Yesterday one of our private coaching clients asked me how she can drive more traffic to her small business blog. I put together a few ideas for her and wanted to share today with you.
- Make sure people can subscribe to your blog. They’re busy. They may not remember to come back to your site everyday or even every week. You can set up an RSS feed easily to alert them of a new blog post through www.feedburner.google.com. It’s free and easy! And while you’re at it, subscribe to Photography Business Institute blog, too!
- Get all your Facebook fans and Twitter followers reading / subscribing to your blog by having a contest. Have them post on your blog to be considered for the prize. Encourage them to subscribe to your blog through the RSS feed you’ve set up in #1.
- Schedule regularly to post on your small business blog. Even if it’s just once a week, you need to get on a schedule and stick to it so people know when to expect new content from you.
- Provide some local content on your blog, too. Don’t just write posts that are thinly veiled attempts to sell your products or services. Your blog is a great place to position yourself as an expert…and not just at jewelry making, photography, nutrition or whatever your career path is. You can position yourself through your blog as a trend-setter, a great resource for new restaurants, etc. Then link to those businesses you mention in your blog. Hopefully they will then link back to you (ask them). This will help your SEO, too.
- Make sure you’re showing up on page one of Google for your keywords that you are optimizing blog posts for. If you’re confused by this, make sure you check out my JoySTART Your Year program on 1/19/11 at Noon CST. It’s free and I’ll share how you can find keywords that will help you get found in the search engines.
- Promote each blog post on your Facebook fan page and Twitter so you are telling people it’s there. Make sure to tag any businesses or clients you are featuring. Don’t expect clients will just stumble across your site or blog each time you post.
- Email the clients who are featured on your blog, the businesses you review, the products you promote and ask them to tell their friends, clients and subscribers that they have been featured on your blog. Write a Facebook status / email for them to use to send to their friends and clients.
- Do you have an iphone app? Push new blog posts out via your iphone app to generate excitement.We’d love to hear your ideas for how you get people to read your blog. Share with us here!