Top 7 Blog Marketing Strategies to Use for New Readers in 2024

Once you finish writing a blog post and hit publish, you feel really great – as if you’ve been to the moon and back. Publishing new content brings you a sense of accomplishment that nothing else can bring. 

With this feeling, comes the notion that your work is done. And all you have to do is to now sit and wait for readers. 

And sometimes they just come.

Of course if your blog is established with thousands of subscribers on email, YouTube and on social media.

But often times, you will have to promote your new posts to get readers.

That’s right. 

Blog promotion is just as important as blog writing.

For this reason, you will have to set aside time to market your blog to growth. 

Keep in mind 

All established blogs keep using different blog marketing strategies to generate traffic to their blogs.

Myself included.

And that’s why we can boast of continuous activity on our blogs.

Do you want to get more users on your website too?

Here’s exactly what to do to get traffic on your website.

Leverage search engines by targeting popular search keywords 

When you want answers to anything in 2020, where do you search?

Literally, most people go to google for help.

What they do is – go to Google and input a query on the search bar and sort through the results where they only pick the most relevant to what they are looking for. 

As a blog owner, you can leverage this process and deliver content that users will pick. 

Here’s how to leverage your content for SERPs: 

• Use Keyword Planner tools to look for popular search keywords in your niche (Keyword research).
• Make a list of such keywords.
• Create content around these keywords. This is SEO 101. 

Having mentioned SEO, what’s it? 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing a website/blog’s visibility to benefit from organic (un-paid) traffic from search engine results pages (SERPs). 

To do this, follow the above process I have laid out. But that’s not the end because there’s much to SEO than just targeting certain user search keywords. I will discuss this as we go. 

And now, you are ready for the next blog marketing strategy. 

#2: Optimize your pages with On-Page SEO techniques.

There are two animals here: 

1. On-page SEO.

1. Off-page SEO. 

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing your blog’s individual pages to make them rank higher on search engines and hopefully drive more quality (relevant) traffic. 

As for the Off-page SEO, we will cover that later. 

Here’s how to make sure that On-page SEO actually helps your blog get noticed on search engines. 

Make sure that each page on your blog is targeting one primary keyword. 

How? 

• Use your target keyword in the first 100 words 
• Use the H1 tags on your blog post’s title 

• And use H2 tags on subheadings 
• Use the keyword at least 10 times throughout the post. Don’t overdo this though.
• Link back to sources you mentioned on your blog post. This is referred to as external or outbound links. 
• URLs: make them short and include the target keyword on it.

Now it’s time to talk about Off-page SEO. 

What is Off-page SEO? 

Actually, this is the opposite as in, they are all those activities you and others engage in away from your blog to raise your rankings. 

As I had mentioned earlier, ranking on search engine results pages (SERP) takes more than publishing great content and optimizing it with keywords. 

You need to build trust and credibility in the eyes of search engines’ algorithms (computer programs that determine who appears on SERP when certain user keywords are searched). 

To do this, you will need to build links from other related sites. But that’s not all there is to it .

Other stuff covered in off page SEO are: –

• Engaging in guest blogging .
• Add RSS Feed Subscription option to your blog. 
• Use videos and images to drive the visibility of your blog. Google will reward you for this. 

Everything SEO is your ticket to rake in free traffic to your blog.

But as Nigerians say, good things take time. And they only come to those who wait.

SEO is no different; it takes patience and energy to get it to work. 

But as you wait for your rankings to kick-in, use the next blog marketing strategy on this list to promote your blog. 

#3: Use search engine marketing startegies for your blog.

You remember we mentioned earlier that search engines rank websites based on their relevance to user’ search queries, right? 

Well, as it turns out, if your blog hasn’t yet ranked on SERPs, you can buy your way into the top. 

That’s right. 

You can pay Google to show your blog to users who search a specific term related to your content. 

And the best part is: 

You pay only if they click through to your blog! 

This process is known as search engine marketing (also SEM). 

Does this sound like something you’d consider to promote your blog?

Let me show you how to do search engine marketing.

• Use keyword tools to identify keywords you’d like your blog to appear for whenever they are searched. 

• Use either Google Ads or Bing Ads to create an ad campaign targeting the keyword (s). 
• Pick your target audience.

This is where you specify who should see your ad. You have options of location, gender, device, among others 

• Sit and wait for traffic to flow 

While what I have just outlined above is just the skeleton of the actual SEM, at least you have an idea of what to expect. 

But search engine marketing is not the only way to pay for traffic to your blog, you can also: – 

#4: Promote your blog through paid social media ads 

Social media ads include; 

• Facebook Ads 

• Twitter Ads 
• Instagram Ads among others 

You can pay these platforms to promote your blog to your target audience.

