How to Promote Your Blog: 11 Tactics to Try

It’s one thing to build an awesome blog, but actually driving traffic to it and building a readership are something else entirely. Choosing a domain name, settling on a design, and hitting “go live” are the first steps of a much longer journey — and at that journey’s start, you’ll need to work hard to build momentum. 

With more than 600 million blogs online today, you have to do more than publish a post and hope for the best. Here’s a list of tactics that can help you ramp up momentum on your blog. 

1. Make Your Blog Easy to Find

Nobody will see your blog if you don’t tell them it’s there. Instead of burying it away in the bowels of your website, shout about it from the homepage. Include a link to your blog from your website’s navigation bar so that readers can click through to it regardless of what page they land on. 

The Positional blog takes center stage alongside our podcast and newsletter in the navigation bar. 

2. Focus on SEO 

Search engine optimization (SEO) involves a bunch of activities meant to improve your rankings in search results. It’s a great way to get eyeballs on your blog and drive traffic — people who are interested in what you’re posting about. 

For example, if someone searches “how can I fix a laptop” and you have a well-optimized, authoritative, high-quality blog post titled “How to Fix a Laptop,” your post may show up in the results. And the stronger your SEO efforts are, the likelier that is. 

Here are some key elements of strong SEO: 

Pick Good Keywords

Good SEO starts with choosing keywords your audience regularly uses to search for sites like yours. Use a keyword research tool and play around with words related to your business. For example, if you have a graphic design business, you might type in “logo design” or “website design” to see other keyword suggestions. 

Turn Keywords Into Blog Posts

Once you have a list of relevant keywords, turn them into blog posts. A handy tip here is to look at the questions people ask Google and turn the answers into blog posts. 

For example, you might write a blog post about how much hiring a web designer costs or how to design a website, in response to common questions about graphic design. 

Build Backlinks

A high-quality site linking to your blog tells Google that your blog is useful. The more backlinks you have pointing to your blog, the higher your chances are of ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). 

To get backlinks, you can: 

• Create helpful content that people want to link to. 
• Publish primary research and pitch it to journalists. 
• Create link bait, or content that is designed to accumulate backlinks regularly. 
• Guest post on other blogs and link back to yours.

Read our full guide to backlinks. 

Link to Your Other Posts

Internal linking helps strengthen your topical authority — that is, it shows Google that you’re an expert in your field because you have a lot of content about it. Add relevant, contextual links between blog posts to create a solid internal link structure. This also helps readers navigate between your posts, easily find the right information, and stay on your site longer. 

3. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is the act of writing content for other blogs — and typically including a link back to your own site. This not only gives you a backlink, but it also exposes your blog to a new audience. There are two ways you can do this to promote your blog: 

1. Guest blog on other sites.
2. Invite relevant authors to guest post on your blog. 

The key is to look for opportunities that are a good fit for your blog and audience. If you run a graphic design business, don’t just guest post on any old site. Look for blogs that talk about design, branding, and illustration. 

Here’s an example from Positional’s co-founder Nate Matherson.

And here’s an example from Buffer, who invited an industry expert to post on their blog: 

4. Start a Newsletter

Newsletters are a great way to connect with your readers in their inboxes. Stop one-time readers from disappearing into the ether by encouraging them to sign up for your email list. Then you can send them your latest blog posts or surface older content from your blog.

When you send a newsletter, you should:

• Add a call to action (CTA) that takes readers directly to a blog post.
• Write additional content that gives context to your blog posts.
• Create an introduction so you’re not just dumping a load of links on subscribers. 
• Find a suitable cadence so that readers aren’t overwhelmed by your newsletters. 

The Houzz newsletter links to the brand’s most recent blog posts, but it also has a section at the bottom called “In Case You Missed It,” which links to older blog posts. Doing this gives these posts a new lease on life and prevents older content from gathering dust. 

5. Share Your Blog Posts on Social Media

Social media presents an amazing opportunity to reach new audiences and build awareness about your blog. When you publish a new post, spend some time creating accompanying social content that you can use to promote your blog. 

Here are some best practices: 

• Don’t share just a link. Add context to your social post and give followers a reason to click through. 
• Turn your blog posts into social-friendly content. Use tools like Open Graph or Canva to make sure your social posts look good. 
• Join in relevant discussions. Offer expert input in relevant conversations and, when appropriate, drop a link to your blog. 
• Add a link in your bio. Make sure your followers can easily find your blog by linking to it in your social media profiles. 

MailChimp regularly links to its latest blog content from X (formerly Twitter).

