Coupons, contests and content: And the greatest of these is content. 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 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 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 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 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:
Dawn Allcot E-mail This Page | Follow Us | Return to My Column You can Bookmark & Share this article by clicking here:
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