We can create the most epic-est (new term I coined) content around certain niches that even Einstein or Shakespeare would marvel at. The problem we all face is nobody ever sees it. Anybody who has ever created a website and published content has felt this pain many times before.
You know it, I know it and thousands of others who have created content and left it to pick up organic traffic know it all too well. Simply writing content is not enough. You need to know how to correctly promote your content in a number of different ways for it to get the attention it deserves.
A few weeks ago I mentioned how you can use forums and Facebook groups to generate highly targeted traffic to your site, this week I will show you another 15 ways that can achieve the same results.
As an Internet marketer you probably won’t have a big budget for marketing, so you will need to use other hacks to get ahead of the rest. In this article I will show you how.
Please note that I will be using the word epic in various forms way too much in this article.
Everything Starts With Epic Content
Before I list my 15 epic ways to promote blog posts we need to get one thing straight. If your content is not epic all the methods in this article are useless to you. People aren’t going to share content that provides no value, uses poor imagery or is just plain boring.
Half-assed content is not going to get shares or others promoting it. You probably already know this from past experience and is why your website failed to get traffic in the first place.
Spend a little bit more time creating content or hire an expert, it will be worth the investment.
So what makes content epic? Here’s 8 traits I see in epic content:
- It has to be original or way better than the original
- It has to look sexy (pictures, images, text)
- Strong headlines compelling people to click, read and share
- Content that is actionable
- Answers readers’ questions
- Provokes readers to interact
- Doesn’t contain waffle (content that is useless)
- Easy to read
- Humorous
Having years’ of experience in writing content I have realized that there are only two types of content. They are:
- Epic content
- Everything else
In the past I have fell into the trap of falling into the “Everything else” group because of laziness and lack of motivation. If you already manage websites you will surely have either written or paid for content that was just ‘meh’.
Do you expect that type of content to get shared or viewed by millions of people? Of course not. Spending an extra hour or $20 more on a piece of content can really make the difference in not only that blog post going viral – but your whole site.
You know when you have created epic content because after closing the Word document you feel like the man (or women).
Okay so now we have got that sorted, let’s get down to the 15 different ways to promote your blog posts to massive levels of epic-ness.
1. Link out to other bloggers
I only found out this tip recently but it has been working very well. I link to others in my niche showing them that I read and value their content. I don’t link to direct competitors as that doesn’t make too much sense from a monetary standpoint.
When linking don’t use keyword anchor text but rather link them using their name or website domain (https://buildpath.co) . You don’t want to be giving juice to others for keywords you’re going to go for.
I will sometimes link their site in more than one blog post to make sure I get their attention and even comment on a few of their blogs posts. This is to remind them that I read their site and hope they link me back in future blog posts and to share my content.
Pro-tip: I am in a really friendly relationship with a few of my direct competitors in one of my niches and I do link back to them now and again. However, each time I link to direct competitors I will use a no-follow link that doesn’t pass Page Rank to their site.
I will only link direct competitors to older blog posts which I ‘update’. These will be blog posts that receive very few views meaning it’s almost impossible to lose my readers to my competitor.
This is done in an attempt that they will then link me back in newer content they create. I know it’s a bit tricky and cunning, but business is business.
Pro-tip 2: Only link back to people who have a high Page Rank. Don’t waste your time of linking to sites that don’t have a big audience or high Page Rank, the goal here is to get backlinks to help our SEO and for them to share our content.
2. Tag bloggers on Social media
Tagging bloggers in various niches on Facebook and Twitter is a fantastic way to promote your blog posts. For example, if you have just written a fantastic travel piece about visiting Las Vegas, tweet the link and tag in various travel bloggers in Las Vegas, casinos and travel agencies who will find your content interesting.
What I value most about Facebook and Twitter is that the people you tag can instantly share or retweet your update with a single click.
This method also works great for when you use tip #1. Link other bloggers in your content and tweet them to remind them.
Pro-tip: Twitter only has 140 characters per tweet so be sure to retweet the same message over and over again by adding different people. Space these tweets out else you may get a tidal wave of un-follows.
3. Quote the experts
As discussed in my SEO guide, you need to add a number of external links into your content to adhere to best SEO practices. Consider quoting or referencing actual people or sites run by individuals instead of major businesses.
An individual will be in control of their own website and receive a pingbacks when you quote or reference them. While bigger businesses will have an IT departments taking care of all that and just ignore you.
4. Share Buttons
Share buttons are great because once you install them, they require no attention. Visitors can easily share your epic content onto a number of different sites.
