22.52%.

Rinse and repetition for arsenic galore posts arsenic you tin handle.

Depending connected however galore posts you have, this tin instrumentality months (or adjacent years).

In fact, it took maine 6 weeks to update each of our content.

But, arsenic you saw, it was wholly worthy it.

4. LinkedIn Syndication

LinkedIn present has 756 cardinal users.

Despite those brainsick numbers, I don’t spot galore radical talking astir LinkedIn.

That’s bully quality for you and me. Because it means LinkedIn is mostly untapped.

In fact:

You tin get immoderate superior traction connected LinkedIn simply by reposting your champion worldly there.

For example, a portion ago, I reposted this post connected LinkedIn.

I virtually copied the nonstop station word-for-word.

And contempt being an aged post, it got 3,800+ views.

This works due to the fact that NO ONE is posting thing absorbing connected LinkedIn.

So erstwhile you people thing cool, you tin instantly basal out.

5. Facebook Boosted Posts (With Retargeting)

It’s nary concealed that Facebook integrated scope is fundamentally 0% for astir pages close now.

This means that you NEED to boost your posts if you privation them to get seen.

That said:

CPCs connected Facebook are getting ace expensive.

(Especially if you’re successful a B2B abstraction similar I am.)

Fortunately, you tin alteration your CPC by 25-75% with retargeting.

For example, I posted this connected the Backlinko Facebook leafage a portion ago:

And I decided to usage immoderate fancy targeting options.

Which ended up costing $2.60 CPC per click.

Not crazy. But not a large ROI either.

So a fewer months aboriginal erstwhile I boosted this post, I decided to lone boost it to radical that visited Backlinko successful the past 60 days.

And due to the fact that I targeted radical that I KNOW would beryllium funny successful our content, our CPC was lone .67 cents a pop:

6. The Super Simple Newsletter

One of the archetypal lessons I learned with Backlinko was:

Newsletters are a GREAT mode to beforehand caller posts.

Over the years, I’ve tested 25+ antithetic formats and layouts for our email newsletters.

And each that investigating had led to 1 large takeaway:

Super Simple Newsletters enactment best.

For example, here’s a newsletter we sent retired to the Backlinko assemblage astir a caller post:

No fancy graphics.

No agelong intro.

No images.

Just a speedy intro and a nexus to the post.

And due to the fact that our newsletters absorption connected the main connection (that we conscionable published a caller post), our CTRs are 2-3x higher than the manufacture mean for a database of our size.

7. Cross-Pollinate Your Audience

As you whitethorn know, I don’t station precise overmuch connected Twitter.

(In fact, I mean astir 1-2 tweets per week.)

And contempt that, I person implicit 117k Twitter followers.

My secret?

I inquire caller email subscribers to travel maine connected Twitter.

In fact, I’ve had that CTA successful spot since 2013.

And that elemental fastener has led to implicit 20k Twitter followers.

8. Collab With Other Blogs

Over the past fewer years, I’ve worked with different blogs connected infographics.

Industry studies:

And lawsuit studies for the blog.

For example, immoderate clip ago, I teamed up with Pitchbox for this manufacture study.

This collab was a win-win.

I got awesome information that I could usage for a data-driven post.

And they got their merchandise (and revamped blog) successful beforehand of thousands of people.

9. Super Personalized Outreach

Have you ever received a generic outreach email similar this?

You’re not alone.

More and much people are utilizing blogger outreach to beforehand their content.

And arsenic you’ve astir apt noticed, they’re doing it each wrong.

Specifically, they blast retired the aforesaid nonstop transportation to hundreds of people.

That’s the atrocious news.

The bully quality is that you tin EASILY basal out.

How? Personalize each outreach email that you send.

In fact, the outreach survey I mentioned earlier recovered that personalized messages got 32% much replies than those that utilized the aforesaid nonstop template.

For example, I recovered this breached link:

And realized that we had a usher that would marque a PERFECT replacement.

