17 New Ways To Promote Your Blog Content

Whether you're a newbie or an old hand in the blogging game, we can all use some extra tips on promoting our stellar posts. Here's 17 awesome and easy ways to make them work even harder for you, and drive traffic to your blog.

1. Add your latest post to your email signature

There are apps that can do this for you by pulling your RSS feed into the email program and updating it seamlessly. For eg, Wisestamp, which I haven't personally used but it sounds pretty cool. Or you can go old school and just update it yourself every few weeks. That’s what I do.

2. Get involved in social media groups and use your posts to answer questions

Social media forums are a goldmine for content creators. And people love it when someone offers a blog post that answers their very question. It's a great way to get new eyes on your content. Just be sure that you’re not being spammy but are genuinely helping others.

3. Direct your email list towards your latest post

Consider it a given that many of the people who read your blog won’t also independently follow your blog. So, take the guesswork and double content creation out of the picture and write 1 post, then direct your email subscribers to read it. You'll drive blog traffic while also saving time and recycling your content.

4. Send your content promotion at the best possible times

There’s exhaustive research available (and awesome visuals) on the best times to post content on every social media and other content platform. You can also get into the nitty gritty of different types of content, days of the week, times of the day, location and so on to help you best target your post promotion. Pick your platform, location and audience and play around to see what works for you.

5. Send plain text emails for your posts

It’s natural to think that fancy emails with images are more likely to be read and shared but research shows that’s not the case. Plain text emails actually have a higher open rate and are less likely to go to spam. Yay, that means less work for you, and less to download for the reader.

6. Resend your post emails to people who didn’t open them the first time

Email marketing apps like Mailchimp and Convertkit (affiliate link) can tell you all sorts of interesting info such as who opens your emails, clicks on a link and so forth. That’s why resending unopened email is one good way to encourage post readership. Many people don’t have the time to read posts straightaway and a prompt at a different time and date can persuade them otherwise.

7. Be generous with social share options

Often when I’m reading an article and want to share it, I have to search the whole page to find a share button. It's bizarre that someone would have spent an age writing this great content and not given any thought to how others might share it. So, my advice here is to be generous - have share buttons top and bottom of your posts, down the sides, on the images, and anywhere else you can.

8. Include your blog link in your social media profiles

Not just your website (which usually defaults to your homepage) but your actual blog page - that’s where you want to drive traffic and readers, right?

9. Use post snippets in social media

Sharing and promoting your content is vital for driving new traffic. But you can’t be rewriting things over and over; rather recycle your current stuff in creative ways. Take snippets, quotes or important points from your blog posts and use them on different social media platforms

10. Use visuals in content promotion

I’ve never been that into those quote images but they are huge. Take Cookie’s word for it, this 40 year old muppet is still rocking. So, pop into Canva and create a few simple quotes from your blog post, then share them on social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

11. Share your content over and over

Copywriter Kate Toon says that for every post that takes 2 hours to write, she spends about 6 hours promoting it. This is the kind of mentality you need; blogging isn’t just about writing content, it’s about sharing it. There’s lots of social media scheduling tools like Buffer and CoSchedule, as well as Wordpress plugins, that make the whole post sharing process much easier.

12. Pay attention to your stats

Check your blog analytics as well as your social media stats to see what kind of posts respond well with your audience. Remember that different platforms often reach different audiences. But you should be able to identify some patterns - see which posts attract traffic, engagement and shares from your audience and try to produce more of that style or subject.

13. Post more emotional content

By this, I don’t mean unburdened your hardships through your blog or write with a box of tissues handy. But consider emotions - including happiness, sadness, anger, powerfulness, wonder and so on - when writing your posts. How can you draw these feelings out of people? Plus, emotions connect your reader to your blog and that is much more likely to result in a returning reader.

14. Include video

Oh, video is so huge right now. I now have at least 1 embedded video in all of my Eat Drink Laos food posts these days; I never used to use them. As well, I use them for promoting my posts and it’s very successful. If you can knock up even a simple 15 second video using a few quote images, do so. It could really help.

12. Test your headlines before posting them

Personally, I love CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer tool for this which assesses the SEO for every headline based on factors such as readability, wordiness and power words. It’s pretty addictive and super helpful.

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13. Get others to share your content

Naturally, this is easier if you have a team of people and you can task them to do this! Sharing content through others’ audiences is a huge way to drive blog traffic. If you don’t have a team, try it through a group of similar freelancers or business owners, quid pro quo.

14. Use hashtags

Now this isn’t going to work on every platform but on Twitter, hashtags are king. So use them generously to share your blog posts and reach new, relevant audiences.

15. Highlight special posts

This could be on your email signature as above, in your blog sidebar, or pinned to your Twitter or Facebook profile. If you’ve got an epic post that you know is pure gold, you'll want to plug it to everyone you know.

16. Tag anyone you’ve mentioned in your post

We all talk about brands, bloggers, apps and other businesses in our posts so why not let them know? Tag them in a social media post and who knows - maybe they’ll read your post and share it among their own followers. You’ve got nothing to lose!

17. Write guest posts

This sounds like more work but it doesn’t have to be. The point is to create and share content that you’re very familiar with to another, hopefully bigger audience. They get free content, you get the chance to step in front of a larger readership and get some exposure. Yep, I’m advocating "working for exposure"! For the odd guest post at least. Plus you'll extend your networks with other bloggers and influential people in your sphere.

And there you have it - 17 new and easy to implement ways to promote your blog content. Now hop to it and get promoting those posts!