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4 Easy Ways to Promote Your New Post

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Promote New Blog Post

There’s nothing worse than a vacant blog. You put your blood sweat and tears into your content, follow every quality guideline you can find, and yet the traffic seems to trickle in and bounce away.

Clicking the “publish” button shouldn’t feel like you’re just clicking “preview”.  Here’s how you can be sure to get some easy links and traffic to every new post you write.

1. Using Social Social news / voting sites to Promote New Content

First things first, Tweet your post and share it on Facebook… duh!

What’s next?

Share your new blog post on each and every relevant social site you can find.  Social voting sites in particular can lead to big gains in targeted traffic.  They have voting systems in place that can potentially get your post tons of visits.  The trick here is to…

  • Add your content at the right time of day

Understand your niche and when they respond the most.  This gives you a better chance to get lots of votes that will get you published on the homepage.

  • Write Click-worthy titles

Don’t publish your content until you’re sure you’ve got a great post title.  Your success in social sites rides heavily on the quality of your post title.

  • Is it Targeted?

Make sure your post is targeted to the audience you’re sharing it with.  Also, submit it within the right category on the site and use plenty of related tags to make your submission easier to find.

There are social sites for every niche.

BlogEngage is a great example for the blogging community and many niches. Adding the upvote button plugin to your site from BE can also help your older content eventually reach the homepage.

You can view a list of the best social sites that I put together to help find some that suit you and your niche.

2. Blog commenting

The key to sending traffic with comments is simple:

  1. Comment first or very soon
  2. Make your comment interesting and valuable
  3. Share a link that is relevant to the current post

CommentLuv blogs are by far the best for driving traffic because of the link to your most recent post that you get.  Here’s how you can make sure you’re early to the comments on a new blog post:

Strategy 1: Follow popular bloggers or blogging communities on Twitter.  Comment right away when a new post is tweeted.

Strategy 2: Subscribe to RSS feeds of popular blogs to get to new posts quickly.  Feedly is a great user-friendly app for following your favorites feeds.

Strategy 3: Search for CL blogs only using the search string “this blog uses premium commentluv” and add a keyword relevant to your niche/industry.  Then either…

  1. Amend “&tbs=qdr:d” to the end of the URL to find only results from the last 24 hours

Or

  1. Click on “More Search Tools” in the left-hand sidebar and choose only results from the last 24 hours

Pro Tip: We all know you can get 2 links from CommentLuv Premium enabled blogs – one in your name and one recent post.  But did you know you can actually get 3 links?  Here’s how…

If you allow Twitter to post to your Facebook Page then you can input your facebook page URL in to the website box when commenting.  Since FB pages have RSS feeds (yes you can submit this feed to aggregators/directories too) your most recent activity on your wall can be shared.

If you choose a post that was added to your FB page via Twitter this will actually post 2 links.  One will be to where you shared it on Facebook and the other will link to your post.  Talk about link love 🙂

3. Forum Participation

Forums are a great way to drive targeted traffic and build a reputation.  If you haven’t seen Brian’s post about his success with forums for traffic, well I don’t know where you’ve been.

You might already know of a few forums in your niche, but if not you can always visit Big Boards to find some popular ones or simply do a google search for forums in your industry.

It might be difficult to find a current thread where you can share a link to your recent post and not seem spammy.  Not to mention, you don’t want to link to your site in every post.  Instead, link to your new post in your signature so that all of your posts on the forum now lead to this post and then post helpful comments and answer questions.  Make sure to bold your link and make it enticing to click.

Pro Tip: How to Double, Triple, Quadruple your forum traffic

FACT: Like blog comments, a post near the top of a thread will likely get more signature clicks

FACT: Threads are bumped to the top of a forum after every new post

FACT: You can link to anything you want in your signature

How do we combine all this info for a traffic driving strategy?

  1. Make a really insightful or helpful thread on the forum
  2. Link to your helpful thread on the forum in your signature

Usually, after your thread falls off the first page of a forum you’re at the will of some wayward commenter to bring it back from the dead.  This only happens if someone finds the thread in Google or is using the internal search function.  Also, most people purposely won’t comment on an older thread because it can be annoying.

If you link to your own thread in your signature, every old and new post you make can get more eyeballs on your thread.  If just one of these people posts on it, it’s all the way back at the top again sending you more targeted traffic.

