# General Business Category > Marketing Forum >  I started a Blog, what Now?

## BusNavig8

I have started a blog, its about everyday life issues, and business issues. I share the everyday issues to Facebook and Twitter and the Business issues to LinkedIn. I havent posted a business topic yet, as Im just finding my way around. My question is this. How do I go about advertising my blog so that people can find me. The only other thing Ive done is add it to my Instagram profile. Ideas anyone???

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## IanF

Put a link in your email signature. 
Write lots of words google likes words for search results.

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## designmine

Hi. Good job in starting your blog and in embracing social media! Getting people to read your blog is not an easy task but if you post/write interesting and worth content, the readers will come! What is your blog address so that I can have a look at it for you and give some more input. Another important thing to look at is the visual appearance of your blog and social media accounts. Design plays a vital role in telling your readers that you mean business! Do you have your own domain name or is it a free sub domain? Once I have had a quick browse around your blog, I will be able to give you some more input.

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## Norri

Hey  :Smile: 

1. Claim it on Technorati.com. This can help you get a trusted link to your site. Google likes that. If your blog does well here, then there are other benefits.
2. Do the same for other blog-search and blog-directory websites. Submit your RSS feed where you can.
3. Get lots of Twitter followers and Facebook fans. This is a long-term strategy and takes a lot of ongoing effort but the 2 (your social profiles and your blog) will feed each other.
4. Make it easy to connect with you on Twitter & Facebook from your blog.
5. Advertise! Just written a great article? Advertise it on Facebook for a day and see what happens. Experiment with different headings, different articles, etc.
6. Promote each blog post plus your home page. This helps you get deep-links: www.socialmarker.com
7. Get on www.google.com/webmasters and FIX every error they find. Use the info there to see what you're ranking for and WRITE MORE around that.
8. Submit your sitemap at www.google.com/webmasters
9. Find great bloggers to follow around your niche. Comment on their blogs, link back to yours. Don't be spammy.
10. Find great bloggers who write about getting people to visit your blog. (eg: http://www.problogger.net/) Learn from them.
11. Write definitive "best of", "top 10", "how to" posts that people want to share.

There are a ton of other things as well.

Each one of these should be done as well as possible. 
DON'T rush through them. 
Do the ones you can do or that resonate with you.
Do as many as possible.

Above all else: Write great content. This will NOT get you tons of readers by itself but if you plant the seed to get a few readers, using the above suggestions, and more that you will learn over time, your blog CAN get viral because of the content you post.

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## Justloadit

This is a long hard slog. You really gotta enjoy writing else you will lose interest with time.

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## primeoutsourcing

Write quality content articles. That way, your site will gain traffic and will eventually lead to regular visitors. You may also try posting a few teasers on your social media sites. Goodluck!  :Slayer:

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## bennies

Good job Norri. Another tip might be to invite guest bloggers, they can ask their "followers" to read what they wrote on you blog.

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## Rod

Hi Norri. A great way to get people interested in your blog is to get interested in other people's blogs. Find blogs that are similar to yours. Thank them for the great read and then refer them to an article your wrote. 

Unfortunately there isn't a cut and dry science behind marketing your blog.

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## ChristopherKing

You can go to social sites to advertise your blogs like Instagram, tweeter, and Facebook. I think Instagram is the best option because nowadays everyone using It that's why it is the best option to promote the product. I also use it to promote my cosmetic product among my customers and for increasing customers.

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## Dave A

> You can go to social sites to advertise your blogs like Instagram, tweeter, and Facebook.


Tweeter?  :Confused:

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## lynsofia

Hi BusNavig8, 
                      You can create a blog to post daily issue activity in your daily life. It's a good thought to tell people daily life issues with global users. You want to advertise your blog to another website and make new blog famous. You do some likes as-
- You can Add it your Email Signature or Business Cards
- Communicate to other related Blog
- Post Content Frequently
- Participate online Forums
- Used Social Media
- Join Blog Carnival
- Guest Blog
- Email Marketing

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## caramia

Lots of words don't mean anything. You need to make a great content attracting others. Don't blindly believe in Content is King, you should know why the content is the king.
Start writing many relevant blogs is also okay to build a system for your blog.

