In this post, I'll be sharing with you eight ways to promote your blog and get more traffic. I'm always researching and coming up with new ways to promote my blog. Using the methods I'm sharing with you today; I have been able to increase my overall traffic by over 50% within one year. I hope these techniques help increase your traffic too.
1. Join Facebook Groups
Promoting your blog in relevant Facebook groups can be an excellent way to drive traffic to your blog. I recommend joining groups that have share days. These types of groups will allow you to share your blog posts and social media accounts on specified days.
Sharing your content in Facebook groups will bring you more traffic, comments, and social shares. Some bloggers have even gotten their content to go viral by sharing it in Facebook groups.
2. Use Pinterest
If you're a blogger and aren't using Pinterest to promote your blog, I recommend that you start using it now. Pinterest is currently my number one traffic referrer, but it wasn't always that way.
In 2014, Pinterest accounted for around 7.5% of my overall traffic. In 2015, I decided to put more effort into increasing my traffic from Pinterest. By the end of that year, Pinterest was accounting for a little over 50% of my traffic. No matter what your niche, I believe there's a place for you on Pinterest.
If you want to learn how to grow your blog with Pinterest, I recommend reading my post How I Dramatically Increased My Traffic With Pinterest.
Recommended Resource: I used the MiloTree pop-up to increase my Pinterest profile to over 10,000 followers. Try a risk-free 30-day trial.
3. Try Pinterest Ads
I've been using Pinterest ads on and off for nearly a year with some pretty good results. The moment your promoted pin is approved, you'll notice your pin getting more likes, repins, and clicks to your site. When setting up your promoted pin, you can choose between an engagement campaign or a traffic campaign.
An engagement campaign boosts engagement with your pin. With this campaign, you are charged whenever someone engages with your pin. This includes any close-ups, repins, or clicks.
With a traffic campaign, you are only charged when someone clicks to your website. Because my goal is to drive traffic to my website, I always go with the traffic campaign.
4. Write More Content
You may have heard two sides to this suggestion. Some say that you should write less and promote your blog more, while others recommend writing more (this would mean less time promoting). I believe that the side you take should depend on how much content you have built up.
If you don't have a lot of content on your blog, I recommend writing at least three times a week until you've built up a substantial library of content for your audience. Once you're happy with the amount of content you have on your blog, then you can consider the write less, promote more approach.
I understand that not all techniques work for everyone; however, this method has been the most effective for me. The more content I put out there, the more content I have to promote. I also better my chances of being found in search engines, which means more eyes on my website.
5. Share Your Content
When it comes to increasing your traffic, first and foremost, you should be sharing your content. The moment a post is published on my blog, I share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest. I then schedule to share it on those platforms for a later date.
Recommended Resource: The Tailwind Pinterest scheduling tool is one of the reasons I’ve been able to increase my Pinterest traffic by 1,395.31%.
6. Ask Your Readers to Share Your Content
Believe it or not, people are more likely to share your content when you ask them to. That's why it's important to place a call-to-action in all of your blog posts.
Increase your traffic by asking your readers to share your content. Make it even easier for them to share by making sure you place social media share buttons on your blog. I use the Social Pug social media sharing tool to increase the number of pins I receive from my website.
7. Ask Other Bloggers to Share Your Content
I know that may sound scary (and it is in the beginning), but it does work. Asking other bloggers to share your content is a great way to promote your blog and get more traffic.
Now, I'm not saying start sending messages to bloggers you've never connected with, asking them to promote your stuff. What I am saying is build relationships with other bloggers by commenting on their blog regularly, sharing their content, and maybe even emailing them letting them know that you enjoy reading their blog.
Once you've built relationships with other bloggers, I challenge you to ask them to share your content with their audience. It may be scary at first, but after that first time, it won't be so frightening.
8. Create a Roundup Post
A roundup post is when you ask experts in your field to answer one question. Once you've got your list of replies, you then create a blog post sharing those answers, along with a photo of the expert and a link to their site.
For example, I asked 20 Busy Bloggers to Share Their #1 Productivity Tip.
If done right, a roundup can bring a significant amount of traffic to your blog, and increase your share counts.
So how exactly can a roundup post give you more traffic and shares? Well, it's because once your roundup is complete, you then ask those experts to share the post with their audience. Because you're asking experts, most of them will probably have a larger audience than you.
So now, instead of it only being you promoting your post, you have multiple experts in your field promoting your post too.