Kishar Ahmed
SEO is not the only way to promote your blog. There are a whole bunch of things you can do – but you can gain a lot of traction by doing SEO correctly. Off-site SEO, the SEO optimizations you do outside of your blog, can also be a great way to directly promote your blog. In this part, we are going to discuss how to boost your off-site SEO and promote your blog quickly.
Forget Comments. Write Guest Posts.
I know a lot of site owners still spend hours leaving comments on other blogs and websites, hoping to get backlinks and direct traffic from them. Yes, leaving comments can still work in many ways, but it is not something you should do without planning.
For starters, you should not leave generic, often irrelevant comments on articles that don’t relate well to your site. This will only hurt your SEO performance. In fact, Google will penalize you for doing this. Your comments must add value to the discussion. You should also choose the articles to comment on carefully.
Even better, take it a step further and build real relationships with other site owners in the industry. As you post more meaningful and valuable comments, people will start to recognize you. This will make seeking guest blogging opportunities much easier to do.
Guest blogging is far more effective than commenting for two obvious reasons. First, you are building a strong reputation by guest blogging. You will be seen as an expert – with high credibility – when you post high quality article on others’ sites. The second reason is high quality backlinks. Backlinks placed in guest posts are more valuable than backlinks included in comments.
Take It to Social Media
If you are not doing social media yet, you are missing out on a lot. Social networks, whether it is Facebook, Twitter or even the more professional-oriented LinkedIn, are great for promoting your blog and boosting your SEO performance. There are a few things you can do:
– Don’t rely on your own social media capabilities. Instead, make it very easy for users to share your posts and content through their social media channels. You will get more reach more quickly this way.
– Interact! It is, after all, social media. The social part of the media is very important. Try to engage your viewers directly. Build stronger relationships with them. As you interact more, you will find getting them to read new articles much easier to do as well.
– Use social media to share more than just content from your website. Make social media-specific content as well. This will help keep users engaged and allow your social media profiles to really shine. If you are on Instagram, for instance, sharing relevant photos with a short how-to or a quick tip can really help.
– Last but not least, reach out to influencers in your industry. Yes, you will find starting out on social media rather difficult to do. Getting people to follow you is difficult when you have none to begin with. However, it’s not how many followers you have that matters. Who actually follows you matters more. When a person with 10,000 followers retweet your tweet, you are reaching 10,000 potential readers in an instant.
Social media doesn’t have to be that difficult. Stay consistent, post high quality content and you will build a strong following just as quickly as you build your website’s traffic and engagement level.
Promote Others
Sometimes, the best way to promote your site is by promoting others first. Whether your site is relatively new or more matured with thousands of visitors, there is no harm in promoting others in the industry. Of course, you should focus on promoting other websites that are not your direct competitors.
Promoting others can help you achieve two things. As you promote other websites, you are building relationship with them too. Starting a cross-promotion effort will be much easier to do once the relationship is built. You may even get promoted in return without you even asking. You are gaining access to a wealth of off-site SEO opportunities.
Second of all, you are positioning your site – and yourself – as the authoritative figure in the industry. It takes time to build reputation and credibility, but this is one of the ways you can do so. Posting regular reviews of other blogs that you think your readers should visit or products and services that aren’t your direct competitors can turn your site into the go-to site for such references.
The SEO boost is not to be missed as well. People search for reviews and references before making any purchase decision. This means your site will show up in search results for the products, services or websites you recommend when the right keywords are entered. You’d be surprised by how much more traffic you can generate from implementing this tip alone.
