Blog Promotion: 169 New Ways to Build Traffic like a Ninja

Promot­ing your blog is per­haps the most dif­fi­cult part of blog­ging.  After spend­ing hours writ­ing a great post and putting links and images in it you push the pub­lish but­ton and wait… but noth­ing hap­pens! Your post is live on the web and no one is clam­or­ing to read it! You can’t even get a comment!

That’s why today I am going to out­line some very sim­ple new ways to pro­mote your blog. Some of these meth­ods you will have heard of and I am going to guess that many of them will be com­pletely new.  The impor­tant part is that you try them out and see what works for you and your blog.  Some of these things wont be inter­est­ing to you, that’s okay.  For this rea­son we came up with 169 ways to pro­mote your blog out of the ordinary.

Brand­ing

An impor­tant ele­ment to think about as you start to go through this list and try the new pro­mo­tional meth­ods out is brand­ing.  The key with many of these things is to get your name and url (web address) seen by as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble for as lit­tle money as pos­si­ble. You don’t want to spend $1 mil­lion dol­lars to get 2 new vis­i­tors so think about the efforts required for each of these as well. Most of them require lit­tle time, exper­tise or money.  Some are ridicu­lous and we warn you to try them at your own risk!  The bet­ter the domain name the eas­ier it is to do try these meth­ods out.  Try to find a domain name that is short and easy to remember.

For some very impor­tant and basic pro­mo­tion meth­ods, read our pop­u­lar post on Blog Pro­mo­tion.  It out­lines dozens of pro­mo­tion meth­ods you must be insti­tut­ing to pro­mote your blog online.  So read the basic post if you are begin­ner and then go down this list and find what you like.