Ask yourself when was the last time you shared any sort of content and why? My guess is that it was something truly epic, funny or very informative. Whenever we share something we do it to show others our personal tastes, beliefs or how we want to be portrayed.
If you write ‘meh’ content do you think others are going to share it? Do you think your audience wants to be judged badly by their own followers or friends for sharing ‘meh’ content?
Hell No.
Sharing buttons are a great resource but pointless if your content isn’t EPIC. There are a number of different WordPress plugins you can use to share your content such as Shareify.
I personally like using Social Locker. This plugin hides some of your content which can only be unlocked if the reader shares it on social media. Going back to the underlying message of this article, they will only share your content if it’s epic.
5. Email Your List
After reading my article last week on how to generate targeted leads you should have started to build some kind of mailing list. Everyone on your list should be targeted meaning they will want to read your content.
Blasting out your weekly articles is a no-brainer way to promote posts. It’s so obvious in fact that I didn’t feel I needed to talk about it but I wanted to provide you all with two simple pro-tips.
Pro-tip: If the services you offer are aimed towards businesses I suggest hiring someone on Freelancer to source hundreds of email addresses for you to blast a cold-call email showing them your epic content. This is not only a clever way to promote blog posts but also a great way to gain new customers.
Pro-tip 2: Perhaps your list is small and you haven’t yet mastered the way to generate tons of leads, that’s not a problem. Find others in your niche and tell them how epic your content is and that their readers will value it.
Many sites will usually charge you for mailing their list but if your blog posts are truly epic then some will do it for free.
6. BlogEngage
BlogEngage is a large community of bloggers who all use the platform to submit their own content while commenting and sharing on other blogs. It’s a blogging community.
BlogEngage is all about give and take, you need to take an active interest in other bloggers for them to do the same to you. By simply submitting your content and hoping it gets shared isn’t going to get your blog anywhere.
Please note that BlogEngage is not free, prices start from £4.99 per month.
7. Share content on your own social networks
Another no brainer method so I won’t go into too much detail but I do want to tell you of a plugin I use to make things easier.
With so many active social media networks it can sometimes be a hassle to update each one every time you write a new post. To save time and hassle I like to use the SNAP plugin. This WordPress plugin lets you share content to 26 major social platforms.
What once took a good hour can now be done in less than a minute.
8. Utilize Reddit
Reddit is a news website that allows members of the community to submit content (such as blog posts) to various sections of the site. Anything can be posted and the more likes a certain post gets the higher it moves up resulting in more engagement.
Reddit has “Subreddits” which are smaller sections of the site focusing on various niches from WWE to lawnmowers. Keep in mind that Reddit works on a voting system, the epic-er the content the higher it will rank.
Each section does have moderators who will ban or stop you from posting if all you do is spam crap content. I know this because I have be banned before for using Reddit doing the wrong things.
9. LinkedIn
Every time I hear ‘LinkedIn’ I envision rigged professionals wearing suits who work boring 9-5s. While this is true for the most part, LinkedIn Groups are very valuable and work very much like Facebook Groups.
There are groups for just about everything and you can start joining discussions and slowing start dropping your website links. Once again, don’t go ahead and spam your links as you will get banned, you need to add value first then drop your links when appropriate.
10. Pinterest
I sucked at using Pinterest for a long time (and I still suck now if truth be told). I created several of my own boards and managed to get 1-2 clicks per month. Rather lame for all the effort I put in.
I’m sure there is value in creating your own boards but I have yet to master how. Instead, I pin content on Group Broads. These are boards which can be viewed by people who all have a similar interest.
Spending a few dollars on getting a designer to create you a killer image can yield some pretty sick ROI. If you find a picture that converts well, keep pinning it on the same or simliar boards every 3-4 weeks to maximize traffic.
11. Using Google Plus
I don’t like Google Plus all that much, I find it a bit clunky and feel LinkedIn and Facebook do much better jobs with their group features. Having said that, Google is the king of SEO and everybody knows that content that goes viral on Google Plus will have a positive effect on your SEO rankings.
Simply create a Google Plus account then go to the Communities section. Type keywords within your niche join groups that have the largest amount of members. I simply entered dog training and found two decent size groups.
You know the drill by now, comment on peoples’ posts, provide great advice and of course, link back to your site.
Don’t take the lazy approach of just spamming your blog posts every time you create a new blog post. I did this and my posts kept getting deleted and I was eventually removed from a few groups.
12. Brown Nose
For the definition of a brown noser read this.
