BT: Answer me this: How to Promote Your Blog + Advice for Newbies

Brainstorming questions and ideas

Welcome to the 3rd installment of the BLOGGING TIPS!

I hope you are half excited as I am about this unique collaboration.

If you have missed the previous ones, feel free to check out:

JANUARY (<— click there)

FEBRUARY (<— click there)

In February we had a 2-in-1 question.

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FEBRUARY’S question:

How do you promote your blog?/ What do you do to get others to read your posts?

OUR answers:

  • include a link to the blog in the email signature
  • post a link to the blog on social media
  • join a blogging, or topical group and post your link there
  • interact with other bloggers in their comment section
  • post a link in Swimmers, or other Community Pool based threads
  • promote others (what goes around comes around)
  • collaborate with other bloggers (to have their followers introduced to you)
  • do guest posts
  • reblog
  • word of mouth (offline and online)
  • share a link with real life people, who can share that link with other people they know
  • include hashtags for search purposes
  • tag your posts correctly
  • make sure your Gravatar is linked to your blog (that when you leave a comment, people are able to click on your name and be directed to your site)
  • make your post SEO friendly
  • make your title click-worthy
  • add quality photos to the post
  • make your post visually appealing (break into paragraphs)
  • write with your readers in mind and their expectations of you when it comes to content
  • check your post for typos, etc.
  • include something that people like and think is cute (i.e. animals)

It was a bit surprising, yet somewhat reassuring to see that a lot of us do not really push our content onto unsuspecting civilians. (Or did you choose not to tell us how so that you retain the upper hand?)

I hope that like me, you find something helpful in the answers above.

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March’s question:

What do you wish to have known before you started blogging that would have better equipped you?

Please share your answers in the comment section so that new bloggers have an easier start. After all, we all need the community to grow. More bloggers, more potential readers. Plus, we can never stop learning.

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A huge THANK YOU to those who participated last month. You are making this blogging world a better place. Please consider contributing this time around, too.

There were two bloggers that particularly opened my eyes to a couple of things. 

Milly and Heather.

Which tips made you want to do more?

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Please feel free to go through my Contact page and share with me what YOU would like investigated and answered by the Community next month.

Stay golden,

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54 thoughts on “BT: Answer me this: How to Promote Your Blog + Advice for Newbies”

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  1. Thank you for the shout out!

    I don’t really have anything to say to this month’s question – I was pretty prepared when I started my blog and there haven’t been many surprises…yet. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. I’m more of a writer than a salesperson, which means that I really like composing the posts, but I’m not big on optimizing it to make it SEO friendly. While I enjoy interacting with my fellow bloggers, I’m not big on other social media platforms. Once I’m more comfortable with my new blogging schedule, and have some spare time (Will that ever happen?), I shall try and work on those.

      Thank you for dropping by.

      Do you have any advice for newbies? Is there something you wish you had known when you started blogging that would have helped you succeed?

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. Thank you so much for your reply, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this simply to help a fellow blogger 😊

        Right now, I think I am good with the way I blog and how I approach my relationship with social media’s. Like you, I am not a big fan of it and it was actually a huge thing to overcome before I started my blog. I don’t have any questions just a deep appreciation for your efforts.

        My best advice is to write with honesty when you blog. Don’t try to imitate post that are “popular” or get more views, in my experience, being honest in your writing is the best way to enjoy blogging and built a solid following.
        Cheers! 😊

        Liked by 2 people

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        1. Pleasure is all mine. I wasn’t born with all the knowledge about blogging. I was taught by others, and I like passing it onto those that come after me.

          It’s good to hear that you feel like you’re where you need to be. It’s important.

          Indeed. Losing yourself in all this isn’t worth it.

          Thanks for stopping by!

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

    1. I really enjoy the collaborative side to this segment. Thank you.

      Which promotional technique do you like most/ you do most often?

      And do you have any advice for the newbies? Anything you wish you would have known ahead of time, before you started blogging?

      Like

      Reply

  5. Promoting my blog was the biggest thing. For the first few years I didn’t know about the wordpress community and how to meet and interact with other bloggers. It wasn’t until I discovered community pool that it began to grow. So sad that’s gone.

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      1. That is what I wish I would have known. Especially since I don’t use social media. Mostly what I do now is interacting with other bloggers. I sometimes share on blog parties and such but mostly reading and commenting on other blogs. I wouldn’t say I am great at it but I am happy with what I have.

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  6. The answers to last month’s questions are so accurate.

