So you’ve obeyed the commandments of building a business blog: your blog has easy and clear navigation; you have employed the necessary technical elements; and you have begun posting regular, relevant, and SEO content. But simply hanging your well-developed business blog on the digital internet highway does not automatically attract visitors. You have to take steps to promote your business blog.
Promote On Your Own Business Website
Your own official business website is the first logical place to promote your business blog. Utilize space on your front or landing page where you can link to your business blog.
At minimum, you should include a link to your blog on your business website’s navigation bar. If you want to promote your blog to your website visitors, save some space on your front page to include a short RSS feed of your blog where readers can read the latest headline and the first few sentences. They would need to click on the “more” link to read the full article.
Use Catchy or “Sticky” Headlines
Your blog post headlines, like any copywriting headline, accounts for about 90% of whether a reader will continue reading the full blog post. Attract readers by writing catchy and attractive headlines that sparks the curiosity of readers. For instance, headlines that might resonate with a potential readers could include, “The 5 Worst Mutual Funds”, “10 Sure-Fire Ways to Boost Revenue”, or even use celebrity names like, “3 Ways Cesar Milan, the ‘Dog Whisperer’, Can Help You Control Your Pets.”
Utilize Social Media
Building your social media platform has benefits for your business blog as well. If you have been following strategies to gather ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ via social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, you can promote your business blog with quick status updates. Tell your followers that a new blog post is up. Use your catchy headlines to attract readers to view more. And always include a link to your blog. If you must shorten it, use link reducing generators like http://bit.ly or http://shorturl.com.
Include Other Popular Industry Blogs
Your business blog is another cog in the industry blog wheel. Get involved with the momentum by linking to other informational blog posts, writing posts about another controversial or helpful blog post, or even do an interview with a popular blogger in your industry.
Use Print Material
Don’t forget to promote your business blog offline as well. Print your business blog URL on all your marketing material, including business cards, letterhead, and especially any sales letters and brochures. You should also include your business blog URL on any press releases you send out. And encourage your employees to include a business blog link or URL at the bottom ‘signature’ of every email that gets sent from your company.
Your business blog promotional tactics are the steps you will take to build your blog readership. The key to gaining readership is persistence in promoting your blog. The more ‘buzz’ you can generate to get the word out about your business blog, the more readers you will gain.