1. Mar­ket­ing Apparel — Get a t-shirt made with your blog’s logo and URL on it. You can also offer the t-shirt as a prize in a con­test on your blog. If the t-shirt’s design is pretty cool, the win­ner will adver­tise for you wher­ever they go!
2. Yard Sale -  Sell items you no longer want and make sure to put up a sign in your yard with the words “Spon­sored by ______.com”
3. Teach a Local Class — Go to your local com­mu­nity cen­ter, col­lege, pri­mary schools, etc. and offer to teach a free class about your blog’s niche. If you blog about cars, teach a class about how to change a tire. There are a lot of ways to build face-to-face rela­tion­ships in your area.
4. Get on Your Local News — Find a way to get in your local news­pa­per to build some hype around your blog and what you are doing online. An easy way to do this is by writ­ing an edi­to­r­ial or show­ing up to impor­tant local events.
5. Farmer’s Mar­kets — Give away food at local events like farmer’s mar­kets, con­ven­tions, fairs, car shows, or other local events. Peo­ple will stop by your booth and will accept a hand­out with your prod­uct or blog on it for a small bit of food.
6. Go to the Beach — Enjoy your­self and while there etch your url into the sand.  Just be sure to watch out for the tide. — Works in snow too!
7. Write on a Dirty Car Win­dow — It only takes a second!
8. Host a Snow­ball Fight! — Unless it is ille­gal in your state. This is a fun way to get peo­ple to have fun and with a lit­tle hot choco­late spon­sored by your blog it’s a quick way to get your name out as well.
9. Yard Sign — Cam­paigns do it all the time, just put a very nice sign in your win­dow or yard, be sure to check the rules of your city or neigh­bor­hood though.
10. Post Fly­ers — Stick a poster about your web­site on your work or school’s notice-board. You prob­a­bly want to wait until no-one is around before you try this one.
11. Pub­lic Browser Trick — Go to your local library, inter­net cafe or com­puter lab and set your blog’s domain name as the default browser home­page on all the com­put­ers you can eas­ily access. Just make sure not to vio­late any terms of use.
12. Router Trick — This is an easy one to do and can get your neigh­bors inter­ested in your blog.  All you have to do is name your wire­less router after your blog and try to get your neigh­bors inter­ested. Who knows, you might have a fel­low blog­ger next door.
13. Blank Busi­ness Cards — You can hand out a busi­ness card when­ever your blog comes up or when­ever you bring it up in con­ver­sa­tion.  Be sure to men­tion your blog to more peo­ple offline.
14. Local Meet­ing — Orga­nize a meet-up for web­mas­ters and blog­gers in your area and use it as an oppor­tu­nity to network.
15. Back­pack Patch — Get your­self a cus­tom patch to put on your bag or back­pack and travel with it everywhere.
16. Niche Hot-Spots — Leave fliers or posters at hot spots for your niche. For exam­ple: If you have a music blog then post fly­ers at a local music shop, con­cert venue, etc.
17. Take Out a Local Ad — Local ads in news­pa­pers are often pretty cheap and local papers have a cir­cu­la­tion of thou­sands. One more way to be found.
18. Wear your URL — Cre­ate for your­self and friends cus­tom t-shirts or hats with your URL on it. Peo­ple will want to know more and you will be cre­at­ing con­ver­sa­tions about your blog.
19. Use a Tal­ent — You Draw? Make Crafts? Sing Songs? Find a way to expand your vis­i­tors by show­cas­ing a tal­ent which exposes your blog.
20. Home­less Humor Approach — Why do your adver­tis­ing approaches have to be bor­ing? Try some­thing funny and exciting
21. Hire a Con­sul­tant — Find out specif­i­cally how you can get your blog going and get help from an expert.  I have con­sulted many clients and the key is for blog­gers to be open and will­ing to lis­ten. Many con­sul­tants are pretty inex­pen­sive con­sid­er­ing the time they save you from hav­ing to learn it on your own.
22. Hire a Pub­li­cist — Have them take care of your PR for you.  They are expen­sive though so be aware.
23. Bumper stick­ers — There a mil­lions of dri­vers so get a bumper sticker for your blog and mail them or sell them to your blog read­ers.  Every time they drive any­where they will be pro­mot­ing you.
24. Have a Party — Tell local blog­gers, friends, and fam­ily that your blog is spon­sor­ing a party with food, drinks or what­ever you want.  Then when every­one comes in hand them a card with your blog on it. It will cre­ate some great buzz offline.
25. Invite Offline Friends — Often we for­get that many of our friends and asso­ciates offline might be inter­ested in our niche too.  Just men­tion your blog the next time your offline friends ask you what you are up to.
26. Adver­tise on the Radio — It is gen­er­ally pretty cheap and very easy to set up. If you have some­thing non-web peo­ple would want get talking.
27. Adver­tise on TV — If you have prod­uct to sell and 30 sec­ond com­mer­cial might be a great way to get peo­ple online to check out your site.
28. Sell Your Prod­uct on an Infom­mer­cial — If peo­ple can sell inflat­able kitchen knives and tons of other wacky stuff, you can sell your prod­uct too!
29. Put Your URL on Your Desk­top — If you are like me you use your com­puter out­side of your house at school, library or in pub­lic. Peo­ple will see it and may visit your site.
30. Write a Guest Posts for Offline Pro­duc­tions — I’m talk­ing about newslet­ters, mag­a­zines, books, news­pa­pers, or any other offline pro­duc­tion you can help peo­ple and do a lit­tle self-promoting at.
31. Write an Edi­to­r­ial for the News­pa­per — Get your­self in reg­u­lar print and reach a whole new mar­ket.  Its easy if you just write an edi­to­r­ial about an issue you face and send it to your newspaper.
32. Lost Wal­let Stunt — Make or buy a bunch of very cheap wal­lets or purses and lose them all around town.  Inside don’t leave any­thing but a card with your url on it for them to check out. — link
33. Shave Your Blog Into Your Head! — Dras­tic but eas­ily rec­og­niz­able. You will need 2 things though for this to work… a good bar­ber and a short url.
34. Door to Door Sales — It works for many busi­nesses so see if you can leave a flier, offer a ser­vice online, or edu­cate them with your blog.
35. Vehi­cle Signs — Place signs on your car win­dow or doors adver­tis­ing your blog’s url. — example
36. Birth­day eCards from Your Blog — If your Face­book fans are hav­ing a birth­day, just send an e-card and let them know you and your blog care.
37. Bath­room Ads — Com­mon in bars and restau­rants, ads in the bath­room are smart and fun.
38. Snow­man Adver­tise­ment — Cre­ate a fun scene in the snow and ad your adver­tise­ment to it! Maybe a sign held by a snow­man say­ing “Blogussion.com was here!”
39. Dog Sign — going out for a walk with the dog, put a sign, sweater or leash with your blog’s name on it!
40. Join the Bet­ter Busi­ness Bureau — If your busi­ness is licensed, get involved with the BBB in your area and ben­e­fit from net­work­ing with other small busi­ness own­ers that might need your prod­uct or services.
41. Hal­loween Candy with URL — Hal­loween is a big night in many places world­wide so add your url to your door, candy, and any other spooky treats.

