What are the best methods for marketing blog articles? — Wired Weekend Photo by invisiblekid2007

What are the best methods for marketing blog articles? — Wired Weekend

by Alex · 24 comments

Gen­er­ally, when we write arti­cles for our blog, we like them to get read. Writ­ing con­tent is no longer the hard­est thing to do for a blog. It’s actu­ally get­ting that con­tent read that’s so chal­leng­ing. Unfor­tu­nately, sim­ply writ­ing a blog post doesn’t just cut it. There’s still more to do.

There’s this thing called mar­ket­ing, and when you actu­ally do it, your arti­cles tend to get read by more peo­ple. Now, “more peo­ple” can mean one or two peo­ple, or it can mean thou­sands of peo­ple. It’s all about how you mar­ket your blog post that gets it read.

There’s just one prob­lem: most of us suck at marketing.

It’s easy to get so wor­ried about actu­ally writ­ing a blog post, that we for­get about the sec­ond, pos­si­bly more impor­tant part: the peo­ple who read it. Unless you really love to write, pub­lish­ing arti­cles for months straight with­out reac­tions might get on your nerves.

The Secret About Blog Marketing

Maybe it’s more than a mis­con­cep­tion than a secret, but the most impor­tant thing about mar­ket­ing your blog is not the actual pro­mo­tion of the blog as a whole, but the indi­vid­ual arti­cles you publish.

Tell me, which head­line would get more clicks:

I can almost guar­an­tee that the sec­ond head­line would get more atten­tion. The gen­eral tagline of this site describes what Blo­gus­sion is all about, but there’s noth­ing excit­ing about it.

It’s not to say that with a more excit­ing tagline (how many of you would be mad if I changed the tagline of this blog to “Blo­gus­sion — The most insane blog­ging tips blog you will ever f****** read”) it wouldn’t mar­ket bet­ter than an arti­cle, but it only works for so long.

Now, I can make a head­line for an arti­cle what­ever I want. If I pro­mote a new arti­cle every­day, it would cre­ate more buzz than if I were to pro­mote Blo­gus­sion as “blog­ging dis­cus­sion, tips and tricks.”

So that’s just a use­ful mar­ket­ing tip, if you haven’t fig­ured that much out yet about the subject.

What can we do to draw traf­fic to blog posts?
Because the main idea of mar­ket­ing your blog is mar­ket­ing indi­vid­ual arti­cles, what are some things you can do to get word out about your arti­cle? It takes a lot of dif­fer­ent strate­gies and tech­niques, but there are plenty of things you can do.

So this week­end, I want to debate with you the tac­tics you use to draw atten­tion and traf­fic to your blog arti­cles. Rec­om­mend to me, and the rest of the com­mu­nity any­thing you do. From com­ment­ing on other blogs to run­ning gnarly blog­ging con­tests, I (and many oth­ers) want to hear how you do it.

Have a great week­end, and I’ll see you in the discussion!

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Article by Alex

I'm the 17 year old blogger & designer behind Blogussion. I live in New Jersey (but root for the New England Patriots), and am a Junior in High School. You can check out my rarely updated personal(ish) blog, Asnio, or connect with me on Twitter.

  • Wired Weekend

    Wired Weekend is a recurring series on Blogussion where either a debate, a review of a useful tool, or a list of great blogging articles will be published for you to enjoy over the weekend.

  • The Weekend Debate

    This weekend, we are debating the best tactics for marketing blog articles. There are many ways to do this, all with different (and some, similar) results. But what's the best way?

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Fazreen April 16, 2010 at 12:44 am

For me, I’m doing marketing at social medias site/networking. Because I love to make friends and at the same time I’m promoting my blog post. I will engage with people and if they have questions regarding blogging, I will give them link to my blog post that have answer for their questions. It’s all about building strong community and relationship.

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Rob Rammuny April 16, 2010 at 1:24 am

Now I don’t know about you.. but I’d rather click on something that says “The worse blogging tips from around the web” I’d definitely be the first to click that!

Shoo.. let me drop in my “killer tips” sense I dropped the word “killer” everyone is going to be eager to read what I say next… go under my desk and grab my magazine subscriptions. Check out those headlines, and those can “guarantee” some clicks regardless of how bad your content is.

Haha.. Getting on a serious “marketing” note, I’d say it’s important to market your blog as a “WHOLE” and what I mean as market the brand of your blog but also pay attention to each and everyone of your article headlines.. Why? When your reader arrives to your blog their going to read your article and probably leave. Let’s face it, were busy people. We don’t have time to run around someones blog all day trying to find something “eye appealing” However, if we find something that “catches the eye” we will be a lot more eager to stay and read it.

And the killer tactic I use to draw over 1,000,000 unique visitors a month, I start my titles with “Don’t read this article, it is meaningless” the temptation of being told “not” to read it makes people tempted “to” read it. Very sneaky ay?

P.S -> For anyone taking this comment seriously, please don’t. I’m adding my 2 cents of “1AM humor” to Alex’s lovely community here. If you did happen to gain something valuable from this comment, congratulations :) my monthly subscription of $27.95 to my “secret” magazine service has not gone to waste.

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Rob Rammuny April 16, 2010 at 1:28 am

Damn me and my “1AM spelling” I meant “since” not “sense” re-reading that comment drove me insane to see I made that mistake.. GRR

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King Sidharth April 17, 2010 at 12:13 am

So Mr. Sarcastic. Now we have clearer idea of magazines under the desk. You still have to send me a copy.

