Starting a new blog is no longer a big deal with the emergence of amazing blogging platforms like WordPress. But, with so many new blogs popping out each day from every corner of the world, you really need some mind blowing strategies to stand out from the rest.
What do you think about your blog? Is it good enough to be in the competition and make a place among million others of the same kind? Certainly, writing good content grabs people’s attention and will make them come back to your site more often. Sadly, only writing good content won’t save your blog from escaping someone’s notice.
So, what is going to happen with the posts you’ve written to populate your blog with? Are they going to die unnoticed? – No. That won’t happen if you take the steps to give the blog an identity it deserves. With this post we will tell you how to promote a WordPress blog. Here’s how you should move forward-
Step 1: Begin with the Basics
Before you start working on its promotion, design your blog with a light WordPress theme. Heavier themes distract viewers and increase page loading time, hence lighter is better. Also, get a custom-made logo, use interesting graphics (but don’t overdo it) and avoid using default WordPress themes as they are very common.
Dedicate a page that tells people about you and your experiences with the topic you’ll deal with through the blog. The more you share your “real” story with them, the more they will trust you with the content. Use photographs of yours or other authors (if applicable) in the about page and tell viewers that it’s a real blog.
Step 2: Write Informative but Interesting Content
Well-researched, informative, original content is all you need to populate your blog with. Give your blog a character. Let the topic be similar to what other blogs may offer, but you can give it an interesting twist by writing from a different angle. If others are talking of “no, it’s not good”, talk about “why don’t you give it a try?”instead.
Another thing that most bloggers pay less attention to is a well-decorated content. Use images, graphics, memes, GIFs, infographics, etc. and make reading a pleasurable experience for readers.
Step 3: Effective Social Media Marketing
Nowadays, the first step to promoting anything under the sun is creating a social media fan page. We don’t need to discuss this elaborately as it’s a well-known rule: Create one for your blog in Facebook. Regularly post something on the timeline and make it as interactive as possible.  You can also use plugins or copy-paste the Facebook code to a widget to display a Facebook like box. Similarly, set up a Twitter profile on the same.
Integrate social media accounts of your WordPress blog. By doing this, posts updated in one will automatically get shared on the other. Also, use plugins to get social media tabs, buttons or bars on your posts like Social Media Widgets. Such tabs encourage readers to like/share your content while going through them.
If you are skeptical about using plugins (and understand coding), read this amazing post by Kevin Muldoon on how to manually integrate social media services from the backend without a plugin.
Step 4: Search Engine Optimization
Do some research on keywords and keyword density coz it’s the foremost step to a successful SEO campaign to promote a WordPress site. Make a list of all the keywords that you want to be ranked for in a search engine. Use them everywhere, like your homepage, categories and blogs posts (make sure you don’t overuse them as they may land you in trouble!). To know how to use keywords and whether your posts and pages are properly optimized, use plugins like WordPress SEO by Yoast and All-in-One SEO Pack.
In addition, optimize the meta descriptions, site title and other contents of your homepage and category pages for your selected keywords. Optimize your category pages by adding texts and SEO-friendly content. Amend the present theme in such a manner that it supports category description field.
Step 5: Other Approaches to Online Marketing
You can try giving away something as return gift to visitors who subscribe your email list or like your page – an e book or a free tutorial will not be a bad idea! If you are running an ecommerce site, a small discount on products purchased by new buyers will also attract more. Apart from this, some general techniques like using YouTube videos, associating your posts with renowned voting sites (Reddit, StumbleUpon), will surely enhance your blog’s presence on the web. To increase page views and readership, you can opt for email marketing strategies as well.
If you think we’ve missed out any relevant point here, please share it with us in the comments section.