6. Repurpose Blog Posts into Social Media Posts

Every social media platform is different. LinkedIn favors long-form content, X favors shorter posts, and Facebook falls somewhere in the middle. Instead of just sharing a link to your latest blog post, try repurposing the content. For example, you might take a long-form blog post and turn it into a shorter, pared-back version on LinkedIn or a series of posts as a thread on X. 

Try to pull out a post’s most useful, powerful content. The great part is, you can continue to roll out repurposed versions of a blog post and continue promoting it long after its publish date. 

Here’s an example from Intercom. They’ve broken down the key points of a blog post into bite-size chunks for LinkedIn. 

7. Turn Blog Posts Into Short-Form Videos

You can also turn your blog posts into videos for platforms like YouTube and TikTok. 

This doesn’t mean just copying an existing post and converting it into a video, word-for-word. It’s about making sure the content you’re sharing makes sense as a video. This might mean you need to cut some sections, especially if you’re making YouTube shorts or short, punchy videos for TikTok. 

Here are some ways you can repurpose a blog post into a video: 

• Create a short video with a text hook or CTA and encourage viewers to click through to find out more. 
• Break down your blog post into bite-size morsels and turn them into a short video series. 
• Record yourself or someone else reading your blog post (or part of it) and create an animation with that recording as the soundtrack. 
• Film a talking-head video of yourself discussing the key points in your blog post.

Don’t forget to link back to the original blog post to drive traffic to it. 

Elna Cain walks through her blog posts on YouTube. This video has more than 40,000 views and includes a link to the original blog post in the description. 

8. Syndicate Your Content on Forums

Platforms like Reddit and Hacker News are packed with trending discussions, which means they are good places to talk about your blog. Start by finding relevant sSubreddits and check the rules. Some won’t allow link sharing, but in these instances, you can repurpose your blog post into an additional piece of content to start a discussion.

It’s the same with Hacker News. Upload a discussion that’s relevant to your blog post and encourage a conversation around it. These sites are powered by “upvotes,” so the more people you can get to like your content, the better. 

These two posts on HackerNews link out to a longer blog post by the author. 

You can also try sharing your blog posts on Quora or answering questions in detail with a link to your blog post. 

9. Republish Your Content on Distribution Platforms

If you have very little blog traffic, you can capitalize on the success of other sites to boost your views. Try republishing your blog post on Medium or Dev.to, where you can reach a much bigger audience. Include a link back to the original post (or your general blog) in your content so people can read more if they want. 

Tip: don’t forget to implement a canonical tag when you republish your posts word-for-word. This tells Google that your blog post is the original, so you won’t run into duplicate content issues. 

This Medium post clearly states that it was published elsewhere first and provides a link to the original piece. 

For added clarity and peace of mind, you can also tell Medium that the story was published elsewhere so it won’t be penalized as duplicate content. You can do this in the story settings for each piece. 

10. Pitch Other Newsletters to Include Your Content

Lean into your community and ask relevant newsletters to link to your blog. The key here is to choose highly specific newsletters with a sizable audience. So if you’re that graphic designer we mentioned before, seek out newsletters that focus on design skills or have a distinct audience that matches your target audience (and remember, that might not be your fellow designers. It might be law firms, accountants, or florists). 

You can increase your chances of appearing in bigger newsletters by sponsoring them or offering an exchange where you post a link to their blog in your newsletter. 

Kat Boogaard regularly links out to other blog posts in her newsletter. Look for newsletters that do this and pitch them with your latest post. 

11. Ask Influencers to Share Your Content

In a similar vein, you can approach industry influencers to spread the word about your blog. Don’t just go for people with huge followings. Make sure you’re choosing influencers that are a good fit — that is, they have a similar audience to yours and talk about the same stuff you blog about. 

As with newsletters, you can offer to sponsor influencers or offer some kind of beneficial exchange. 

Final Thoughts

Building a successful blog goes far beyond creating great content. Simply hitting “publish” isn’t enough — especially today, when there are more than 600 million blogs out there. From optimizing your site for search engines to repurposing content across social media platforms, each strategy plays a crucial role in increasing your blog’s reach. 

Here are some key tactics to keep in mind: 

• Make your blog easily discoverable on your website.
• Prioritize SEO through keyword research, quality content, and link building. 
• Engage in guest blogging to tap into new audiences.
• Use email marketing to nurture relationships and share blog posts. 
• Use social media for content distribution and engagement. 
• Repurpose blog content into different formats. 
• Explore content syndication on forums and distribution platforms.
• Collaborate with other content creators and influencers. 

Remember, promoting your blog is an ongoing process that requires consistency and adaptability. These tactics will help you refine your approach so you can steadily grow your readership and establish your blog as a valuable resource in your niche.