Getting More Subscribers (for Free!)

You’re ready for the next step — blog promotion.

You don’t have to have a business degree to master this, either.

There are tons of free ways to promote your blog.

You don’t have to spend money to be successful — if you’re passionate and Internet-savvy, you can end up like any of the famous bloggers we talked about in Section 5.

Here are tons of ways you can get more subscribers without spending a dime.

Placement of Your URL

Sometimes it’s all about where you link to your blog URL.

Place your blog URL on your email signature so that every time you send an email, people can see your blog.

You might get some clicks out of that.

It’s also important to put a link to your blog on all of your social media accounts — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram — link to your blog everywhere. Seriously, everywhere.

Write Articles

Write articles and submit them to professional e-zines, article directories, and others to publish.

Be sure to include a release allowing your article to be reprinted or redistributed, but only with proper attribution to you (at a minimum, include your name, email, and blog URL).

Use the Internet

Use a free pinging service to hit all the major search engines.

It’s pretty quick and simple to do.

I recommend http://pingomatic.com and http://feedshark.brainbliss.com.

You can also submit your blog to directory services. A good list is available online at www.toprankblog.com/rss-blog-directories.

FROM THE EXPERTS: GREGORY A. WHITE
1. Submit your blog to all of the directories listed on http://pingomatic.com. Pingomatic will ping 15 services all at once. 2. Ping your blog after every post at http://pingomatic.com. 3. Here’s a real gem: Submit your blog to http://www.pingoat.com. Pingoat will ping over 50 blog ping services all at once. So you don’t have to hunt for ping services and manually ping them. Pingoat pings over 50 blog ping servers (growing) with just one click. 4. Ping your blog after every post at Pingoat at http://www.pingoat.com. 5. Sign up for a free account at BlogExplosion.com and register your blog there. 6. Submit your blog to all of the directories listed at www.rss-feeds-directory.com/blog_lists.html. (Use http://top200-blog-rss-submit.com to simplify the process.) 7. Sign up for a “My Yahoo” at http://my.yahoo.com and attach your blog to your own “My Yahoo” account. This will get your blog included in Yahoo very quickly. This is worth the effort to stop what you’re doing right now and do it, since Yahoo has a PR 9. 8. Use this code: “http://add.my.yahoo.com/content?url= http://www.yourblog.com/urblog.xml” in your blog to allow others to put your feed on their own “My Yahoo” account. 9. Sign up for a “My MSN” at www.my.msn.com, and attach your blog to your own “My MSN” account. This will get your blog included in MSN very quickly. This is also invaluable because MSN has a PR 8. 10. Use this code: “http://my.msn.com/addtomymsn.armx?id=rss&ut=http://www.urblogfeedaddress.com/urblog.xml” in your blog to allow others to put your feed on their own “My MSN” account. 11. Place the link and description of your blog in your signature, so that any posts to Forums, Outgoing Emails, Autoresponder Courses, etc., will promote your blog. 12. Post a link and description of your blog on each of your sites. 13. Place your blog on all the major search engines. AddMe.com will submit your blog free to the top 14 search engines here: www.addme.com/submission.htm. SubmitExpress.com will submit your blog free to the top 20 Search engines here: www.submitexpress.com. 14. Use Article Directories as a resource for articles to post on your blog. Here are a few:http://ezinearticles.comhttp://goarticles.comwww.knowledge-finder.comwww.informit.com/articles 15. Locate blogs with a lot of traffic and place useful comments in their comment box. Be sure the blog and your comments are relevant to both your blog and theirs. Senseless posts won’t help you; they’ll hurt you. 16. Once you get around five to ten posts on your blog, start a PR campaign and announce it to all relevant channels. 17. Make a blog post as often as possible. More than once a day is not really necessary. Remember, if you can’t write that much, go to step # 14. Greg White, Internet Marketer, Author, Consultant and Project Manager has been running successful Web projects since 2001. His sites and blogs cover Blog Marketing Tactics, Internet Marketing Tactics and a variety of ‘Niche’ topics, in addition to starting and marketing profitable Web projects. Find him at www.blogmarketingtactics.com and http://socialbuzzmaster.com.

Navbar for Blogger

Take a look at the Navbar if you are using Blogger. This is the non-intrusive replacement for advertisements on Blogger.

You may not even notice the Navbar (across the top of the screen on Blogger hosted blogs), but there is a button called “Next Blog” where users can click and be served a random blog.

There are lots of people who find this as a good way to pass time.

Your blog will be pulled in automatically.

If you’re using Blogger, ensure you allow your blog to be added to the Blogger listing.

To get some assistance when it comes to helping people find your blog, visit https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/41373.

Be an Active Blogger

When you’re a really active blogger, people notice. If you’re always commenting on other people’s blogs, following them, and liking their posts, they might take a look at your page, and they might (just might!) follow you and return the favor.

This is one of the ways to get your name out there — just be sure to have a quick and easy link back to your blog if you do comment on someone’s post.

Not only will the blogger notice, but other commenters might take a peak at your blog, too.

Feedburner

Sign up for a free Feedburner account (www.feedburner.com), and use it to promote your blog.

Linking

Offer to exchange links with other websites and blogs.

All you have to do is send them an email that goes a little like this: “I love your content, and I think you’d like mine, too.

Would you be interested in doing a cross-link with me?

It could be a great promotional tool for both of us.”

The only thing is, you want to make sure you’re asking someone that has a similar amount of followers as you — otherwise, they won’t get any benefit from it, and they’ll either ignore you or decline.

