This article lists 12 tried and trusted ideas for enhancing the visibility of your main online marketing machine, i.e. your blog. Marketing tools need marketing too, especially when it concerns the nexus of your strategy. This article is inspired by the book Born to Blog: Building Your Blog for Personal and Business Success One Post at a Time (2013) by Mark Schaefer and Stanford Smith.

Blogs are a marketing haven in itself

“Blogs are the content engine driving the social web.”

“For business blogs, the “right” reader is usually a potential customer with disposable income and a desire to solve a problem.”

- Schaefer &  Stanford (2013)

Although the company blog serves as the main tool for market the company website, otherwise known as a traffic catchment area, this marketing tool that builds your community of prospective clients needs its own well-thought-out marketing as well.

Social media sharing

“Business professionals roam LinkedIn; artists, illustrators, and crafters are on Pinterest. Journalists, subject matter experts, and early adopters prefer Twitter and Google +. With over a billion members, everybody else is on Facebook!”

- Schaefer &  Stanford (2013)

1. Tweet your articles. Each individual blog post should be tweeted at least 5 times over a certain period of time. The rest, i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn, Google + goes without saying. However, share on the social platforms used specificaly by the audiences of your niche .

For more information on how to use social media networks to work in your favour see:

Which Social Media Platform Should You Be Using?

Twitter as a Quality Filter

Share your blog address like you would your email address

“Look for opportunities to place your blog address on current outbound advertising and communications... Promote your blog anywhere you have your e-mail address.”

- Schaefer&  Stanford (2013)Share your address on:

2. business cards

3. letterhead,

4. invoices,

5. publications, and

6. PowerPoint presentations.

Utalise the marketing space of others

7. Guest post on other successfull industry related blogs. With a link back to your own. If you can’t guest post atleast provide intellegent commentary.

Get those posts on Google’s top 10

8. Search engine optimise to accomodate the vocabulary of your target audience. This means including popularly searched key prases and niche vocabulary into the content and meta data for each article.

Frequent discusson forums

Research from The Social Habit shows that forum and chat room participation is still on par with blog readership. Once you’ve found a suitable forum, spend a few weeks being a good citizen by asking and answering questions from fellow forum participants. Follow the rules closely and look for influential participants. These influencers might publish blogs that accept guest posts or might submit a guest post for your blog.

- Schaefer &  Stanford (2013)

Taking part in online conversations gives you the chance to build your own reputation as a digital writer and a chance to flaunt your knowledge and experience.

Deliver well thought out comments in online discussions and post your blog address for participants to follow should they be interestd in your thoughts.

Comments accompanied by your blog address can be posted in:

9. Blog comment sections

10. News article comment sections

11. Facebook Group conversations

12. LinkedIn Group conversations

People are curious by nature, but they are also haters of spam. It is therefore important to plan your blog marketing carefully. Work according to a strategy that includes the above mentioned techniques, however, ensure, that each tactic is carried out in an elegant and tasteful manner.

Sound Idea Digital is a full service digital marketing agency. For more information contact 012 664 4227 or email to info@soundidea.co.za

Carla van Straten is a writer for Sound Idea Digital | Carla@soundidea.co.za|@SoundIdeaLMS| Sound Idea Digital l www.soundidea.co.za

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