Blogging Esque

Anyone who has been blogging for a while will tell you that writing quality content is a small part of it all. If you want to make your blog successful and maintain it that way, you’ll have to work on its promotion. We want to help you increase the traffic that you already have and get even more readers to your site, so today, we’ll teach you how to promote your blog in 2021.

Luckily for you, there are a lot of tactics that are easy to use and don’t cost much. And these are what we’ll focus on today. They’ll work regardless of what blogging platform you use, and if you experiment with them, you’ll see traffic rolling to your site like never before.

So, let’s dive in right away and see what the things you should know about are.

Don’t Forget About SEO

Before we start talking about promoting your blog, we feel like we need to talk about SEO for a minute. If you optimize your site for search engines, it’ll be able to rank well, and it’ll attract visitors on its own.

And why is this important? You see, more than 70% of the traffic that popular blogs around the globe get comes from search engines. So, before you click that publish button, be sure to check if everything is as it should be.

Of course, before you even start writing, you should do keyword analysis. Use the tools you can find online to help you find the keywords that have the potential to rank and bring you traffic. However, it’s important to remember not to go overboard. If you stuff your post with too many keywords, that will take you nowhere. Write for people as they are the ones who will read the article and be the judges if it’s any good or not.

Also, pay attention to meta descriptions and alt tags under the pictures. These are the things you do for the search engine. They don’t take much of your time, but they’re more than worth it. On top of that, you should also interlink your posts now and then. Not only will Google like to see internal links, but your readers will spend more time on your site if they jump from one article to another.

Work on Your Social Media Presence

Besides organic results, social media is where blogs usually get the most attention. The more influential you are on these networks, the more followers and readers you’ll have. The thing with platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter is that it’s hard to get the initial following, and that’s why we have a few WordPress plugins to help you with this. On the other hand, once you get a move on, the sky’s the limit.

Another great way to get a push on social media is through your fellow bloggers. If another writer shares your posts and invites their followers to read what you have to say, you’ll get a bigger audience. Of course, you have to return the favor and do the same for them.

If you don’t know any other bloggers, however, take your time to meet them. Follow them on Facebook and Twitter and comment on their blog posts. Give them your feedback, and they’ll know how to appreciate it. And that nicely brings us to our next point.

Guest Blogging

In the last couple of years, guest blogging has become more popular than ever. Despite that, many new bloggers decide to ignore it. But if you want to learn how to promote your blog in 2021, you can’t make this mistake. Guest blogging can help you become better known, and it’s an essential tool for link building. However, the benefits don’t stop there.

If you manage to get your post published on a well-known blog, you’ll get a lot of traffic on yours, thanks to the link you’ll insert into the article. And besides that, you’ll get marked as an influential person when you publish on other people’s blogs.

However, some bloggers in the past used this tactic only to generate links for their sites. Google figured out what they were doing, and since then, the rules have become a lot more strict. You can still do it, but you have to be careful about whose website you’re posting on and who you let post on your site. Getting a penalty from Google is a lot worse than making one of the technical SEO mistakes, and it will take time for you to recover from it.

Be Active on Popular Niche Forums

You might think that the best way to become a successful blogger is to follow the steps of other influential bloggers. However, this isn’t the case. Not only did it take them years to get where they are, but the things that worked when they were starting out don’t necessarily work today.

On the other hand, you can get closer to your target audience through community forums. If you’re an expert in what you do, share your knowledge with people. If you can offer them a solution for a problem they have, they’ll trust you, and they’ll want to read your blog. The followers you get this way are here to stay. You’ll connect with them on social media, they’ll follow all your posts, and they’ll engage with you.

Now, you probably won’t read this tip on other sites, but that’s only because most bloggers are unaware of how important forums can be. They give you instant access to the people you want reading your posts. So, if you’re thinking about starting a blog, be sure not to take them for granted.

Conclusion

After reading about how to promote your blog in 2021, it should be clear that there are many ways to do it. However, if you want to get the best results possible, you need to combine them. Focus on SEO and social media, make connections with other bloggers, and be active on forums. Don’t skip any of the steps, and you’ll become influential in no time.

When starting a new blog, you will need to make plenty of stylistic and technical decisions. The most important of those is probably the choice of the platform which you will be using. In this article, we will give you the full rundown on how to choose the best blogging platform for you and go through some of the best and most popular options.