So I sent retired this personalized message:

And due to the fact that I didn’t usage a lame template oregon beg for a link, they happily added my nexus to their post.

From A LOT of testing, I tin archer you that your societal representation makes a immense difference.

For example, we utilized to slap our societal media images unneurotic astatine the past minute. Or usage a random representation from the post.

Today, we make societal media images designed to basal retired connected someone’s Twitter oregon Facebook feed.

For example, erstwhile we people thing with data, we diagnostic a compelling chart:

(And we resize the illustration truthful it’s optimized for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn representation dimensions.)

And if we’re publishing a database station oregon step-by-step guide, we person our decorator make thing that volition basal out.

This benignant of happening takes a small spot of other effort.

But successful my experience, the increase successful traffic that you get makes it wholly worthwhile.

11. Turn Blog Content Into YouTube Videos

I utilized to commencement each YouTube video from scratch.

And it took FOREVER.

In fact, I utilized to walk 10 hours connected a azygous 15-minute video.

(And I’d estimation that I spent 70% of that clip connected the video script.)

Today, I basal my videos connected existing contented from blog posts, newsletters and keynote speeches.

And it makes this process MUCH easier.

Note: I’m not straight-up recycling a blog station into a video. That’s lame. Instead, I’m utilizing bits and pieces of high-quality contented arsenic the ground of my script.

For example, this video from my transmission is simply a mishmash of contented from 1 of my ebooks, a newsletter, respective antithetic blog posts… positive immoderate caller stuff.

And due to the fact that the video isn’t conscionable a rehash of an aged blog post, it racked up 148,168 views.

You mightiness person noticed that I get a just magnitude of comments connected each post.

What’s my secret?

First, I ONLY people world-class content.

(In different words, contented that’s worthy commenting on.)

Second, I reply to beauteous overmuch each remark that idiosyncratic leaves… particularly successful the archetypal 48 hours aft a station goes live.

In fact, according to our WordPress data, we person 29,142 comments connected the blog.

And astir 40% of those comments are maine replying to comments from Backlinko readers.

So that means that I’ve replied to 11,656 comments truthful far.

That’s benignant of insane. And replying to 11,656 comments takes clip and effort.

But these replies amusement that I attraction astir the radical that instrumentality the clip to permission comments. Even if it’s conscionable a elemental “Thank you”.

It besides gives maine a accidental to reply questions that radical have.

And astatine the extremity of the day, replying to comments is 1 of the main reasons that we’ve been capable to physique specified an progressive assemblage present connected the Backlinko blog.

13. Write Blog Posts connected NEW Topics

Does your niche person a clump of entrenched competitors?

Trust me, I’ve been there.

When I archetypal launched the Backlinko blog I was diving headfirst into the brutally competitory selling space.

And I was a one-man amusement going up against HUGE competitors with dozens of employees.

So:

How did I basal retired and get traction?

I published contented connected NEW topics that my competitors weren’t covering.

For example, 1 of the archetypal posts I published connected the blog was astir YouTube SEO:

And different aboriginal station was astir building an email list:

These were 2 topics that my competitors weren’t penning about. Which helped my contented basal out.

This is simply a strategy that I inactive travel to this day.

Some clip ago, I published this in-depth usher to Google RankBrain:

And due to the fact that I was truthful early, this station didn’t blend successful with the 100 different posts astir RankBrain.

(Because determination weren’t any.)

Which helped my contented truly basal out:

14. Podcast Bonuses

This is similar the Guest Post Bonus strategy I talked astir earlier.

But alternatively of creating a bonus for each impermanent post…

…you make a acceptable of bonuses for each podcast you spell connected arsenic a guest.

For example, erstwhile I went connected Pat Flynn’s podcast, I created this bonus conception for his listeners:

And astatine the extremity of the podcast, I specifically mentioned this bonus section.

Which led to an influx of traffic…

…and much importantly, email subscribers.

With that, here’s the nonstop process.

First, make thing that listeners of that podcast would want.

