Well, this is the last week of the blog redesign challenge! Next week I’ll be putting up a poll so you can vote on the next challenge … always fun to start a new project. :)
It was really interesting on Monday’s post how many of you mentioned marketing and promoting as being something you have questions about – because that happened to be related to what I was planning to write about for the last post of this series! Now, this is by no means a comprehensive look at the subject … these are just a few tips, primarily related to promoting your blog. Because, now that we’ve reached the end of this series and you may have a fabulous and newly redesigned blog, you want people to see it! I hope these tips and tools will be helpful in getting in touch with your target audience. The “7 ways” are 7 external websites that you can harness to help promote and/or market your blog, and I’ll be offering tips on how to use each one to benefit your own site.
Ok, so #1: Pinterest! On my blog, Pinterest is a HUGE source of traffic for me. And I feel the best way to use Pinterest to help your blog grow is less about getting your own followers on Pinterest than it is about making your posts as share-able for your readers as possible, because Pinterest is like visual word-of-mouth. Here are some tips on how to make your posts very Pinterest-friendly … and, as is only fitting, I included all the Pinterest tips in a very pin-able image. :)
On to tip #2! Blog-following sites. There are sites out there that are specifically made to help people discover and follow new blogs. One such site is HelloCotton. It specifically is for women bloggers, and if you are one, I highly recommend submitting your blog to their site so that people can follow you there. I’m a big fan. And there are other blog-following sites out there as well. Make sure your blog is there to find! And one thing I love about HelloCotton (as well as some of the others), is that followers are notified there of new posts, but are actually directed back to your blog to read the posts. Spiffy! :)
Now for #3: Monitor your site’s stats with Google Analytics. Now, this one is less about how to *directly* promote your site, because Google Analytics is just a tool to use to keep track of statistics for your blog, but it *does* relate to marketing, because it can help you find out information about how to promote and market your blog more effectively.
First of all, you need to install the tracking code on your blog, which Google explains here. Don’t get overwhelmed by the sheer abundance of stats and facts. You don’t necessarily need all that info – I certainly don’t mull over every little bit. Here are some of the tidbits, though, that I find especially helpful to know:
Tool #4 is FeedBurner. If, like Lori, you’re moving from Blogger to WordPress, you will want to make sure you create a new feed for your new site, and update your old feed so that your previous subscribers will still be kept in touch on your new blog. But, regardless of whether you have moved or not here are some tips I have on how to use FeedBurner more effectively – after all, gaining and keeping in touch with your subscribers is a huge part of this whole process! Here are some tips:
Tools #5 and #6 are very related: Twitter and Facebook. These social networking sites can help SO much in promoting and growing your own website. Probably at some point in the future I’ll do a more in-depth post just on these two sites and how they are different from each other, and how to use the effectively in their own distinct ways, but for today, I’m just going to share some tips the apply to both.
#7 is interesting, because it is the least specific (as far as what I can describe), but is probably the most important. This is the category that sends me the MOST traffic, and then Pinterest is a fairly close #2. But the reason I can’t be completely specific here is because it depends on what your target audience is. The basic premise, though, is that you need to find out where your target audience is hanging out online looking for what you have to offer. For instance, if you have a crafty blog, a good site in this category for you would be CraftGawker. If you have a foodie blog, then TasteSpotting or FoodGawker would be good places to look into getting featured. If you blog about handmade business, then try submitting your posts to Handmadeology. The list goes on and on – but it all depends on your target audience. Find out where they hang out, and promote and market there. Take out an ad on a site that your target audience loves. Offer to do a guest post on a site your target audience visits. This is how you really get in touch with your target audience – by finding them in the places they are looking for you.
Well, that’s it for the blog redesign series! It has been a LOT of fun for me … and also some sleepless nights writing and designing. But I’ve loved it, and I hope it’s been helpful for you. If you missed any of the previous posts from the 10-week series, here they are:
Part 1: Discover your branding with “The Drawing Board” Printable
Part 2: WordPress vs. Blogger
Part 3: Design Tips + Design Worksheet
Part 4: Themes, Coding and Stylesheets
Part 5: Making your own graphics
Part 6: 7 Blog Layout Tips to Engage your Reader
Part 7: Blog Page: The Must-haves and the Panache
Part 8: 25 WordPress Tips
Part 9: The Big Reveal
Part 10: 7 Ways to Promote and Market Your Blog (that’s today’s post!)
Leave your thoughts and comments below … for instance, if you have any ideas or suggestions for the next challenge! (And be sure to come back next Friday to vote!) Or even just to say hi … I love to hear from you!