When this happens, wait until your thread falls off the first page to reply to any comments so it rises back to the top yet again and gets more clicks.

4. Build your RSS Subscribers

The most effective but most time consuming way to ensure your newest posts get traffic is by building up your RSS subscribers.  Obviously this isn’t a quick fix, but as a blogger you should always keep a concentration on buffing your subscribers.

Some places you can add links to your feed to build subscribers…

  1. Your sidebar
  2. The end of every post
  3. Signature in your newsletter or email list emails
  4. Your “Thanks for Commenting” email

Any time someone is enjoying your content you should have a call-to-action or readily available option for them to subscribe.

You can also publish your RSS feed around the web by submitting it to RSS directories.  You can download my own software, RSS Launch, for free to submit your feed(s) to many sites.

Are you struggling to get traffic to new posts?  Do you think the tips in this post will help you increase your traffic?

About

Ben is a co-founder of Support Dash: customer service software for WordPress entrepreneurs.

Reader Interactions

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{ 33 Responses }

  1. Ipsita Sahoo says:
    You just revealed the secrets. Most of those worked well for my blog. Thanks. One issue i face always with RSS feeds is "Its asks my users to verify their email" Because of which sometimes i loose some subscribers.
  2. Anand says:
    I am starting the second step from here. Thanks a lot for informative post.
  3. David Evans says:
    Ben, I like your article because it give a nice checklist of things to to promote a site. Also, it is nice that you broke things down by adding more advanced ProTips as well. Good Job. I see that you are using CommentLuv on this site, and I am interested in how it is working for you. Most people are concerned about spam and also the possibly Google giving you some sort of penalty because you are linking to a bad neighborhood from your site for example. Do you have any information for us on how well CommentLuv is helping you fend off spammers? I see it integrates with some sort of Anti-Spam Plugin. Thanks, David
  4. Richa says:
    social media and forum participation are my best bets...I think the way social media has grown (and it continues to grow), no one can ignore it. Additionally, search engines also give weightage in rankings if the website is socially active ....targeted post with well written content is very important but equally important is how the blog or article is promoted as well....
  5. Purnima says:
    Hi Ben I m new to blog commenting and I find your post truly effectual .Recommendations on how to comment and when to comment would help me to great extent. The salutary share that you have put in such as add content at the right time and write click worthy titles would guide me in the long run. Would certainly follow your posts for more effective guidance. Thanks for the share.
  6. Richa Khandelwal says:
    Hey Ben It's recently that I have taken up to blogging and going through the points that you have mentioned in this post will surely work wonders for my posts.It will help drive traffic to my blog and will help me promote my blog in a better manner.
  7. Crescent says:
    Well considering searching for comment luv blogs sent me here to learn even more about comment luv blogs and make a comment luv post, I'd say #3 is a good piece of advice!
  8. Surminga says:
    Great tips here Ben, taking everything into account I also find that knowing when to post your article and when to add/publish them to social media/bookmarking sites etc also plays a factor in gaining exposure to it
  9. Ankur says:
    Good tips. I try to implement many of these in order to promote my content. Got a few new ideas from this post.
  10. andy says:
    Don't forget you can always use PPC to promote your post. Although this is a payed method, but if you are doing it right, it can still give you a lot of profit. This method is worth it if you know your conversion rate, and expected profit. So you can count if there is any possible profit margin left.
    • Ben Jackson says:
      While I think PPC and search engine marketing can be a good practice for driving traffic to a site, it can be a risky tactic for blogs since they are often not quite so conversion oriented.
  11. Bill says:
    Terrific tips, Ben. I've been blogging for a while - enjoying the process - but frustrated by the lack of visits. So I am spending lots of time trying to promote the blog, and getting some success. While blogging is still a learning process, ezine publishing has been an area where i have see some success Your tips were a big help and I will be adding your steps to my own blogging practices. I am also interested in the ComLuv plugin and will be exploring it, as I get tons of spam post and pings that are totally unrelated to my posts. I'd rather have nobody reading than pretend somebodies... Again, thanks for the time and post.
    • Ben Jackson says:
