So you researched, gathered information, brainstormed, and wrote a great article. Next you sit in front of your computer screen waiting for the traffic to come running right? Wrong! Go promote that article.
There are many, many ways to promote an article after you have written it, but I am going to only concentrate on a few of my favorites and you are more than welcome to chime in with yours in the comments below.
Depending on your niche, Twitter can provide an amazing amount of traffic if you use it properly. I usually tweet my article as soon as I am finished writing it, which on most days is in the morning here on the east coast (US). I don’t have an enormous amount of followers, but the ones I do have are targeted (and like most, my following grows on a daily basis).
I am not a big fan of automated or timed tweets with your links in it (like HootSuite) because it can make you look like all you are on Twitter for is self promotion. I prefer to manually tweet my own articles immediately after I write one, then I may tweet about it once or twice more throughout the course of the day.
An important key to getting people to re-tweet your articles is to re-tweet other peoples articles. If I am reading an article I like, and the blog owner is smart enough to put a re-tweet button in the post, I will usually use it to send their article out to my followers.
Remember to share the love, re-tweet articles for others, and it is more likely that yours will be re-tweeted.
Post your articles here too, I have followers/friends on facebook that aren’t on twitter. This is a good way to get traffic to your article that wouldn’t have normally found out about it. I recently made a fan page for HotBlogTips, (so go be a fan :-0) and I recommend you do the same, is is really easy to do and you can put a widget in your sidebar that links to it. If one of your friends comments on your page then their friends can see that and may be curious, so it can become somewhat viral on its own.
I also immediately submit my article to blog engage. I encourage you to submit it your self to make sure it gets in the category and tags that you want. The community at blog engage is incredible and it is one of my best traffic sources. I also sign up for their email updates which emails you published articles on a regular basis. This is a good way to discover blogs you don’t read already and you can network with those bloggers.
After you submit your article, take the time to see if there are some articles that interest you that you can vote on as well, remember you must give to receive.
I try to wait until after I publish an article everyday to go through my Google Reader and start commenting on blogs. There are a couple of reasons for doing this and it does NOT include getting backlinks! Promoting an article by commenting on blogs can get your article indexed faster if the sites you frequent have a high PageRank (yes there are some uses for having higher PR) and if they have comment luv it is even better.
Commenting on blogs with commentluv after you publish your article gives you a great opportunity to promote your article because other commentators and the blog owner will see the title of the article and if you are good at writing title, they may be encouraged to click it.
There are many other ways to promote your article like StumbleUpon and Digg which I use as well, but the ones I mentioned above are where I always start. What methods do you use?
Related posts:
Twitter and blog comments are the big ones for me. I am going to look more into Facebook, but I don’t think my blog is really the right topic to fit blog engage, as they majority of them are internet marketing focus.
.-= Tom@Money Conversion´s last blog ..Money Conversion Calculator =-.
@Tom@Money Conversion, With 350 million active users on Facebook, I can guarantee you will find people interested in your content there. It is largest social networking site right now by users.
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..One Man Can Do Everything =-.
Said whatever the ultimate gift of promoting your post becomes “What goes around comes around”, I strongly believe it.
For new users of twitter like me, its very easy to fall in trap. In the beginning days I don’t have any follower and without follower what’s the use of Twitter. I registered with few of those crapped auto follower programs and they are devils. They listed a few hundred followers to my account, but to my utmost surprise they tweet message to my followers on behalf of me? My Goodness. The message frequency was sufficient to annoy my genuine followers. Thus, I changed password immediately and tried to unsubscribe from all of them wherever possible. Whatever, I’ve got to show a few hundred followers though useless but good (aesthetic satisfaction).
Yes, twitter can be a good source of traffic after you got little recognition. I’m happy with twitter now.
Still left to try and devolved with BlogEngage. Thank you for pointing out. I’ll be active there now on.
.-= Suresh Khanal´s last blog ..What Goes Around Comes Around =-.
@Suresh Khanal, Thanks for the comment.
I fell into that auto follower trap a couple of months ago and had to change the passwords on all my Twitter accounts because of it. I went through and cleaned out my followers and started from scratch.
I now use http://tweetspinner.com which allows me to follow people who have tweeted targeted keywords like “blogging” or “social media” or “SEO”. I really like it, and they don’t send out tweets on advertising themselves.
I noticed that you don’t follow but 10% of the people following you. People will see that and most likely think you don’t actually engage in conversation on Twitter.
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..One Man Can Do Everything =-.
These are some very important promotional sites you mentioned here Keith i know twitter can send you loads of traffic but facebook has an enormous amount of users so no matter what your niche are there will always be some followers and traffic from this site. Thanks for the tips and good luck with hotblogtips.com
.-= lawmacs´s last blog ..5 Link Building Tips =-.
@lawmacs, Thank you Gary!
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..Do You Blog Engage? =-.
Hey Keith,
I can see another great blog in the making here.
Good luck
.-= Roseli A. Bakar´s last blog ..How to Become a News Writer =-.
@Roseli A. Bakar, Thanks Roseli! I look forward to writing here, I hope everyone enjoys!
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..Welcome to New HotBlog Tips! =-.
You mentioned pretty much the ones I use. I don’t use all of them for all of the blogs, but mix and match, according to content. I think it shouldn’t be an automated thing and you always need to keep the personal touch.
.-= Anne Moss´s last blog ..Web News & Views #6 =-.
@Anne Moss, I do the same thing Anne, just really depends on the article, and sometimes whether or not I remember! LOL
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..Do You Blog Engage? =-.
I’m not arguing that Twitter doesn’t work, because it does, but it doesn’t bring the traffic that I would have hoped for. I always check the user profile of the person who tweeted me and there are times when they’ve been in the thousands but they lead to very little traffic.
I reckon that it’s only the personal twitter followers that react, the rest are just there to build the numbers.
.-= Sire´s last blog ..The Morning Glory Cloud And Anna Creek Station =-.
@Sire, I get a good amount for traffic from Twitter, not as much as I would like either (not sure I know what that number even is
) But it seems to be helpful in getting your “brand” out and visible. I watched a video today where the question was raised: Where Do Your Readers Hang Out? A lot of mine are on twitter, other blogs I have they are in forums.
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..Passion Without Knowledge Won’t Make You Money =-.
@Keith Bloemendaal, Really, I’m not sure where mine hang out, other than their own blogs and stuff. I do have a close knit of followers though that always respond to my Tweets. If all my followers were like that it would be freakin awesome.
.-= Sire´s last blog ..My Spin On The Squeeze Page And Email Lists =-.
I think submit into directory also important to promote my articles be side blog commenting and social site promoting like twitter and face book.make newsletter and we send to my audience is more powerful to make traffic. i am very thanks to your blog give me more inspirations to me.
Great posts.
I have never been to blogengage.
Thanks for sharing.
I love using twitter and FB but you need to really gain a following before it can be effective.
@Olusegun, Anytime Olusegun, thanks for commenting here!
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..Is Your Code Validated? =-.
My secret is out! How many non-commentluv blogs have you seen my avatar. lol
And thank you, it’s always good to find another that thinks auto tweeting is a BAD idea.
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Welcome Aboard Part 2! All The Info You’ve Been Waiting For… =-.
@Dennis Edell, Every once in a while it is good to let a little secret out
.-= Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..Is Your Code Validated? =-.