To give you an overview of how it works, I’m going to use Facebook ads as an example 

Using Facebook ads as a blog marketing strategy to market your blog 

First, you need to have a Facebook page and a loaded debit card (have at least $10). 

• Go to Facebook ads manager and use traffic as the ad objective 
• The next step is to select your target audience.

This is where it gets interesting. With this, you can specifically target your ideal customer. 

• For instance, if your blog is promoting weight loss products for women between 23 – 44 years, you can bick the health category and narrow down to other target groups.
• Set your budget. Example, use $3 daily budget. 
• Pick your ad format (use single image format) and link to your blog or article as the landing page. 

• Place your ad order and wait for Facebook to approve it.

That’s it. Wait for traffic to crawl in and only pay when people click your ads and come to your blog.

That’s just it for bloggers who’d rather use money to get traffic. 

If you want more free Traffic though,

#5: Design and implement an effective social media sharing plan 

Apart from search engines, social media is where users also turn to for content.

These users spend on average three hours on these social platforms swiping through their news feed for whatever catches their attention. 

And due to ease of sharing blog posts on social media, many blog owners have resolved to be lazy. They just update a link back to their websites and cross their fingers, praying to the crazy gods to work something out. 

That’s the lamest way of marketing your blog on social media. 

If you are serious about this, you need a plan. And as a matter of fact, I have some input on what your social media promotion plan should look like 

• First, you need to understand where your readers hung out on social media. Are they on Facebook or Twitter or both? You need to know.

• For every blog post, you intend to promote on social media, you need to break it down into multiple contents relevant to each platform you’re targeting.

Here’s why: social media platforms are different. Images do well on IG and FB, links on Twitter, and Infographics on Pinterest. 

• Create Images to accompany the content on the respective platform. Remember to pay attention to image specifications. 
• Now it is time to actually do the work. Aggressively post the content on each of the platforms then: 
• Study analytics to see the response. 
• Do more of what worked and less of what backfired. 

Apart from sharing content on social media, you can also tag brands or people mentioned on the posts to let them know. Who knows, they might share it with their audience, a win for you. 

Talking of tagging brands and key people on social media, here’s another blog promotion strategy that touches on this strategy 

#6: Leverage the power of online influencers. 

Influencers are those people with massive following and audiences. They can be writers, social media celebs, or websites. 

And since they already have loyal followers who constantly engage with content they share, you can benefit if you can reach them to promote your content. 

The only problem is how to do that. 

Lucky for you, I have some insights into breaking that code 

• Invite these influencers to post on your blog. When they do that, they will share it to their audiences which in turn drives traffic back to your blog and introduces their followers to your brand. 
• If you are selling products or services, you can give an influencer a unique code which earns them a percentage of sales they drive.
• Co-create content with influencers and share it on your blog, theirs, or a third party website. 

• Give gifts such as products or services to influencers in exchange of a review of your blog or a share of your post.
• If you have the ability, you can publish really high-quality content such as industry reports, research findings, etc and outreach to popular websites to cover it. If it’s worth it, they might write about it and link back .

The next blog promotion strategy works best if you have a new blog and wish to reach far and wide to introduce it to new audiences 

#7: Using guest posting blog marketing startegies to tap into new readers.

This may sound counter intuitive. But it actually works. 

You reach out to an established blog related to your niche and ask them to allow you to publish a guest post. 

When you do this, you are tapping into their audiences and introducing them to your brand. And if they like your guest post, they will click back to your blog in search of more. 

Therefore, every time you guest post, remember to include a link back to your blog. The link can be on your author’s bio or within the content. 

Do you like this blog marketing strategy? 

Here’s how to do it: 

• Go to Google and search for blogs related to your niche that are accepting guest posts .
• Read through their posts to get an idea of how and what they are writing about.
• Get a pen and paper and write at least three post ideas that will benefit their audiences. 
• Shot them an email pitching your post ideas. 
• If they like your ideas, write your guest post with their audience in mind. 

• Include a link or two on the posts leading back to your blog. 

That’s how you leverage someone else’s audiences to promote your blog and win new readers. 

Final thoughts on blog marketing strategies 

But as you continue with all these blog promotion strategies covered here, you need a system that ensures you retain gained readers. 

Your blog depends on traffic, recurring traffic to be specific. That’s why you need a plan to retain your readers. 

One such way is to use email marketing. This is the process where you capture your readers’ emails so you can send them new blog posts later.

Aim to build a relationship with them by trying your best to understand who they are and what they are struggling with. 

Only promote your blog post when you are absolutely sure will help them solve their challenges. 

Now, it’s your turn to talk to me. What strategies have you been using to promote your blog?