More on Blog­ging Offline

• Per­sonal Reflec­tion: How has your blog changed you offline?
• 5 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Blog While Away From Your Computer
• Prepar­ing your­self for blog­ging offline
• 11 Effec­tive Ways You Can Pro­mote Your Site Offline

1. Cre­ate a Wid­get — Get a wid­get cre­ated for blog­gers to eas­ily put your feed in their side­bar with lit­tle or no effort.  Over time your wid­get might spread and get you links and traf­fic from around the web.
2. Send a Track­back — Link out to other blogs and send track­backs when you men­tion other great arti­cles. It’s a great way to get your blog’s link out their and build opportunities.
3. Make a Youtube Video — Your video can be some­thing funny, sad, or infor­ma­tive. Put your link in the video at the end or in the description.
4. @Reply Marathon — @Reply to all of your twit­ter fol­low­ers in a sin­gle day! (if you have a ton, spread it out) You will have started con­ver­sa­tions all over the twit­ter­sphere and peo­ple will fol­low you and join in!
5. Search and Com­ment — Type in a key­word you are try­ing to rank well for and then go to each arti­cle in the top 50 posi­tions and leave a comment.
6. Stum­ble and Com­ment — An easy approach to get­ting your name out… just hit your stum­ble but­ton in your tool­bar and com­ment on every blog you stum­ble upon.
7. Ser­vice Com­pe­ti­tion — Run a com­pe­ti­tion and make the prize a ser­vice you’ll per­form. This could be mar­ket­ing, con­sult­ing, graphic design, a guest-post, or some other ser­vice which uti­lizes your own indi­vid­ual expertise.
8. Free Adver­tis­ing Net­works — Free adver­tis­ing is great for new blogs with low read­er­ships who are look­ing to build some fol­low­ers.  All of the free adver­tis­ers I have seen run off of a ad for ad pro­gram.  You run an ad for some­one, they run one for you.
9. Email Sig­na­ture — Add your website’s URL to the sig­na­ture of each email account you use. If appro­pri­ate add a funny com­ment or quote to draw people’s attention.
10. Build a Blog — For some­one else.  After tak­ing the time to help them… they will most likely tell every­one all about you and how you set it up.
11. Cham­ber of Com­merce — Get a Link from Your Local Cham­ber of Com­merce website.
12. Get added in Online Yel­low Pages — Not only is it usu­ally free, but it’s a great way to get a link to your blog and the ser­vices you provide.
13. Get links on Local Sites — Become an expert on your niche topic on local sites. Get listed as “New York’s Best Web Designer” or other such attrib­utes by reach­ing out to local blogs about the area.
14. Launch an Affil­i­ate Pro­gram — If you have got a ser­vice or prod­uct to sell, setup an affil­i­ate pro­gram to build links to your site and build your branding.
15. Craigslist - Cre­ate an ad about your ser­vice, exper­tise or prod­uct on Craigslist. Just be sure to watch out for spam!
16. Wikipedia page - If you have an impor­tant blog write a page up in wikipedia about it.
17. Google and Yahoo Groups — Involve your­self in a group rel­e­vant to your niche. If you can’t find one, start one. This way peo­ple look­ing for a com­mu­nity within your blog topic have one more avenue of find­ing you.
18. Answer Rel­e­vant Ques­tions on Yahoo! Answers — Look for ques­tions in your niche and when you find them pro­vide extremely use­ful answers to build some net­work­ing and get peo­ple to look at your pro­file. Also, where rel­e­vant, place links in your answer.
19. Squidoo or Hub­pages — Putting together a qual­ity page on one of these sites is not only easy but worth your time.  You can add your blog’s link, rss feed, and start send­ing traf­fic to your site right away.  This is also a fan­tas­tic way to get your new prod­uct, blog, or page indexed and found by Google.
20. Email Past Com­men­ta­tors — Haven’t heard from some­one in a while? Send out an email to old com­men­ta­tors to get them involved and let them know you miss hear­ing from them.
