As a small business owner, you probably know that writing is a key component of marketing. However, only writing an article and submitting it to as many article directories as you can isn’t enough. Here are ten more ways to build more traffic to get better results:
1. Offer to Write Guest Blog Posts
Many blog owners are actively looking for guest bloggers. You can research blogs in a directory like Technorati or go to Blogger Linkup that can connect you with blogs looking for a guest blogger.
2. Blog Communities
Examples of Blog Communities that you can submit your blog to include MyBlogLog, Blogged, BlogCatalog and NetworkedBlogs. The search engines will index your blog faster because these blog communities have great search engine ranking.
3. Blog Directories
Blog Directories are great places to submit your blog to. The advantage of this is that more people will find you since the blogs are listed by category. Technorati is a great blog directory, but you can find more doing a search in Google.
4. Submit to Document Sharing Sites
Document sharing sites are often totally overlooked by the small and home business owner. Examples are Scribd, Issuu or Docshare, each with great search engine ranking. You will have to make your article into a PDF document for this.
5. Feed Directories
You should also submit your blog’s RSS feed to Feed Directories. Here are some good free ones: Feedage, Feedraider, GoldenFeeds, BlogDigger, RssMountain, RssMicro.com, RssMotron.com, Technorati.com and IceRocket.
After you submit your feed once, these directories should keep track of your new posts, and will index them.
6. Pinging Sites
Because pinging your site is very important if you want the search engines to index you and give you those coveted top positions, you need to do it every time you update your blog. By default, WordPress pings your blog to one pinging site every time you update. This can work against you as it pings after you edit as well, making it appear you are pinging unnecessarily. I found a great plugin that can stop this from happening. You can set it to ping every time you update your blog or to ping once every fifteen minutes, thereby safeguarding you from getting blocked by search engines for pinging too often.
7. Social Media Sites
If you sign up for a social media site such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube, use your blog name as your username. This will also help your blog get indexed quickly.
Share your blog posts on your social media sites to invite comments and retweets which will help your search engine ranking. You can make this process automatic through services such as Onlywire or Scoop.it if you curate as well.
8. Social Bookmarking Sites
Social bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit and Delicious can also help to give you more traffic back to your website. Onlywire also automates this process.
9. Blog Broadcasts
Add your blog links to your autoresponder and invite your subscribers to comment on them.
10. Offer to write for Ezines and Associations
You can offer to write for ezines and associations in your niche. You can also use the search engines for this.
Remember: content is king. If you apply all these strategies and your content is poor, everything will just be a waste of time. You also need to post daily so that people who want to read more from you can keep coming back for more.
Article by Hannah Du Plessis. Learn more about blogging
at Attraction Marketing and sign up for our newsletter to receive a free report: “10 Magnets To Attract Clients” – http://attractionmarketing.net.nz
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I already use many of the techniques listed and you are absolutely right, these are all great ways for promoting your blog and preventing it being penalised. Guest blogging can be particularly effective especially if you can guest on a high profile blog in your genre.
Hannah, thank you for a wonderful article.
Don’t forget this takes a lot of time for just promoting a blog…I guess it is worth it though..
thanks for sharing all the tips. Maybe press release can be included in the list. I see good result with press release site such as prlog and other paid press release sites.
Great suggestions, but your information needs to be updated. Blogged has been replaced by Chime.in – a new social network. MyBlogLog was shutdown by Yahoo. Blog Catalog and NetworkedBlogs are still kicking, and I have found them to be very effective.
Yes, it does seem like a lot of work but I am going to figure out how to schedule the time. Why not share the wealth, right? (Said with a broad smile) Thank you.
its very interesting tips. there are a few tips that I have done. obstacles that I face is that my blog using Indonesian. There are also difficulties when I tried to join in Technoraty. My blog was rejected because it uses the local language. but I was lucky because there is one online magazine in Indonesia that accept article submissions from bloggers .. who became my passion is, I write for readers not for search engines .. maybe that’s what motivates me to continue writing and sharing experiences.
tips kesehatan
There’s an eleventh point missing: Contacting journalists and other blogger, so that they link to you or just mention your blog.
The article is very interesting and provide new knowledge for a beginner like me
Share your blog posts on your social media sites to invite comments and retweets which will help your search engine ranking. You can make this process automatic through services such as Onlywire or Scoop.it if you curate as well.
What is the name of the plugin that stop your wordpress site from pinging every time you make an edit. Can you provide a link to it?
Thanks
Bloggerlinkup is good, but you can also try blogsynergy.com and linkami.com to get matched on guest blogging.
i think facebook is much better then all for blog promoting ?
great post, nice articles. thx for sharing
Nice post:) awesome tips, Thank you:)
Hey there! I’ve been reading your website for a long time now and finally got the bravery to go ahead and give you a shout out from Houston Tx! Just wanted to mention keep up the fantastic job!
Good article can be used for development in future blogs
Great post. I agree with all of these.
It’s one thing to post a quality blog post, but you need to promote it for SEO purposes in order to gain the full effects.
Social bookmarking (in my book) probably should be a tad higher on your list (if it’s in order of relevance) but everything ahead of it is just as important. Google loves blogs and that’s why WordPress is a dream for SEO/Web designers
Thanks for the post. Cheers mate.
Thanks for the tips! Good Woman:)
The Perfect 10 Hannah Thanks For Them.
Good tips. I do have one issue though: innovative means new and novel not good ideas people have been using for years. Doesn’t mean they aren’t good ideas but they certainly are not innovative.
Thanks for all your comments guys. The ping plugin is MaxBlogPing. it’s a dream!
What do you mean submitting to Document Sharing Sites? Can you use your current blog posts, convert them to pdf and submit to these sites? If so, isn’t this a case of duplicate content?
Great tips Hannah.Wonderful really.I just started blogging with wordpress ,and i have an e-book :The Animal story ,which i am trying to promote so i feel your tips are really God sent.Thank you for the tips.
Thnks Hannah. Great tips from you.
Hi Hannah,
Thanks for sharing these top tips on blog promotion,
Hi Hannah,
I really found your article to be very informative, and some of these websites i have never heard of before, but i am now using. I really appreciate these tips.
Hi Hannah,
I am new to wordpress blogs and this article has really helped me with my blog promotion, it has been very informative and easy to understand. Keep up your good work
Wow! What a great article. T o find guest blogging opportunities I also use blogsynergy.com and myblogguest.com
Great list. I’ve seen a lot of success with feed directories and social bookmarking sites myself and if you’re blogging but not keeping an active account on facebook, twitter and Google+ then shame on you!
Hi Hannah,
You site is a real refreshing change to whats out there, I have to admit I hadn’t thought about writing for Ezines etc. I goggled them and there a lot of sites out there. I’m also going to spend more time on the social media site, something I’ve neglected up until now.
Regards
John
Great tips. Thanks for sharring
Thank you for that information.
Being a new blogger, I had no idea about the default pinging process in wordpress. I shall most certainly be more careful as to how often i update next time or look into the plugin you have suggested.
Still learning!
creating a blog is easy but promoting can be very challenging but this post really can help to boost the blog on web.
Great post I will be trying Blogger Linkup. I am using ezinearticles.com with some success