Seriously so awesome. Thank you April. What a lot of work. Thanks for putting it together!
Thanks, Janae!! I’m so glad you liked it :)
Whoa! Lots of new and helpful info here for this blogger! I think I’m too embarrassed to say how *much* of it is new, but it is significant. I had *just* started a list last night of things to ask you, and you answered about half of it with this post. Thank you again and again.
Here is one thing I still wonder about: Could you speak a little more about etiquette for sites like Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter? Is it gauche to pin your own graphic or post (like, “Let another’s lips praise you and not your own.”), or…? On Facebook, should I only post the link to a new blog post on In My Kitchen, In My Life’s facebook page, or is it appropriate to (maybe hours apart) post it on my personal status?
Yes, that’s kind of what I was referring to when I mentioned I might do a post on how to use Facebook/Twitter more individually at some point in the future – with more focus on the particular etiquette and strategies for each site individually, because they certainly are different. So I’ll probably go into more detail later, but here are a few pointers …
-On Facebook, I try not to post on my business page more than once a day. If you start flooding people’s feeds, they will be more likely to choose to hide your updates. Personally, I usually only share it on my official page, but if it’s something I feel my personal friends would also want to see, I’ll include it on both, but probably with a different sort of emphasis in my comments about what I’m sharing. If I share it both on my personal account and my official account, I try to put enough space between them that facebook doesn’t jumble them together (you know, the thing where it says “2 people have posted about this link…”, and it would be my personal account and my official one).
-On Twitter, you can post as many times a day as you want – but in order to be effective, most of your tweets should not be links, but instead should be conversations. A good judge of how effectively you are using Twitter is how many of your Tweets start with @. Twitter is really like a continual conversation, rather than a posting board. I’ve heard it described at the water-cooler for online entrepreneurs, and I think that is pretty accurate. It’s especially good for networking, like if you’re wanting to get involved with others (guest posting, interviews, etc.) although it is certainly not limited to that.
-On Pinterest .. well, I have my own battles with Pinterest. All the legal mumbo-jumbo and hullabaloo a while back really took the joy out of pinning to me. I try to be careful to only pin from sites that are clearly allowing pinning, but since that takes so much time, I just don’t pin as much any more. I do pin from my own site, because a lot of people follow me *because* of my blog … but I try to avoid doing more than one pin from my own site per day, and I try to intersperse pins from others’ sites as well. Basically, as long as you’re not coming across like “me! me! me!”, I think it’s perfectly fine to share your own items. I avoid saying “this is from my site” or anything like that, and instead just pin it like I would pin anything else.
Anyway, that’s just kind of off the top of my head! :) Hope it helps :)
Thanks for the series! It has been very informative, and I’m already starting to implement some of these steps!
Oh, wonderful! Thanks so much, Rachel :)
These are excellent tips! Targeting audience-specific sites is huuuuuuge for me. Craftgawker gets certain DIYs a ton a traffic, it’s definitely worth it to submit.
Yeah, CraftGawker is pretty huge for me, I love it! Thanks Paige! :)
Way to go, honey! Completing this tutorial is a HUGE accomplishment and I am so proud of you!
Aww, thanks, my love. :)
April, thanks for the Hellocotton tip! I hadn’t heard of it before. I just signed up and in addition to giving my readers more ways to connect and hopefully putting my blog infront of new audiences, I think this might be my new addiction. Oh well!
Oh, fun! Yeah, I only fairly recently discovered HelloCotton, and I love it! It’s like a secret weapon. ;)
Great post! I am a follower from Etsy.
Please visit and enter the Giveaway on my blog:
http://www.azlifeandstyle.com/2012/09/blog-giveaway-from-sweetest-memory.html
Thank you,
Ali =)
April you’re awesome! This info is so good! I have 2 questions….
1. on the page where you get your code for your blog….is the first one for a form to be right on my blog and the second code is if instead of a form right on my blog I want to make an image and have that image link to a form instead?
2. If you opt to have a form right on your blog how did you get rid of the “delivered by feedburner” at the bottom? How do you get it to say what yours does (“or subscribe via RSS”) or just be blank?
Thank you!
Hey Lindy!
Ok answers to your questions …
1. Hm, not exactly. The top one is a form so that people can sign up ON your blog/site/email/whatever. Like mine, you just put your email in right there. The second one is if you want to link to feedburner’s page and have them sign up on THEIR site. Neither of them necessarily use images, but you could code in an image to either one.
2. You just change/edit the code itself. You have to be careful not to change the parts that are actually necessary for the form, though – only take out any coding/text related to that “delivered by feedburner” stuff, and instead leave it blank, or add in code to directly link to your RSS. To link to RSS, all you need is to do is link directly to your feed.
