You’ve listened to all the experts. You’ve done your keyword research, crafted a backlog of blog posts that will reward the customers who come to your page, and created an editorial calendar so that your content will continue to arrive on schedule moving forward.
You are competing with millions of posts every day and promoting a new content gets harder and more complex. But how do you get those first visitors to your blog? How do you get your content the attention that it deserves?
Leverage interested friends and family
There’s a limited number of times that this will work, so only beg for help specifically from your personal audience with big events. The initial launch of your website is a good time, as well as when you’ve written content that has a wider potential interest base than your specific audience.
To help your close group feel comfortable sharing your content, consider providing them with some basic language for how to spread the word. Instead of starting with “My daughter wrote a blog,” for example, they might say “You know, I found this great website devoted to approachable tech tutorials – actually, my daughter writes for the site – and you should check it out, I think you’d find it very helpful.”
One of the keys of marketing is to lead with how you’re helping the customer, and that’s just as true for your content as it is with anything else.
Spread the word to your social media pages
When your site is ready to go, spread the word to your personal and professional social media pages. Depending on where your social media platform exists, you may or may not be able to have your content automatically shared to your sites. Figure out whether this will be automatic or manual, and make sure you have a process in place for regularly sharing content if it will be necessary to share it manually.
Make sure that your content shares with pictures! There’s no exception anymore to not using featured images with each and every post. It’s expected. Make it happen.
Make sure your more specialized audiences know about your site
Online content is the key to marketing for the future. Integrating content with SEO, however, is just as important as writing it in the first place. If you’re paying attention to your industry, you’ve probably found more than one content site that’s devoted to fans or customers of the service or product that you plan to offer. It could be a group of message boards, like Absolute Write, the Fountain Pen Network, or Ravelry, or it could be a set of blogs were the comments section engages in rigorous discussion.
Whatever it is, consider plans to make your new site available to that audience. If you’re following a blog, pitch a guest post to the blog owner where you can link back to your site. If you’re following a message board, consider a post announcing the new site, and potentially offering a temporary discount or perk to members of the site.
You already know that these people like your product in theory; now’s the chance to help them like it in practice.
Advertise in any brick-and-mortar locations
If your business has a physical location, make sure that customers who come in are aware of the new site. Be prepared to tell them about it’s value while they’re in your location. “I’m so glad you asked that question! Here’s the answer. Now, you should also know that we’ve launched a series of instructional videos on our website, let me give you the web address.”
One great idea for any in-store marketing is to use QR codes. Most smartphones can scan these easily and then direct users to your website without them needing to type in your URL. If you’re giving out postcards or business cards, include these scannable codes to make customers’ lives easier.
Talk about your website whenever it’s relevant
A marketer’s work is never done. While you want to be careful not to become that person who never stops talking about their job, and can seem too salesy and pushy about it, look for opportunities to promote your work in relevant ways. If your website is about the benefits of a particular product, for example, and you see a discussion come across your social media asking a question you’ve recently addressed, drop a blog link into the discussion. Preface it with an acknowledgement of the question and a brief version of the answer. “We discussed that recently on the blog! In short, you’ll find … check out the post for more details.”
Featured photo credit: FirmBee via pixabay.com