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## thepepy

In order to have a successful blog, you would need high quality content, information people would view as "valuable". General "Blah blah" wont get you anywhere. I would also use Google Keyword Tool, and see what type of keywords people are searching for in your industry. This way, you could write about Topics people are interested in, and if the article is high quality, you could easily get Page 1 rankings for "Long Term Keywords". 

For instance, if your blog is about Dogs, you could search a topic such as "Best Dog Food For Puppies". This keyword receives 50 searches per month in South Africa (I looked into it), if you article is long and provides good content, you could rank for it on Page 1 of Google and get a few visitors on Google just from that article. Hope that helps  :Smile:

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## RituSharma

Hi,

Share your blog on social media like linkedin, instagram, twitter etc., get your blog on high DA social bookmarking sites, include your blog link in your social media profiles.

I hope this will help you to advertise your blog.

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## Drelawiel

Hi, its a good thing you've started your blog. Many people get stuck at that first step. Its also a positive sign that you are sharing your posts on social media, which is one of the best ways of increasing traffic. Now make sure you post as often as possible, use high-ranking keywords, do backlinking to your blog, invite guest posts and also like other people's blogs as you invite them to yours. Good luck

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## Dave Morrison

It depens on your budget. Please write it.

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## michaelson789

Now the hard part starts - get traffic.

First of all, create attractive unique content that will be easy to promote. Once you do that, start building your audience. Post to forums, do guest posting, social media marketing etc.

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## New Perspective studio

Yeah I see so many people say write blogs and the traffic will come if your original content. 
You need to market your blog that a big all these SEO gurus leave out. 
So first of all there are a few options. 
Get the SEO of your website right: 
Submitting pages to google. 
Doing keyword research. 
Writing blog articles that are actually appealing to your target audience... and so on and so on there are millions of articles on-page SEO. 
Then you need off-page SEO - this is basically backlink building whether you do it white hat grey hat or blackhat. You can also do guest posting on other relevant sites with outreach but you will probably end up paying for that more about this coming. 
You can insert metadata into your post for social media channel lets create a business page or share your blog on other pages that will link back to your website. 
All this sounds awesome, right? It was when it used to work. See things have changed a lot since these suggestions were still working. 

In a nutshell, everything is about money now. Google ranks articles on directory sites faster than anything else making organic ranking very hard unless you use black hat techniques. So you try outreach-- this may work a little by posting on somebody's website who has traffic but you will pay. And if you are going to pay any sort of money just get AdWords and advertise what you need to advertise directly. This is what Google's vision is for webmasters. 

With Facebook the same concept of organic reach on Facebook has been declining they have even gone so far as to state that because Facebook is moving to a more social-friendly platform businesses should expect 0% reach eventually from their posts EVEN FOR PAGE FOLLOWERS  :Smile:  its no against their places to run like or share campaigns for a prize so nope you can do that  :Smile:  They want you to... you guessed it make use of their paid advertising. 

So that's what it all is heading towards pay to play.

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## ians

Facebook pages ... unless you pay/ boost the post ... it seems they throttle the exposure to an extent that it is a waste of time ... I have a few facebook "pages" ... they have grown over the years ... but because I choose not to pay/boost the pages  ... I get an average of a 3 likes a week ... over time they start adding up ... The content is to the point and relevant to the page. 

I very seldom waste time posting stuff on the facebook pages but when i do it is worthwhile content.  ... I found using your 2 facebook accounts (not pages)  works way better ... I have a personal facebook account (close friends and family) and another page which uses a similar name (for everything else) ... you will notice people are getting smarter ... you just keep sending out friend requests to ever person who comes up as a suggestion ... you will notice many friend request are accepted because people want you to like their bussiness or their pages .. then you get bombared with advertising or product promotion ... I have found if you dont post religion ... politics or air your personal views on topics ... people tend to start take note of your content.