Hope that helps!
Thank you, thank you!
I’m not great at code but I just took out the end about the delivery stuff and tested it and it seems to be working so I think I’m good to go….yay!
Another question….is there an easy way of changing the height of the box? I see 140px for width but nothing for height. If not that’s fine just thought I’d ask.
Thank you again!
Hm, nothing off the top of my head … if there’s a padding size specified, maybe try tinkering with that?
This was an excellent series! I really enjoyed it. I’m planning a “Blogging for Your Creative Business” post and I’ll be sure to send my readers here. Wishing you all the best and continued success~
Thanks, Lisa, I appreciate it! :)
Thank you so much for writing this series. I’m just starting out, still building my page before I get into some serious marketing, but your blog has saved me so much time, trial & error, and frustration! Love it!
I’m glad to hear it, Bailey! If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the other posts in the series, especially if you’re starting out and not ready for marketing yet. Good luck! :)
This whole series has been incredibly useful and informative! It’s like a blog boot camp. There’s a lot of information to process, and I want to go through each step, focusing on how I can improve my own blog. If you ever need another blog test subject, I’d happily volunteer! :)
One slightly off topic question – how did you get your Etsy shop thumbnails in your sidebar? I’m on WordPress.org, and I looked through the widgets but couldn’t find it.
Ah, that’s not a WordPress thing, it’s actually an Etsy thing. Go to your account -> promote -> Etsy Mini. Then just copy the code, and insert it with an html widget. :)
I’m so excited to share my new blog with you! I started the redesign at the beginning of your series (I ended up hiring a designer because it was that or stop posting content). But even with a designer, I learned so much about how to fix problems on my own, and how to brand my blog with gusto.
Thanks so much for your influence on the outcome of http://www.plentyplace.com !
~ Kerry
Awesome, thanks so much for sharing, it looks great!
This is my first visit to your site and I absolutely love it! I can tell that you put a lot of time and effort into your visuals and graphics on this site which makes everything much better!
These are great tips and tricks, but being a male I cannot utilize HelloCotton. Do you have any other ideas in mind for me?
Thanks so much for the great post, this is just what I need to get me blog going!
Oh, thanks so much for your kind words! Yes, that is one thing about hellocotton.. But there are other blog following sites, like bloglovin and bloggers. Some require you to submit your site like bloggers, or some automatically recognize your blog, like bloglovin. If you would like more options I would try googling “blog directory” .. and for even better results try adding to that your category of blog or topic. Anyway I hope that will help you our some … . good luck!
What a great series. Kudos to you for putting all of this together.
Just what I was looking for. Thanks for outlining you tips so clearly. I discovered you via Hellocotton, and will be back!
I stumbled across this series today- not sure how I got here :) – and it has been SO helpful. I had a lot of questions about my new blog rolling around in my head and this answered most of them, plus some.
Thank you!!
Thank you, thank you! You answered a lot of questions! I have one quick one, how do you apply the pinterest button to the bottom of a picture or post? Thanks!!
Chelsea
Thanks so much. I’ve just started blogging and this has given me plenty of food for thought!
I am SO happy to have found your place on the world wide web! SO much information plus it is quite a lovely place aesthetically. Thank you for sharing your knowledge here. I am rather new to blogging (since Aug of ’12) but I have fallen in love with not only the craft but so many of the bloggers. I quite appreciate this technology “thing”…even if I am from a generation of PEN users! Enjoy this most festive season!!
I just started a blog, and your series has been SO helpful. I have a notebook brimming with ideas, and a camera ready for some action, but I really want to get my design together before *really* going live. I really appreciate this! I can’t even imagine how much time it took you to do this! Thanks again! ~Amy
Great post.
Would love for you to link it up at my new Empty Your Archive link party which is a chance to dust off great posts from your archive – there is a particular focus this week on Pinterest – would really love to see you there, Alice @ Mums Make Lists x
Hi April! Thank you, thank you!! I’ve been thinking and praying about taking the plunge and starting a blog, but didn’t really know where to start and had questions. So very grateful to have come across your blog via Pinterest in a round about way from another blogger’s [Teal & Lime] Pinterest board sharing about your series. Your tutorial answered many questions and I am feeling more confident about going about this new life adventure. You have been bookmarked so I can go back through, step by step. Blessings!!
Thank you for this AMAZING post!!! As a relatively new blogger, this series really helped answer some nagging questions and help update my site quite a bit. I just wanted to take a minute to tell you how helpful it truly was.