Ideally, your bonuses should complement what you’re going to speech astir connected the podcast.

For example, earlier I went connected Pat’s podcast, I created a bonus section.

This bonus conception contained:

• A speedy lawsuit study
• An on-page SEO checklist
• And a swipe record of 25 high-quality nexus gathering videos and posts

Second, tally it by the podcast host. Because you’re offering thing ace invaluable to their audience, astir won’t person a occupation with it. But it ne'er hurts to cheque successful beforehand.

Finally, big the bonus conception landing leafage connected a URL that’s casual to retrieve and type.

For example, for my Pat Flynn podcast appearance, I made the URL: backlinko.com/pat.

Then you conscionable person to acceptable up your email marketing level to present the bonuses aft they motion up.

That’s each determination is to it.

15. Speak astatine Events

Speaking astatine conferences is simply a GREAT mode to beforehand your blog.

But not for the crushed you mightiness think.

I’ll explain…

When I archetypal launched Backlinko, I spoke astatine arsenic galore conferences arsenic I could.

In fact, I spoke astatine events in:

• Dublin
• Boston
• Austin
• Istanbul
• Romania
• Berlin
• And tons much cities and countries

Did getting connected signifier successful beforehand of 300 radical skyrocket my blog’s growth?

Probably not.

So however did these conferences assistance me?

Because I got to conscionable different speakers.

(Speakers that are leaders successful the SEO and selling space.)

In fact, speaking astatine these events helped maine make partnerships, mastermind groups, and friendships with truly astute people.

It adjacent gave maine a accidental to marque an aboriginal angel concern successful a startup.

And this wouldn’t person happened if I randomly sent these folks an email with: “Hey, bash you privation to spouse up connected something?”.

To beryllium clear:

Now that my blog has traction, I beauteous overmuch stopped speaking astatine events. But that’s different communicative for different post…

But erstwhile I was conscionable starting out, speaking astatine events was SUPER helpful.

16. Publish Posts astatine The Right Time

What’s the BEST clip to people a caller blog post?

Well, BuzzSumo and I acceptable retired to reply this question.

And we recovered that… there isn’t truly a large difference betwixt antithetic days of the week.

That said:

Every small spot helps.

And if you privation to get much postulation and societal shares from each post, publishing astatine the close clip is KEY.

The happening is, the “best time” is antithetic for each blog.

For us, we’ve experimented with publishing connected Sundays astatine 12pm, Fridays astatine 7am, and Mondays astatine 2pm…

And we yet figured retired that publishing connected Tuesdays astatine 11am works champion for us.

But that’s not thing immoderate manufacture survey oregon “best clip to people a post” nonfiction tin archer you.

You gotta experiment.

This is thing I did A LOT erstwhile I was archetypal starting out.

For example, I’d permission comments that added to the discussion:

Or conscionable supported bloggers that I was rooting for:

And this helped maine get connected people’s radar screens… without being a pushy jerkface.

In fact, these adjuvant comments straight led to a fistful of impermanent station and podcast interrogation invites.

Sweet!

18. Create a Blog Alliance

A “Blog Alliance” is wherever you marque friends with different bloggers.

(And “Blog Alliance” sounds a batch cooler than “make friends”. So I went with that. 🙂 )

For example, successful the aboriginal days of Backlinko, I’d spell connected play calls with Bryan Harris.

And these calls were SUPER helpful.

Sure, it was bully to person idiosyncratic to speech to astir writing, hiring, tools, products, and newsletters.

But we besides swapped circumstantial tips and tactics that helped america some grow.

So if there’s different blogger that’s astatine astir the aforesaid level arsenic you are, nonstop them a speedy connection similar this:

19. Reader Case Studies

I LOVE scholar lawsuit studies.

In fact, scholar lawsuit studies were 1 of the concealed weapons I utilized to turn my blog successful grounds time.

With that, here’s the step-by-step process.

First, place a strategy, method oregon extremity that you privation to highlight.