Social media requires constant interaction ... you cant post one post and expect it to grow ... any fool can get a person to write a "nice" post ... this platform is a good example ... if you interact with this platform or any platform ... you will notice a trend with posts ... you can almost paint a picture of the person ... some of us are just here for entertainment  (hence the alias) ... others are here to play nicely and share valuable information ... for example you wouldnt call me if you needed an electrican ... but you would pm Andy or sparks etc for asssitance ... anything pastel related ... Neville would be the right person ... you get the idea ... you can be anything or anyone on social media ... the catch is ... you will eventually get caught out ... for example we had a person on an electrical platform who made out like he was  "bidding" for huge multi million dollar constracts around the world ... had a person jet ... after 3 years we found out he was a lift technican working for a company in the USA ... I have also found that people are very "clicky" on social media. 

If you want to be grow your views ... likes etc ... be consistant ... to the point ... dont comment on politics or attack others personally and dont bullshyte ... social media is  an extremely powerful tool ... if used correctly.

Manage your social profile ... Play nicely and understand that there not one method of spreading the word and you will grow. 

Every industry has a unique way of creating new customers ... dont get stuck on one method just because it works for someone else.

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## New Perspective studio

> Facebook pages ... unless you pay/ boost the post ... it seems they throttle the exposure to an extent that it is a waste of time ... I have a few Facebook "pages" ... they have grown over the years ... but because I choose not to pay/boost the pages ... I get an average of a 3 likes a week ... over time they start adding up ... The content is to the point and relevant to the page.


I was very much in this camp when organic reach was still 5% on posts and even higher on people who followed your page. I think we are at 2% now told us that we should expect it to be 0%. 

I also realized then and there that likes are nothing but a vanity metric they mean nothing except maybe a bit of "social proof". Yet Facebook still allows like campaigns after they said that even followers will see less and less of the stuff from the pages they liked and that you should expect to pay for your followers to see your posts. 

This is when I thought well id rather pay and get thousands more of the right people seeing my content than play it out a few years - The cost of those hours vs the cost of targeted advertising on Facebook advertising with a much bigger ROI. 

I agree don't get stuck on one method so again time is needed to jump into other methods and thus id opt again for paid advertising. To allow me the freedom to explore other areas. 

Personally, I think Facebook is scum, (didn't want to give them a cent) I hate it compared to good old forums such as this, I hate the dominance they have on data along with Google. They are however some of your best marketing tools when used in the correct manner.

About your suggestion that organic reach is declining: 
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/f...each-declining

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## ians

You have to learn to "play the game" ... a person I have never heard of played the song "dance monkeys" on a sax ... his subsrciptions ...followers and views were in the 20 k ... playing the song on youtube it took his views to 100 million ... here is the catch ... its what you do with the 100 million views that makes the difference between becoming a millionare over night of just a another youtuber with 100 million views and a badge to fit on the wall. 

Just like bussiness ... you can do the bussiness plan ... pay for the advertsing ... pay for consultants to tell you what to do ... yet you still only have a less 2 % chance of still operating after 10 years ... I am still operating after all these years ... yet I dont advertise ... I choose not to advertise for a reason ... I find that the majority of the calls are more time wasters than valueable customers ... I focus on the right now customers and their customers or freinds or visitors ... I get more "valuable" customers while actually working than I do from any means of advertsing ... but there a catch ... because I choose not to grow and build the company as I did in the first 10 years ... I choose who I want to deal with ... with that comes a few challenges ... an example I got a new customer just before lockdown happened ... thank goodness I chose not to take that huge step ... it was a big project which would have involved employing staff ... I declined the offer and a month later we went into lockdown ... I would have lost everything. 

you have to understand what it is you are trying to achieve before you even start ... there are billions of customers out there ... most are looking for a cheap solution/product they dont really care if it only lasts for 2 weeks ... then there are the few who are looking for a good quality long lasting solutuion (not many of them left in the society we live in at present) but specific to what you are selling ...services ... products ... selling a service to a customer is compleletely differnet to selling a product to a customer ... in this day and age ... the majority of sales will depend on price and speed of delivery ... nothing else matters you have to adapt to the now not methods used 2 years ago ... this is where a lot of people fail ... they spend more time trying to setup a way to sell ... but by the time they wipe the zeros out their eyes there is a better faster way of doing things. 