      Hey Bill, Of course, I'm glad you liked my article. I don't think there's any quick fix for blog traffic, just lots of strategy and persistence!
      • Bill says:
        Ben, Thanks for the reply - I did like you article and will continue to follow your posts. Yes, no quick fix. Lots of "push button" solution - and we know what they are worth.
  12. Abhi Balani says:
    First comment matters much. I think. I loved the facts and strategies you shared. I knew most of it, but you added some more to my knowledge. Thank you.
  13. Jamie Northrup says:
    All good ways, but don't forget guest posting, you can usually get 2 links back in the content if it's related, a good way to promote new posts too ;)
  14. Tushar says:
    I believe in the power of commenting and use Google reader to keep track of RSS feeds and new posts. The sooner you reply to a new post, more traffic you will get
    • Ben Jackson says:
      Hey Tushar, That's a good idea, I think the sooner you comment definitely affects the traffic driving potential of your comment.
  15. Saket Jajodia says:
    Awesome tips, Ben..!! I am just thinking what else is left as you have mention all the impotent point/tips.. :P which every blogger should do after posting there new blog post.. Ya got 1 point.. :P Thanks to Andy for this point because he also bought a ComLuv search engine blog by which people can easily find blog with ComLuv plugin installed.. And in your blog point 3 should be in h2 tag by mistake it is given in string tag..!! Anyways Thanks a lot for these great tips, it will surly going to help many people..!! :)
    • Ben Jackson says:
      Thanks I'm glad you liked the post! And good call on point 3 :P
  16. Carsten says:
    Interesting to see how many details you think about and how strategic you work on your blog. To me especially the part with forum participation and how to keep a single post up is very nice. Will try this in future.
  17. Dean Saliba says:
    You'd think this was basic but there are some many people who don't do any of those. As soon as I publish a post I submit the link to Facebook & Twitter within about a minute of the post being published.
  18. bsulistio says:
    Hey Ben, I am very pleased with your tutorial. I have recently made ​​a blog. Initially I thought that all blogs indexed by the search engines will. but after making my blog frustrated because it is not indexed by it. With your tutorial, I would find out how to promote writing in the blog. thanks Ben. bsulistio
    • Ben Jackson says:
      Thanks for the feedback, I think your blog will get indexed naturally and relatively quickly. Just a couple links, even just one comment link from here should do the trick :)
  19. Ileane says:
    Hi Ben, I'm using the CommentLuv Enabled Search Engine and it works great. I don't use it to add links for Facebook but I use it to promote my YouTube channel instead. I joined Lisa Irby's Website Babble forum a couple of years ago and my signature has links back to my blogs, Twitter, YouTube and Google+. So I get traffic to all of my networks just from leaving a few helpful posts in the forum each week. Thanks for the tips Ben.
    • Ben Jackson says:
      Hey Ileane, thanks for your comment. Linking to all of your social profiles as well as your website in the forum - that's a great idea!
  20. Ryan Biddulph says:
    Hi Ben, Commenting drives oodles of traffic to your blog depending on your intent. Add value to the post. Read it fully, and share your take. Add value, become valuable. Readers want to learn more, give you a click and you just promoted yourself without even trying to. For me, detachment from outcomes works best. Stopping by famousbloggers today I wanted to learn something, add value with my comment and share this post. I was not here for a backlink. When you detach, good things happen for you. Thanks for sharing :) RB
    • Ben Jackson says:
      Hey Ryan, interesting perspective thanks for sharing. Because of the benefits that ComLuv offers for commenters I think the motives for commenting often get very mixed on many blogs.
  21. Chris says:
    Strategy #3 is something new for me. I'll work on it and hope to see some good results. :)
    • Ben Jackson says:
      Glad you found a new tactic in my post, good look with the forum posting!
  22. Raj says:
    I was quite skeptical about forums as a source of traffic. But one of my friends, who runs an online score updation service for Tennis matches says that its his biggest source of traffic. He posts messages in important forums that he would be live blogging about a particular tennis match and he gets a lot of hits. Looks like visitors come from different venues for different content types.
  23. Morgan says:
    These techniques all work wonders! I know from personal experience. I love all the little facts and tips you gave along with each, as that'll really help people easily promote their blog. I have not really worked with RSS as much as I need to, I get complaints constantly because I don't have an RSS feed. But I will just have to suck it up and get it going. :) Thanks so much for the article!
    • Ben Jackson says:
      Ahh looks like you got the feed up on your site! Glad you enjoyed the article :)