For example, backmost successful the time I wanted to get the connection retired astir The Skyscraper Technique.

Second, find a scholar that got results from thing you talked about.

Finally, enactment with your scholar connected an in-depth lawsuit study.

In different words: they nonstop you the details. And you constitute up what happened.

That way, it’s not a impermanent post. And the penning is inactive successful your ain voice.

For example, I worked with Chris Gimmer connected this Skyscraper Technique lawsuit survey a fewer years back:

And that station did GREAT. It brought successful 13,486 visitors successful the archetypal period alone.

And radical shared it connected Twitter similar crazy:

20. Create Cool Visuals, Charts, and Images

You mightiness person noticed that I thin to sprinkle successful a fistful of customized visuals and charts successful each post.

That’s nary accident.

I discovered that these customized visuals get shared astir (and linked to) without maine needing to hustle with outreach.

For example, I asked our decorator to make a ocular of a leafage that’s optimized for dependable hunt SEO.

And due to the fact that this ocular helps radical recognize dependable hunt SEO, tons of different bloggers person utilized it successful their blog posts:

Bottom line? Include 2-3 visuals, charts oregon mini-infographics successful each post. If the station does well, different bloggers volition spot your visuals. And a tiny but important percent volition usage your visuals successful their content.

21. Double Down On List Posts

List posts are a blogging mainstay.

And they’re not going anyplace anytime soon.

Our contented survey with BuzzSumo recovered that database posts got much societal shares than immoderate different contented format:

This makes consciousness if you deliberation astir it…

People emotion ace tactical tips and tactics that they tin usage close away.

And a database station has a clump of these tactics connected a azygous page.

In fact, erstwhile I analyzed which posts brought successful the astir traffic, 4 retired of the apical 10 were database posts.

This is wherefore I’ve published respective database posts (like this one) implicit the past fewer years.

And I really person a fewer much database posts successful the works close now.

Speaking of database posts…

Bonus #1: Start List Posts With Your Most Unique Tip

Here’s a mistake I spot a batch of bloggers marque with database posts:

They enactment the astir important and adjuvant extremity astatine the apical of their list.

Why is this a mistake?

Well, erstwhile idiosyncratic lands connected your database station they’re looking for thing new.

So you request to springiness them your astir unsocial strategy close disconnected the bat.

So alternatively of organizing your database posts similar this:

Organize them similar this:

In different words, statesman and extremity your database with strategies that your scholar astir apt hasn’t seen before.

For example:

A fewer years agone I published this database station connected however to get much views connected YouTube.

And my archetypal extremity was a caller mode to make much effectual thumbnails.

Of each the things you could perchance bash to get much views, is this the astir important?

Heck no!

But it IS a strategy that astir radical haven’t heard of before. Which means they’ll support reading.

Then, aboriginal successful my list, I outline strategies that marque the biggest difference.

Bonus #2: Add Tweetable Quotes To Your Content

This is an EASY mode to get much radical to stock your contented connected Twitter.

Here’s however it works:

First, find a punctuation from your station that’s worthy sharing.

In different words: a Tweetable Quote.

A Tweetable punctuation is simply a short, absorbing punctuation that easy fits wrong of Twitter’s quality limit.

For example, this enactment successful my “8-Step Content Strategy” station was a Tweetable quote.

It had a “Click to Tweet This” nexus underneath the quote.

(BTW, I made this nexus utilizing ClickToTweet.com.)

When idiosyncratic clicked connected that link, they got a pre-written tweet with that quote.

That’s each determination is to it.

And if your punctuation hits a nerve, radical WILL stock it.

(Including tons of radical that wouldn’t person different shared your post.)

And I tin archer you from acquisition that these “bonus shares” truly adhd up.

What Did You Think?

Now I’d similar to perceive from you:

Which method from today’s station are you going to usage first?

Are you going to people much database posts? Or permission comments connected different blogs?

Either way, fto maine cognize by leaving a remark beneath close now.