Using youtube as an example ... people are getting smart ... advertising (we will go into that) ... but the smart ones learnt that the money is in the product links not only the annoying ads ... so you dont have to lie and tell everyone what a great product you promoting because someone sent it to you for free ... or bog your content up with ad breaks or promoting while trying to share your content ... no I dont feel bad that I use ad blockers. 

The joke about advertising on youtube ... people comment about how you should allow ads to help the person create content people shouldnt use ad blockers etc ... what a load of shyte ... you have to waste the first 3 minutes of ads then of him/her  advertising themselves their brand ... then the like and subsricbe ... then the paid promotions during the video ... now the person advertising the sponsor of the content ( but I thought the content was paid for by the advertising) ... yeah I know it confusing ... youtube was such a pleasure to watch when it was just people sharing stuff people enjoyed doing.

The bottom line ... advertsing is complicated ... get it wrong and you gonna loose.

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## New Perspective studio

Hmm I agree with you that paid advertising is complicated. - And you have chosen probably once of the worst imo as an example youtube.  :Big Grin: 

I don't think that its useless, however, I think a lot of bad rep PPC is getting is because of rubbish like boosting posts - Adwords Express and all those AI-enhanced automated advertising which until now I've only ever seen destroy people budgets for little return. The picture they paint enter your credit card details and we will get you thousands of leads in a few minutes. That's just not gonna happen ...yet if ever. 

People go through this process get angry they lost money and PPC is then the devil. 

I've do PPC campaigns and even with a few years of experience and setting up every campaign according to a strategy - I still do a/b testing on ads.

Most of my clients with the exception of a few really lucky guys run at 2-5% conversion rates - however, I know their target cost per acquisition - I also have an idea of their LTV of clients. You can tweak your adverting to be more effective, better landing pages, offers, ad copies bid strategies, target audience, what stage of the sales funnel are you looking to get onboard on? and that will lower your cost per acquisition tremulously. You could also work on the other side of things in terms of increasing a client's LTV but for most guys when you get a decent return on investment you are not going to look back because it actually becomes easier with more data. This is not a 5min solution though.  

The data provided by advertising on some platforms is also incredibly useful in other areas of yo business marketing. 

I don't think advertisers are sheep(well let's say half arent). We are using platforms of third parties where all our clients are waiting - Google and Facebook employ organic ranking manipulations as youve mentioned and google promotes business directories as a way to force a small business to use ppc if they want to get seen on serps. Now I don't agree with this but it's their platform and they have the user base so they set the rules until most consumers decide to pack up and go to duck duck go or something else.

I do believe ians that we need more competition in this field and I believe the monopolies that data companies have is a part of why they can flog crappy solutions to people who have no clue of advertising without and repercussions. If we had more competition they may actually decide to roll out automated tools that are not geared towards budget mashing. 

I know adverting works, I also know its not a quick setup, and yes its actually not for every niche  and yes youtube is a mess (you think its bad for the consumers, you should see what the business has to deal with with).

Lastly I am also one that believe whilst advocating for PPC here, dont put al your eggs in one basket or get tunnel vision even if you are making a goog profit. 

For me diversifying your marketing into a few effective methods is a must.

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## sherinemuasher

Well you need to work out on the content on how you are going to let everyone see it at the very least. One can try to at least work with the lack of details that you give out in the long run but then it is safe to say that there is still some work to improve it too. There are some others who dont know the way it is going to be done but then a little bit of research will do the trick for you as well.

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## heathermalone

Rightly said @sherinemuasher. Also, if you dont have any prior experience in advertising your business, it would be best to hire a specialist for that purpose. 

Its a mix actually. Using the right keywords, postings everyday, be it blogs, or social media posts and then linking the pages and the profiles together, works. Like I said earlier, if you dont have time, its better to look for professional help.

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## Spkin

I don't know if this has already been suggested to you or not, but I can recommend collaborating with other bloggers and creating collaborative content. This will allow you to gain a new audience. However, do not contact major bloggers at first - you will most likely be refused. Look for someone in your niche.

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