21. New Com­men­ta­tors — Send a per­sonal email to new com­men­ta­tors point­ing out your best con­tent and ask­ing them about there own inter­ests. It’s a great time to build a rela­tion­ship and build a long-time reader.
22. Offer Free ser­vices to other blog­gers — Reviews, Stum­ble, Tweets, Design help, or what­ever else you can offer is a great way to build trust and get peo­ple to keep com­ing back.
23. Plan and Post an Amaz­ing Forum Thread — Make sure your links are in your sig­na­ture and if your thread is really “hot” many read­ers might stop by.
24. Review Rel­e­vant Prod­ucts — A great strat­egy for get­ting rel­e­vant links from high-traffic sites is by review­ing prod­ucts.  You can use sites like Ama­zon or even movie sites like IMBD to let oth­ers know about what you thought of the prod­uct. These are espe­cially impor­tant if they are rel­e­vant to your sub­ject matter.
25. Review Related Blogs on Alexa — A very easy way to get your name con­nected with other blogs in your niche.  If you are very sim­i­lar to a blog, make sure to review it so other niche view­ers will see your review.
26. LinkedIn Rec­om­men­da­tions - LinkedIn is a great way to make con­nec­tions with other pro­fes­sion­als in your niche. After con­nect­ing with them start writ­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for them. Not only will your rela­tion­ship with them grow, but their other con­nec­tions will see it as well.
27. Write Tes­ti­mo­ni­als for Prod­ucts You Use — Start writ­ing tes­ti­mo­ni­als for online prod­ucts you use and enjoy. The own­ers might just post your tes­ti­mo­nial on their site with a link to yours.
28. Spon­sor a Char­ity — Find a char­ity and spon­sor it. If it is pretty small they might link to you and put a ban­ner to your site. Another qual­ity link is yours! It also might stay up much longer than an adver­tise­ment so you really might get your money worth.
29. Make a Tool Chest — Col­lect the links or iforms of a vari­ety of use­ful web tools for your niche and place them on a resource page for your read­ers. It will be book­marked and spread.
30. Cre­ate a Blog­ging Alliance — Get a blog­ging buddy, a group of friends, or a net­work to help you start pro­mot­ing your con­tent to others.
31. Cre­ate a Font — name it after your blog, and link to it on font sites. If you have the skills this might work well to build unique links.
32. Water­marked Images — Take some awe­some pic­tures or cre­ate dig­i­tal art and water­mark your site into it. When­ever your image is seen, so is your blog’s name.
33. Add “Alt” tags — Make sure all of your images have alt tags to start pick­ing up traf­fic and help with your seo.
34. Funny 404 — Make a cus­tom 404 page and book­mark it on social media sites. Look for 404 sites that show­case cus­tom pages and let your read­ers tell their friends about how funny/amazing yours is.
35. Write Nearly Libelous Things About Oth­ers — Now do this only if you want to get traf­fic in both forms.. Good and Bad. You must be care­ful in how you do this. I per­son­ally would not try it, but it really works for some people.
36. Be Top­i­cal — Talk about issues that are hap­pen­ing right now in your com­mu­nity and in the world.
37. High­light Your Best Posts — Cre­ate a nice list post with your best posts and per­haps a brief descrip­tion or why you like them.
38. Start a Twit­ter Account — Make sure to name it after your Blog and start build­ing some followers.
39. Make a Ran­dom Post — Make it non-related to your niche but key­word tar­geted. See if it brings in new read­ers and adds to your blog.
40. Flickr Account — Take amaz­ing pic­tures and put them on a flickr account with your url.
41. Make a Word­Press plu­gin — If you can code and under­stand php get started and you will get traf­fic it’s a use­ful or novel plugin.
42. Make a Word­Press theme — Sim­i­lar to the plu­gin, you will be linked to from most of the blog’s using the theme and also for any support.
43. Make a Fire­fox Theme/Extension — Again if you can code or you want to learn how then use this ele­ment to add to the com­mu­nity. In return chances are your traf­fic will really pick up.
