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 3rd 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.