Things that can influence your choice of platform

Some people choose their blogging platform seemingly at random, while others go with whatever looks nice to them. If you don’t like making life decisions by throwing darts at the wall, here are some factors you should consider when choosing your blogging platform:

1. What is your budget?

We are going to start the list with a hot topic. How much money are you willing to spend on your blog? Keep in mind that some free options are available, which are perfectly fine. However, spending a bit of money can give you access to additional features and quality of life improvements. Many people choose to start a new blog on a budget, so you won’t be the only one looking for wallet-friendly alternatives. Even if you decide to pay a subscription, you will be able to find many affordable entry options available. It is entirely possible to start with a cheap subscription and just dip your toes in the water.

2. How tech–savvy are you?

Be realistic about your technical skills and how much you want to improve them, and you will find that trying to choose the best blogging platform for you is a lot simpler. Ask yourself if you are ready to do a lot of tweaking and managing how the blog looks, or do you just want a place to post a few lines of text and be done with it. If you are a beginner, you might not need to have plenty of advanced options, so you can go ahead and pick a platform that is easier to use. On the other hand, if you are a perfectionist or someone who is eager to learn, you might appreciate the customization options that more complex platforms can offer.

3. What types of blog posts will you usually create?

To be fair, if you are a beginner, you might not have an answer to this question. In that case, we recommend that you start slow and experiment with blogging and different types of posts. You can even create a test blog and use that to figure out what format works best for you. Obviously, certain platforms are better suited for some types of posts. Deciding on the type of content you’ll be posting is an excellent way to choose the best blogging platform for you. Figure out if you want to have guest posts or complex reviews that can enable user ratings. If your posts will have video material, see which platform gives you the most options for embedding videos.

4. Do you need hosting?

Some blogging platforms will also provide hosting options. You’ll definitely need a place to hold the content you plan to create. Paid subscription models can also give you the choice of domain name, if that’s important to you. We have already reviewed a few affordable options like SparrowHost, and we’ve made a direct comparison of cheap hosting options in India like ProHosty and HeroHosty. Simple, text-oriented blogs shouldn’t give you headaches when choosing a hosting service. More complex blogs with plenty of pages and high-resolution images might require additional storage. You can decide on the hosting service depending on the available storage and loading speeds they provide.

5. How will you reach your audience?

People decide to run a blog for various reasons, from connecting to others and sharing their experiences to making money. However, even if you plan to set up a blog as a hobby and post just for fun, you will still need to find a way to reach your audience. If no one can find what you are writing about, what’s the point of uploading it to the internet anyway? After you decide on what topic you will be writing about, you can use keyword research tools to improve your SEO and reach more users. Posting on social networks is also a great way to spread the word about your blog, but even there, you need to pay attention to trending keywords.

Here are some of the best blogging platforms

If you have gone through our list and know what your specific needs are, it will be easy to choose the best blogging platform for you.

1. WordPress.org is probably the most popular blogging platform out there. It’s free, but you will need a domain and hosting. There are numerous plugins that you can use to customize the look of your blog. Due to its popularity, there are plenty of guides and support available. However, you’ll need to maintain the blog on your own, which may not be the easiest option for beginners.
2. WordPress.com is an alternative to the .org version, created by one of that platform’s co-founders. WordPress.com is free to use, and while it has fewer options, it is also easier to use, making it an excellent choice for beginners and those seeking basic blogging services.
3. Squarespace.com can be used to create entire websites through the use of built-in templates and editor options. This is a blessing and a boon at the same time since everything you need is there, and you don’t even need to leave the website. On the downside, the customization features are somewhat limited.
4. Web.com is another website builder that offers a built-in blog section. The drag-and-drop interface is simple to use and requires very little technical skill to create great-looking blogs. While not free to use, the starting prices are affordable.
5. Blogger is a free service that is provided by Google, meaning that you’ll need a Gmail account which will be good for 100 blogs. Besides being free, it’s also easy to use and has some basic options, meaning it’s another good option for beginners.

Conclusion

As you have seen, choosing the best blogging platform for you can depend on many things. Besides deciding what your blog will be about, you’ll need to consider your technical proficiency and desire to customize the features of your blog. The budget you have to work with can also dictate your available options; thankfully, there are many free platforms, so go ahead and start blogging.