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Rob Rammuny April 18, 2010 at 1:34 am

Don’t worry Mr.Sidharth, I have mailed 20 copies to your house :) Let’s make sure your mom doesn’t see them.

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Rob April 16, 2010 at 7:30 am

It’s true getting your content seen is one of the most challenging aspects. Thing is, many people go “buckwild” on twitter / stumble and their bounce rates are through the roof. Getting traffic is hard. I think guest posting on a popular blog in same niche is a great way to do it.

With say, stumble, it’s an ego stroke but little else most of the time.
Rob´s last blog ..New blog

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england flag April 16, 2010 at 8:24 am

If you’re thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better. A great time to hire is when you’re considering a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site. That way, you and your SEO can ensure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up. However, a good SEO can also help improve an existing site.

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Onibalusi Bamidele April 16, 2010 at 8:46 am

Hi Alex,
The main secret is build a community first i.e. build your blog first and all other posts will get attention. Even if you have the best title in the world and you only get 10 unique visitors a day, how do you expect to have people read your article? For me, the key is guest blogging, it is what makes thousands of eyes read my blog posts every month.
Thanks a lot for this great post.
Onibalusi Bamidele´s last blog ..5 Great bloggers that inspire me

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Reza Winandar April 16, 2010 at 11:11 pm

Hey all,
Creating a blog post is easy, but the one that will read by people is getting hard right now because there is a lot of good writers spread around the world. I think taking a writing lesson or seminar will be good to improve our chance to win this absolutely big competition.
Reza Winandar´s last blog ..5 Types of Comments That Attract Attention

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Kok Siong Chen April 16, 2010 at 11:17 pm

I think blog commenting in blog with commenluv plugin is a good way for me to promote my article. But, the condition is, the title of the article must be attractive enough to drive people to read it. :)
Kok Siong Chen´s last blog ..Tamoxifen – Breast Cancer Treatment

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Agent Deepak | Blogging. Marketing & Success April 17, 2010 at 12:21 am

Marketing I article a time really help you a lot. Not only it will bring in good and targeted traffic but help then convert into regulars.
Agent Deepak | Blogging. Marketing & Success´s last blog ..Help Me Choose a New Blog Theme

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Shirley April 17, 2010 at 9:55 am

I market my individual articles. I don’t really market my blog as a whole. I think, as you said, that marketing individual articles is the way to go cos people won’t be interested in your site as a whole, it is an individual article that they will be most interested in.

With the marketing, I mostly use social media sites, especially Twitter :) .
Shirley´s last blog ..27 Young Internet Entrepreneurs Who Inspire

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Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing April 17, 2010 at 2:06 pm

What has always worked best for me is commenting on commentluv enabled blogs and contests.

Social media is next. ;)
Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..The Official DEDC Comment Policy

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paul | entertainment tonight April 17, 2010 at 11:30 pm

I’m just doing bookmarking and commeting on other blogs.
paul | entertainment tonight´s last blog ..Pinoy Big Brother Teen Edition 3 First Nomination Night

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Julius April 18, 2010 at 5:25 pm

For us, commenting and interacting with people in other blogs and social network promotion are the two main ways to market our blog.
Julius´s last blog ..How to Caption Videos in YouTube

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Chris April 18, 2010 at 5:32 pm

I find social media to work fairly well. But commenting and joining in a conversation on other blogs has helped a lot. Guest posts as well.

I tend to RT a lot too and that in turn has brought some traffic to my blog. Not a lot but it’s helped.

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Vivek @ InfoEduTech April 18, 2010 at 5:48 pm

The best method of marketing is comment on others blog so that others people recognize you that you are also in that filed and secondly put some unique content, thirdly use social media to drive traffic to your blog
Vivek @ InfoEduTech´s last blog ..Download Adobe CS5 Master Suite Cracked

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Tinh April 18, 2010 at 10:51 pm

Agree with @Vivek, that is the easiest way to market our blog posts and also drive more traffic in a sustainable way without advertising.
Tinh´s last blog ..Google Officially Released Google Buzz Button & API

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Richard Scott April 18, 2010 at 9:54 pm

Community. Build up a following and they’ll be all the marketing you’ll need. Just continue to slam out GREAT content and it will spread like wild fire. :)

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Andrew @ Blogging Guide April 19, 2010 at 8:52 am

Estalish a social media group of blogging buddies who help support each other with socila bookmarking and commenting. Grow the group as big as possible. That helps me.

Andrew
Andrew @ Blogging Guide´s last blog ..Have You Ever Worked Out Your Value Per Hour?

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Brad April 24, 2010 at 12:18 am

The channels of marketing a blog post or site are endless, you really need to focus on the methods that fit your target markets needs, your needs and time and stick with it!
Brad´s last blog ..Surfing Angourie Back In The Day

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Pinoy @ How to blog April 24, 2010 at 3:42 pm

Building a responsive community will really do the trick. They will do the marketing for you I’m sure. Article Marketing does work too.
Pinoy @ How to blog´s last blog ..4 Basic Blogging Tips and Tricks for newbies

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Creative Visualization August 3, 2010 at 8:54 am

Since creation “the force” is always matchmaking. Once we put something out, it is immediately looking for suitable matches… if we would be always looking to please or guessing to please with content, nothing really original would ever be created….

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