Blog carnivals and other great ways to get your blog posts seen by a larger audience.
If you’re a regular blogger then you already know that blogging is a great way to promote your business and let people know what you’re all about. It’s a fantastic way to add quality, informative content to your site which is of value to your visitors. But while your regular visitors are important, you also need to be constantly on the lookout for opportunities to extend your readership. You pour your heart and soul into your blog posts but unless you can get them out to a wider audience, all that effort may not count for much. Promotion is everything, so here are some of the simplest ways you can do it:
Take part in a Blog Carnival
Link up with others in the blogosphere by taking part in special events like blog carnivals such as the Business Plus Baby Business Mums Blog Carnival which is being hosted by Custard & Crumble this September. A blog carnival is a fantastic opportunity for bloggers to share their posts and generate those all-important inbound links to their own sites. You could liken it to an online magazine where the blog carnival host is the editor and the participating bloggers are the features journalists. And unlike regular guest blogging, there’s a real buzz surrounding the best blog carnivals – just as there is around the publication dates of the hottest glossy magazines. Just like a magazine, editions of a blog carnival are published on a specific date, often monthly or quarterly. Unlike magazines though, there’s the opportunity for instant two-way conversation with writers and readers. So don’t just submit the link to your blog and consider your work done; read and comment on other people’s blog posts, and be ready to respond to those who comment on yours. Your comments and the conversation they generate are a great way to engage with others, and every single one is another valuable opportunity to drive traffic to your own site.
Use social media
If you haven’t woken up to the power of social media, where have you been? It’s an absolute must to have a presence on the most popular social media sites. A well-written blog with an attention-grabbing title posted on your personal or business Facebook timeline will be liked and shared and get seen by more people than you’d imagine; Twitter has the ability to spread your word like wildfire if you can make it engaging; share your post accompanied by a visually appealing image on Pinterest; share with your contacts and publicly via LinkedIn and Instagram; share, share, share! To get your message out and make more impact on Reddit check out Signals. Social media is either free or costs little, it’s easy and everyone else is doing it so it’s a great way to attract new visitors to your blog, and once they’re there they might like you enough to subscribe, become regular visitors and tell their friends about you. In short, social media has the power to turn you from a lone bugler to a member of a full symphony orchestra in quick time – so make sure it’s part of your strategy.
Reach the masses
Bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon.com, Digg.com and Reddit.com and other news aggregators and discovery engines have millions of users. Most work on the principle of presenting content personalised to the user’s taste and interests. Your potential audience is massive if you can get your posts featured there so it’s well worth the effort of registering and routinely submitting your posts to these sites. Once you’ve covered the basics, get further expert advice on promoting your blog here.
This article was written by Rachel Bradbury, a work-at-home Mum who runs her own company, Custard & Crumble, selling luxury nursery and baby items. Rachel invites all mums in business to submit links to their blog articles for the Business Plus Baby Business Mums Blog Carnival taking place on Monday 23 September.