    I have so many answers to this month’s question. There are lots of things I wish I knew (or did) before I started blogging. Most especially, I wish I had fewer categories when I first started out.

    I remember deleting old categories (about twenty of them) some months ago and creating just four specific categories that I write about. It was a rather stressful process.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. I know you don’t have much time (How’s school?), but feel free to add as many things to the list as you’d like. The more, the better.

      I’m astounded by how helpful these answers have been to me.

      I think that at the beginning I had the categories confused with tags, so all my posts were under “Uncategorized”, just to play it safe. I then had to re-organize them. Great point! I haven’t thought of that!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Oh, thank you so much for understanding, Goldie. School is beautiful this week (praise the Lord), unlike last week when I was finding it difficult to adapt to the new environment. I’ve made a few friends and found some people who share the same time interests with me. I’m thankful socialising with others turned out to be easier than I expected.
        Again, thank you for asking.

        To add to your list, I also wish I didn’t fall for that “follow for follow” trap. It was annoying when I realised that I was following nearly 200 blogs that I had no interest in. Purging these blogs I was following but wasn’t interested in proved to be more difficult than fixing my categories issue.

        Eh, I also wish I knew effective blog promotion strategies back then. Perhaps my blog would have been much better than it is now, as far as traffic is concerned

        Liked by 1 person

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        1. I’m glad to hear that things are falling in line.

          I’ve always been against the “follow for follow”, since I once created a Twitter account and did that, and then I just had to delete the whole account, because it was just too much.

          Thank you for the additional ideas.

          Liked by 1 person

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        1. What I’m trying to ask is if you bought a website and your domain and THEN used WordPress to create a blog, or did you simply start on WordPress and just used the plans to upgrade and get your domain (i.e. url)?

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    1. I know exactly how you feel. It gets to be overwhelming. Where does one find time for that? But it’s something to consider, for sure. Especially, when you do have high hopes for the future.

      Like

      Reply
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  11. There’s nothing that I would have wanted to know before I started blogging. Surprised? I’d say each and every moment, second, minute, hour, day, week, month and year that I have spent here on WordPress has taught me something. From making a casual blog in 2014 to owning what Randomness Inked today is..It’s been a beautiful journey- writing, engaging, learning the editor, admistrator, reader, layouts, theme, menus, widgets, tags, and what not! There’s so much more on my list that I have to learn.

    Liked by 2 people

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      1. Yeah.. but then it requires a lot of time to learn each and everything.. As I said earlier, someone should pay me for blogging and learning to blog on my own. 😀

        Liked by 1 person

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  23. I had occasion recently to consider ‘blogging tips for newbies’; here’s a list of seven I came up with (copy-pasted here from the ‘Let’s Get Inspired’ interview it came from):

    Before you hit that beckoning ‘Publish’ button:

    1. Check your work – but don’t overdo it: typos are slippery critters; you can get to the point where you miss them even though some remain, because your mind is convinced that you got them all (when you really haven’t).
    2. If you can, get someone else to read your work and give you feedback on it – among other things, they may spot typos you’ve missed. (Years ago, WordPress had what I thought was a very useful feature that allowed you to solicit feedback from others via the WordPress system itself, but that, sadly, disappeared as quietly as it was introduced.)
    3. Always preview posts. There’s something magical about a preview that allows you to spot things you’ll have missed in the editor.
    4. Consider scheduling each and every post. Sleep on it; give it time to marinate. Many’s the time I’ve thought I’ve finalised a post, only to suddenly realise, perhaps days later, that there’s a way to improve it.
    5. Always count up the total of the ‘categories’ and ‘tags’ you’ve allocated to each post, because if you exceed 15 the post won’t appear in the WordPress Reader.
    6. Less is more. People generally don’t read articles, especially not long ones; they skim them. I would say that a good rule of thumb is that if your post is longer than 750 words, it’s worth at least considering trimming it, or splitting it into smaller chunks. And, yes, I should take that advice to heart more often myself 🙂
    7. Last but not least: check your facts (and provide links to them). Misinformation is a curse.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. WP had other bloggers check your posts? What form did that take? That’s very interesting.

      Because I often write last minute, it’s hard to catch typos sometimes because I’m tired from writing and it’s too fresh. Leaving it and coming back to it is definitely good advice.

      Thanks for sharing!

      Like

      Reply

      1. I’m not clear on what you’re saying. Are you referring to my aside in my second point “(Years ago, WordPress had what I thought was a very useful feature that allowed you to solicit feedback from others via the WordPress system itself, but that, sadly, disappeared as quietly as it was introduced.)” — but that’s different from what you’re saying.

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