While it may hurt your ego, brown nosing is a great way to gain more backlinks and get your blogs posts promoted by authorities in your niche. You first need to find out who the big players are in your niche and if there’s a chance they will be willing to help you in the future.
Just quickly look at their social profiles to see who’s content they are sharing, some are share happy others will never share anything.
Once you scope out your targets, your next step is to brown nose. Comment on a lot of their blog comments, if you find spelling mistakes or any errors on their site send them a email letting them know.
If you feel one of their blog posts has something of value missing, why not write a few paragraphs on it and send it them letting them know they can add it to their content and they needn’t give you credit.
Keep helping them by adding value without overdoing it and eventually they will do the same to you. Remember that backlinks by authorities in your niche are extremely valuable for SEO. They will also have a huge audience who you can leverage if they share your content.
13. Turn a Blog into an infographic
I got to say I am a sucker for infographics. They look so sexy, contain only the information I need to know and save me 20-30 minutes reading content – they get shared easier too.
Content that is information based and offers a lot of statistics works well, you can share infographics on pretty much every medium.
Check out this post by QuickSprout to find out how to make your next infographic go viral.
14. Create sharing deals with other bloggers
I have been approached on two occasions from travel sites to inter-promote content. While we were all talking about the same country the products we were selling were all different.
They wanted me to share all their newest blog posts on my social media channels and they would do the same for me. Their audience sees my content while my audience gets to see theirs. Win-win.
Such a simple way to leverage an audience with next to no effort.
Pro-tip: Before you agree to such deals make sure the site has a similar amount of followers as your website. Also read their content and tweets before you agree to retweet or share content.
The first time I made such a deal I didn’t even bother to look at their website, I saw they had 15,000 twitter followers, creamed my pants and thought it was an awesome deal. After I retweeted a few of their posts my own followers started replying telling me that it’s garbage and I need to stop.
Lesson learned.
While a good method to promote blog posts, I’d advise some due diligence.
15. Leave Blog comments – but be first!
I don’t rate blog commenting for generating traffic back to your site unless you’re the first one to comment. Most peoples’ questions are generally answered within the first two or three comments and posts which contain 20 or more comments – ain’t nobody got time to read them all!
This is what I suggest you should do: find several sites in your niche that update often and have a huge following. Add them to your RSS feed or Google Alerts. Each time they create a new blog post be the first one to leave a comment.
You’re basically stealing some of the limelight from their content so make your blog comment EPIC. Start by agreeing with what they have said (to ensure they accept your comment), then throw some bait out by asking an open ended question that will steer people to clicking your URL link in ‘website name’ section of comments.
Never drop your URL link in the comment. This is tacky and spammy.
Pro-tip: I really wouldn’t bother finding blog articles that are a few years old with hundreds of comments to comment on. I think there are better ways to spend your time as this method is no longer effective.
All this is useless if your content sucks
Once again all these tips are totally useless if your content is bad. I have tried all the methods above and received all kinds of results.
Sometimes my content was awesome but my execution of promoting was terrible, sometimes my content and execution was epic, while other times my content sucked and so did my promoting.
The fundamentals of prompting blog posts is to have epic content. It takes time to understand how to promote your content on various mediums, finding the right groups, knowing how to deliver your content in a none pushy way all takes time.
Hire someone to do the hard work
I have listed 15 different ways you can generate traffic with actionable advice. Becoming an authority on Facebook or LinkedIn groups takes time, something many of us lack. I never had any when I first started and it was why my efforts failed and I ended up getting kicked out of groups for spamming.
If your budget allows it you can hire freelancers to represent you on Reddit, Facebook or LinkedIn groups, BlogEngage and the like. This type of work is easy to outsource allowing you to focus on the nuts and bolts of your business.
If budgets don’t allow it (which is usually the case) test all 15 methods and pick the 3 or 4 which work best for your niche. Stick to them and as your site makes money considering hiring people to promote on other mediums.
Summary
More than 40% (3 billion people) of the world is connected to the Internet. There is someone somewhere who is interested in your content, you only need to put it in front of them. While Internet marketers complain that promoting blog posts to generate free traffic is getting harder and harder, it has actually never been easier.
Take an extra 20 minutes in using each method listed above ensure a perfect execution. Don’t just create an account in 2 minutes that has no information, spam your links and expect to get 1,000 visitors. That won’t work, it never has and it never will. Yet novice marketers keep on making this mistake then moan on forums that they cannot get traffic.
You will get out what you put in. As all the computer geeks reading this know garbage in garbage out.
Now go and create epic content and get promoting!