Hold Giveaways/Contests

Start a contest that requires people to visit your blog. Sure, you’re forcing their hand, but people like to win stuff, or even try to win stuff, so take advantage of the free traffic.

Use Keywords

Always use keywords in your blog. How do you know which keywords to use?

Well, think about what you’d search for if you were on the Web.

Let’s say you want to find out some tips on how to… find keywords!

You’d probably search one of the following phrases: “choosing great keywords,” “how to choose keywords,” “the best keywords,” or “how to choose the best keywords.”

When you’re filling up your blog with keywords, make sure you’re always thinking from a reader’s perspective.

What are they going to type in the search engine when they’re looking for your post?

Beyond this advice, there are also online programs that help you choose keywords.

These include https://moz.com, www.spyfu.com, and https://landing.semrush.com.

If you get a chance, take a look at these sites and the free trials.

SpyFu actually lets you type in a competitor’s site to see what keywords they’re using to be successful.

It can be eye-opening to see the kinds of things that people are typing in, and it can help you to cater to that content.

Post to Social Media

If you have a Facebook page, link to your blog post.

The same goes for every other social media application out there — start promoting yourself everywhere.

If there’s a chance that you’ll get one new person to see your post (or even to retweet it), why not take it?

Also, make sure you’re following people that are in your niche.

If you write a finance blog, make sure you follow other people that write or know a lot about finance.

They’ll be less bothered by your constant promotions — they may even leave you the best comments!

☞ Pro Tip: To boost your ability to promote yourself, create a Pinterest board for you to pin all of your posts to.

Be Patient

Blugh, we know. But, really, the best advice of all is to simply have patience.

As with everything, there is no magic solution to promote your blog. It’s done over time, one blog post at a time.

Use the solutions and recommendations provided where possible, and over time, you will see results.

It takes time, often months, to build visibility in search engines, as well as realizing the increased traffic in your promotional campaigns.

FROM THE EXPERTS: PRIYA SHAH
Find her at: www.priyashah.com, www.marketingslave.com, and www.soulkadee.com.
With the growing interest in blogging as a means of online promotion and branding, a lot of marketers are starting blogs to promote their opinions, products, books and services. But a blog is like a website. “Write and they will come” isn’t exactly a magic formula to bring in traffic by the boatload. If you need to promote your website in order to build traffic to it, you need to promote your blog as well. Here are some ways you can become a well-read and influential blogger. 1. Write Posts That People Will Want To Read This should be common sense, but many marketers tend to forget that their readers are real people and that you need to use the principles of online copywriting to make your headlines and copy interesting to your readers. If you write posts that people enjoy reading, they will reward you by returning to your blog regularly. Make your posts conversational, pithy, and topical. Keep them short and stick to one topic per post. Write often and regularly so that both readers and search engines visit your blog more often. 2. Optimize Your Posts for Search Engines I cover this topic in detail in my article on “Search Engine Optimization For Blogs” (www.blog-maniac.com/blog-seo.htm). Here are the most important rules to follow to get your posts listed for keywords of your choice. Make sure your blog URL contains the primary keyword you want to optimize for Use your primary keywords in the title of your post Use your secondary keywords in the body of your post Use your keywords in the anchor text of links in the body of your posts 3. Submit Your Blog and RSS Feed To Directories If you publish a blog, you should submit your blog and RSS feed to big directories like Yahoo and Dmoz, as well as the numerous blog directories and search engines. Here is the best list I’ve found of places to submit your feed or blog, compiled by Luigi Canali De Rossi, who writes under the pseudonym Robin Good. Best blog directory and RSS submission sites: www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55 Another list of sites to submit your blog: www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm 4. Ping The Blog Services There are a number of services designed specifically for tracking and connecting blogs. By sending a small ping to each service, you let them know you’ve updated your blog so they can come check you out. Bookmark the Ping-O-Matic ping results page so that you can visit it and quickly ping a number of services with a single click (http://pingomatic.com). 5. Build Links To Your Blog I recommend the methods here as the best ways to get links pointing to your blog: Trackback to other blogs in your posts Post legitimate comments on other blogs with related topics Offer to exchange links with other similarly themed blogs 6. Edit Your Blog Posts Into Articles One of the best methods for promoting your website is to write articles and submit them to article directories. The suggestion for extending this to edit your blog posts into articles and submit them to directories came from the coach at “Explode Blog Traffic” who also has other noteworthy suggestions at his blog here: http://bloghit.blogspot.com/2004/11/how-to-explode-blog-traffic.html. You’ll find an extensive list of article directories here: http://www.articlewritingtips.com/submit-articles.htm. 7. Create Buzz About Your Blog Creating a buzz about your blog posts and topic in the local and online media will give your marketing a viral component. Create a controversy around your blog or its topic. Distribute bumper stickers or other merchandise with your blog’s URL and tagline. Write a press release about something newsworthy and tie it in with your blog topic. 8. Capture Subscribers By Email It may seem strange for a blogger to send out updates by email, but email is still the #1 choice of most people who want to receive news and information. Using a free service like Bloglet to manage your subscriptions is easy, and it allows your subscribers to manage all their subscriptions from one interface (www.bloglet.com). However, if you want more control over your list and don’t mind mailing out the updates yourself, you can use an autoresponder system to capture and follow-up with subscribers. RSS responder is a new script that allows you to keep in touch and follow-up with your subscribers without the hassle of email. Find it and more RSS tools here: www.rssnewssite.com. These tips should give you a good start to building your blog traffic. Priya (pronounced ‘pree-yaa’) Florence Shah lives in a suburb of India’s financial capital, Mumbai. She is an Internet publisher, marketer, entrepreneur, and full-time mom.