Every business big or small should have a blog. The problem is there are so many blogs out there that it is sometimes hard to get your blog off the ground and get people reading it.

So how do you get people reading your blog? First, you have to have a blog that stands out then you have to creatively promote your blog.

So before we talk about creatively promoting your blog, let’s talk about starting a blog that stands out.

Make your blog stand out from others

Whether you are just starting your blog or you already have a blog, it needs to stand out from the rest of the blogs out there.

Follow the advice given here and even if you have a blog already, you can tweak it to become a standout blog that gets attention with some creative promoting which we will talk about in the next section.

Choose a blog platform

There are several out there some of which are free. It will depend on what features you want to have control over. Some of the blog platforms you will recognize immediately such as WordPress and Blogger, others you may not have heard of yet such as Ghost. Depending on what you are planning to put on the blog and what type of control you wish to have will decide what platform you use.

Decide on the content

If you want to have a blog that stands out you first need to figure out why you want to start a blog. If you do not know why how will you know what type of content to include?  Grab a pad and pen and write down the type of things you wish to accomplish and share on your blog. It might be certain services or products; it might be tutorials or projects that relate to your business. Let’s say your business is a craft shop your blog could contain craft projects, tutorials on how to do a certain craft such as crocheting or sewing, tips on finding the best materials for crafts, and so on.

Keep it simple

Use no more than 3 colors and 3 fonts. More than that and it gets hard to focus on the content. Besides we’ve all been on certain web pages that are full of colors, fonts, and graphics and say to ourselves this is giving me a headache or this is upsetting my stomach. Don’t be that site!

Keep the conventional sidebar, headings, search bar, subscription, and author attribution and the reason for this is easy navigation. There is nothing worse than having to hunt all over the page for the navigation.

Use keywords with your content, also use videos, photos, and graphics in your posts. Be sure with the graphics they optimized for search engines.

Now that you have designed your blog to stand out from the rest, let’s discuss how to promote it.

Creatively Promoting Your Blog Content

Now that you have created your blog so that it will stand out among all the others, we need to discuss how you go about promoting it.

After all, you can have the best stand out blog ever but if you do not promote it, no one will ever know it is there.

1. Publish content frequently. Publishing content over 5 times a month is what we suggest. If you publish content twice a week then you have hit 8 times a month and it will draw more traffic.

2. Use Dubbler to make a short audio as an introduction, put it with a graphic, place your blog post URL in the description and now you have a 40 to 60-second audio intro that will reveal your excitement and enthusiasm for the post better than any text line ever could. Then share it with the Dubbler community, Facebook, Twitter, Vine, and other social media platforms.

3. Promote your blog on your business website. Make sure that your navigation includes a link to your blog. Show the latest 2 to 4 headlines so people can click them or they can use the navigation bar to go to your blog.

4. Promote your blog offline as well by adding to your business cards, promote it at industry events, and try to get a local newspaper to pick up one of your blog articles to print.

5. Publish longer content like on essayrepublic.com, do an in-depth article on a topic where you can curate all the pertinent information on that topic in one place instead of 4 different articles on the topic is broken up into subjects. Just remember to use headers and bullet points so that people can scan it to find what they are looking for.

6. Pin your post to Pinterest. It is best to make a business account on Pinterest if you wish to get the most out of it and your promotion on Pinterest will go much further with a business account.

7. Instagram an image of your post, make sure you use the correct # as there are certain ones that are extremely popular. Use an image of your blog and overlay the title of the new content article over the image of your blog.

8. Link to influential industry blogs this helps both you and the influential blog.

9. Make it searchable for both text and graphics by using keywords and long tail keywords. Be sure to use the attributes for graphics so they are optimized for search engines as well.

10. Build relationships with your readers; show them that you appreciate them and their sharing your blog. Do this by replying to comments, reviews, and likes.

11. Make sure that your content is easily shareable by putting the buttons for social media sharing on it. Buttons for Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, etc. will allow readers to share with their friends and followers.

12. Know your target audience I know it has been said a million times but it holds true if you know what your audience is looking for you can give them content that brings them to you. As they read more of your content, you have the potential for another customer.

13. Guest blog this is a big one, find a blog that is bigger than yours in the same industry and write a guest post for it. Make sure it is high in value. You will be allowed to place a link in your bio information to your blog so the readers of that blog will know where to find you. Do not forget to ask them if they would be interested in a doing a guest blog post for your blog.

14. Do not forget the less known blog platforms like Quora; be sure to promote new content on those blog platforms as well. While they have smaller numbers as far as followers it will assure that you get more attention than the big social media and blog platforms where everyone is fighting for attention.

If you wish to read more ways to creatively promote your blog, read 101 ways to promote your blog.

Conclusion

There are so many ways to promote your blog but be sure to track the methods you use so that you can tweak the ones that need it and dump the one that does not work. With so many ways to promote your blog, you should not run out.