44. Make a Resource List — Find resources from your blog or any other web­site and com­pile a gigan­tic list that is easy for oth­ers to come back to often. Resource pages turn into great pages to book­mark too!
45. Give Away Your Next Idea in a Con­test — Have you come up with a fan­tas­tic idea? If you are will­ing to take the risk, run a con­test in which you get very noticed and your win­ner gets your next big idea. If they hit it big, they will always thank you.  Your cred­i­bil­ity will only increase too.
46. Give Away a Blog You Own — This can be tough, but you can run a con­test and give away one of your blogs that is already setup and earn­ing. The value to the win­ner would be huge!
47. Find a Prob­lem > Offer the Solu­tion — go on Twit­ter and search for a prob­lem by using the # hash tags, then reply with a solution!
48. Stamps — Buy your stamps at zaz­zle and cus­tomize them with your logo.  Every­one you mail to will see your blog url…
49. Face­book Your Friends — Tell your friends about some of your recent posts they might be inter­ested in by send­ing them a mes­sage or writ­ing on their wall.
50. Cre­ate a Fan Page on Face­Book — Its so easy just go to Face­book and get started.
51. Par­tic­i­pate in Rel­e­vant Forums — Drive traf­fic back to your blog through your forum sig­na­ture and rel­e­vant links.
52. Blog Ad Con­test — Run a com­pe­ti­tion to win adver­tis­ing space on your site. This is yet another no-cost prize you can use to mar­ket your web­site: free for you but valu­able for others.
53. Write a Guest Post for Off-Niche Blogs — Some­times an off niche blog has a vari­ety of inter­ested read­ers that might be look­ing for what you have so never be afraid to write for off topic, high-traffic, blogs.
54. Write a Guest Post for Huge News Sites — Try to get on Nytimes.com or other big news sites to get great pr links and excel­lent traf­fic.  To do this you have to do and write some­thing fantastic.
55. Free eBooks — Pro­duce an ebook with links back to your blog and encour­age free shar­ing with your link in the book and on the other blogs.
56. Free Use Pho­tog­ra­phy — pho­tos with free use attri­bu­tions specif­i­cally for blog­gers to use in your niche are a great way to pro­vide a link­able resource to other bloggers.
57. Define a Term — Cre­at­ing new ter­mi­nol­ogy is a great way to build traf­fic. If you coin a term, traf­fic will start com­ing based on the new phrase. For exam­ple, one of our biggest key­words for traf­fic is “blo­gus­sion” which is not only our blog’s name but also the term for hav­ing a “blog discussion”.
58. Run a Second-Hand Give­away — Instead of sell­ing some of your used but in good con­di­tion stuff, give it away through con­tests? Be sure the stuff is actu­ally worth par­tic­i­pat­ing for though.
59. Free Prod­uct for Review - If you have a prod­uct of ser­vice, give it away for free if oth­ers will write a tar­geted review about it. It’s a great way to spread your prod­uct through­out the web.
60. Add Your Blog to Local Search — Using Yahoo and Google add your blog to their local search and get tar­geted traf­fic from your local bloggers.
61. Rebates — Offer a rebate on a prod­uct you are an affil­i­ate for.  Not only will you make some money on the prod­uct but you will get extra traf­fic as well.  If you really want to get traf­fic, give away all of your income for a spe­cific prod­uct so buy­ers pay less and visit your blog more often.
62. Coupons — Stay up to date on a few com­pa­nies prod­ucts and offer great deals to your read­ers with coupons.
63. Tell Them How Badly You Suck! - Reverse Mar­ket­ing is very odd… but some­times it works very, very well. Just be care­ful with it.
64. Con­vince a Social Media Ninja to Spon­sor a Post — In other words… get some­one that has a lot of pull on twit­ter, stum­ble­upon, digg, or other social sites and either con­vince them or pay them to spon­sor a post.
65. List of Other Blogger’s Best Posts — Sounds odd but if you went through other blogs and made a list of the best posts on their blog you will most likely get a link and eas­ily get tweets if the blog­ger is pop­u­lar on twitter.
