Coupons, contests and content: And the greatest of these is content.
(Long Island, N.Y.) You’ve built your blog. It’s SEO-optimized. You’re providing regular content (or have hired a writer to do so.) Now you’re sitting back, waiting for the traffic to come rolling in, right?
Don’t get disheartened if it doesn’t happen right away – or at all. Just because you have a blog doesn’t mean everyone knows about it. There are a few easy ways to spread the word, though.
Social networking
You’ve heard me go on and on about Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and the like. One of the best ways to let people know about new blog posts is through your existing social network. You can use a program like Twitterfeed (www.twitterfeed.com) to automatically update Twitter when a new post goes live. Then you can use a program like Ping.fm to post to your other social media accounts every time you make a Twitter post.
Newsletters
Monthly newsletters provide another way to stay in touch with your prospects. You can promote your blog in each newsletter, as well. Post a catchy headline and the first few sentences of your blog post. Hopefully, it hints at solving a problem your readers may have, showing them a new, better way of doing something, or answering a question they have. This information – the “what’s in it for me?” – should always be in the lead (that is, the first paragraph or two) of every blog post.
I write more about writing catchy headlines in this post, over at Writer’s Roundabout. You may find it helpful if you’ve decided to write your own blog content.
RSS Feed
You do offer your visitors the option of signing up for your RSS feed so they’ll always know about your new blog posts, right? Once you’ve attracted visitors, this is one way — along with providing quality content, of course – to make sure they keep coming back.
Comment on other blogs
This is a good way to get spread the word about your website. But unless you have a Virtual Assistant or someone on staff to handle your social media it’s time consuming. You have to find relevant blog posts, make comments, and subtly plug a post you wrote that may be related. Unless you’re surfing the Web and reading other blogs simply because you enjoy it, this is not the best way to spend your time as a small business owner. You can, however, hire people to do this for you
Contests
Some blog owners love contests. Other see it as “bribing” readers, and claim that a contest creates only one-time visitors, not conversions or repeat visitors. I’ve held a few contests for writing books in my little corner of The Freelance Writer’s Journal, with limited success. You can see the number of comments I’ve gotten. No more or less than with many of my other posts.
However, I’m holding contests purely to generate traffic, provide fun content for my readers, and, incidentally, as an excuse to share good books I’ve read. I’m not getting a cash-dollar return on my investment. Even so, my most recent contest may be the last one I hold, since they’re obviously not drawing the traffic I want.
If your blog is tied into an ecommerce site, though, you can use contests as a way to drive traffic to your site and then, convert those visitors into buyers. For instance, your contest could provide a free service or free gift to a person, selected at random, who comments on your blog. Once they’re in the door as a customer (albeit, not a paying one) you have the opportunity to up-sell them. Or you can Wow them with your product and service so much that you’ve created a customer for life. And all those visitors who didn’t win? They know your blog exists now. If they like what they saw, they’ll come back.
Coupons
If the idea of running a contest for free stuff doesn’t appeal, you can offer discount coupons to people who comment on your blog. It’s less expensive (and more environmentally-friendly) than paying to place coupons in print media. Rather than selecting one winner, everyone who visits receives something for their efforts.
Coupons are a proven marketing tactic, used probably since the invention of paper. Offering discount coupons are also a great way to get people to provide their email address for your mailing list. You can use a program like AWeber to get started building your list easily.
In closing, yes, there is a formula to drive repeat traffic to your blog:
- Create incentives (coupons, contests, or content that solves a problem) to get people to your blog.
– Let people know what you have to offer on your blog.
- Deliver what you promised.