Promoting your Blog Before its Launch

22 May 2011 in Audience Development Blog

One of the toughest parts of starting a new blog is getting some visibility. If you already have a well visited website, then you are likely to stimulate interest from your traditional website visitors for your blog – only if you promote your blog across your site however. 

On the other hand, if you don’t already have an established website, then it can be more challenging to reach out to readers. So starting to think about how you will promote your blog in advance of its launch can be both effective and time-efficient.

Here are a couple of ideas to help you promote your blog before its launched:

  • A “Coming Soon” Post – If you can create a simple but attractive first post, which is geared towards getting people excited about your new blog, then this can begin to stir peoples interest to return to the blog at a later date. Give new visitors a small taste of what is to come and make sure you offer them the opportunity of signing up for an email alert, or follow your twitter, or like you Facebook page, so you can keep them informed of your Official Blog Launch. 
  • Start Building an Email List – As mentioned above, the main element of your “Coming Soon” Post will be an email signup box to get updates on the launch and future blog posts. Use your email databases (if you have one) and invite people to read your blog and sign up for email alerts. (If you already have an email mailing list, perhaps you want to consider what additional value these readers will have when signing up for another email alert from you – perhaps you offer an exclusive incentive or competition to coincide with your blog launch, ask them to visit your blog and sign up for a discount, giveaway or prize. This will stimulate people to visit your website and potentially engage with the incentive, and in the long term continue to engage with your blog). 
  • Guest Blogging – To build a name for yourself without having your own platform you could consider offering to write a guest post on related blogs.
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    • Most bloggers will be happy to have a hand with content, do don’t be afraid to ask.
    • Try to guest post for a relevant blog with some established visitor traffic, there is no point in guest posting for another blog if it isn’t read by your potential audience or anyone else for that matter.
    • Stay in your field. Find a blogger in your niche and write about what you know to start to build a name for yourself.
  • Comment on Other Blogs – This goes beyond the typical “Hey, great post, thanks” towards significant contributions to the conversation and topic. At this point (before you have your own blog up and running) this is the only opportunity for you to express your views.
  • Build on your Social Networks Twitter and Facebook are great tools for promoting your blog. Using your social networks will help you to establish relationships, by the time you launch, hopefully you will have a small community ready to engage with you.
  • Give Something Away – Another way of attracting attention is by giving something away. Contests are very powerful if you know how to ask for something in exchange. You can ask people to follow you, to subscribe or use their social networks to participate but the main drive is to establish a readership for your blog.
  • Ask for Help! – Ask your established networks to help you out by promoting your new blog to their own unique networks. Depending on who you have in your corner and how much support they can give, will have an influence on the traffic they are able to generate towards you. This should be a reciprocal arrangement, consider what you can, in return, promote across your own networks on their behalf.