66. List Post of Blog­gers Your Read­ers Must Fol­low — Blog­gers will come and check it out, thank you, ping­back and com­ment.  Cre­ates some buzz on a vari­ety of sites. For an exam­ple check out BloggingTips.com with 373 tweets!
67. Do an Inter­view with An Impor­tant Blog­ger — Cre­ate some buzz about a famous per­son being inter­viewed on your site. Make it unique and your site will be the place to get their impor­tant interview.
68. Thank You Notes — Send thank you notes to blog­gers you have been inspired by, learned from or con­nected with.  Your grat­i­tude will go a long way in solid­i­fy­ing a long-term relationship.
69. What is Wrong With This Pic­ture? — Make a pic­ture with your dig­i­tal imag­ing soft­ware, like pho­to­shop, and put together an image with lots of items in it.  Then make it a “what 10 items are out of place?”, or “Can you find?” post.  Peo­ple will for­ward it in emails, blog about it and stum­ble it.
70. Arti­cle Mar­ket­ing Out­side Your Niche — Write arti­cles and sub­mit them to Ezine or other arti­cle data­bases on sub­jects you nor­mally don’t write about.
71. Sub­mit­ting to Aggre­ga­tors — Make sure your blog is in rep­utable aggre­ga­tors for other blog­gers to find your great content.
72. Sub­mit­ting to Domain Check­ers — Use free domain tools to check your site and build links through their cus­tom pages of your site.
73. Bor­row a Rep­utable Email Newslet­ter — Team up with some­one and write a guest newslet­ter post for an exchange of read­ers or money.
74. Spon­sor a Peti­tion — No mat­ter the topic, your blog can spon­sor a peti­tion to make oth­ers aware that peo­ple like/dislike something.
75. Spon­sor a Goal — Encour­age your read­ers to do some­thing great! Get 1,000 vis­i­tors a day, earn $100 a day, or get out of debt.  Make the goal spe­cific to your niche and let your read­ers know how you are doing.
76. Sur­vey Past Com­men­ta­tors — Ask them what they like about your blog and if there is any­thing they would like to see in the future. It’s a great way to get them com­ing back.
77. Ask Your Spon­sors — Ask how your spon­sors the best way they would like you to mar­ket it them. In return you are encour­ag­ing them to par­tic­i­pate in help­ing you and your secur­ing future earnings.
78. Make Videos for Other People’s Blog — If you have skills for video mak­ing, offer to make tuto­ri­als or videos for other blogs for free. It’s a great way to share your tal­ent and drop some link love and names. With all the equip­ment this could be a great way to guest post on some­one else’s blog.
79. Write a List About Myths in Your Niche — Debunk myths in your niche to get mas­sive links to your article.
80. Cre­ate an Amaz­ing Resource — Like this list for exam­ple. Or pro­vide some­thing no one else any­where. If you are the only or first per­son to pro­vide a resource you will be remembered.
81. Pod­cast — Start a weekly pod­cast that will be picked up by itunes and other audio ser­vices. It also attracts dif­fer­ent read­ers inter­ested in lis­ten­ing rather than read­ing your content.
82. Do a Webi­nar — If you can fig­ure it out then go ahead and set up a webi­nar to chat about the lat­est top­ics in your niche, answer ques­tions, and teach.
83. Com­ment­ing Debate — Start a com­ment­ing debate with a few blog­gers and get things started pretty heat­edly. Other com­men­ta­tors will not be able to help them­selves from see­ing what the fuss is all about.

The last 45 tips come from a very pop­u­lar post writ­ten about blog pro­mo­tion which I highly rec­om­mend you read. It is the 3^rd most pop­u­lar post on Blo­gus­sion and will def­i­nitely help you get the basics of blog pro­mo­tion down.  So if the 125 new ideas were not enough and you are crav­ing the last 45, check out the arti­cle on blog pro­mo­tion.

Con­clu­sion

Pro­mot­ing your blog can be fun and excit­ing. You just need to get the word out that your con­tent is great and your com­mu­nity is too. So try some of these easy meth­ods to get your blog found by new users and extra eyes.

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