Spread the word!

A while ago I shared with you how to start a blog, and I’ve started sharing traffic and income reports, even though I’m still tiny. I was hesitant to start sharing blog tips, but more and more people have been asking me for advice. I have spent the last year researching everything I could get my hands on about how to start and run a blog, so I might as well save you some time and share that info!

So today we’re going to chat about what to do after you hit publish. This is my blog promotion strategy that has helped to triple my pageviews! I’ve been planning to write this for a while, but I needed to make sure that it would continue to work long term.

Since starting this blog promotion strategy I’ve seen my pageviews soar, and I know it’s something that you can do too! I don’t spend tons of money boosting Facebook posts or paying a VA to tweet every two and a half minutes. You don’t need money or hours to get pageviews, I pinky swear!

In this post I’m going to outline everything that I possibly do. I’ll be honest and say I do not do every thing for every post because I’m a busy mama so I don’t always have time. Pick a few of these, get into a routine with it, and then add in a few more. Also, this is what works for my blog. There’s a chance that these strategies will have different results when it comes to your own site, so play around with it until you find what works for you!

The Blog Promotion Strategy That Tripled My Pageviews

The Blog Promotion Strategy That Tripled My Pageviews

Pinterest Blog Promotion Strategy

I am not a Pinterest expert. I haven’t taken any courses on it, and about half of experts say “delete pins” and the other half say “never delete pins”. I have no idea which is better. I’ve just been an avid Pinterest user since well before I started blogging, ironic since I am not a Pinterest mom, and this is just the blog promotion strategy for Pinterest that I’ve come up with.

Immediately after I publish, I pin the post to my [From This Outnumbered Mama] board. Then, throughout the day I live pin (I don’t currently use any scheduler) 5-10 pins from others, and then I re-pin from the last board I pinned my new post onto the next board it should go on.

To make this simpler, here’s an example. I’ll pin this post onto [From This Outnumbered Mama], then I’ll pin 5-10 pins from other bloggers, then I’ll re-pin from [From This Outnumbered Mama] onto [Work at Home Mom], then I’ll pin 5-10 pins from others, then I’ll re-pin from [Work at Home Mom] onto [Blogging]. I’ll continue this pattern throughout the day until I’ve pinned this post onto all of my relevant boards and group boards.

Facebook Page Blog Promotion Strategy

I share a post of mine on my Facebook page once a day(ish). I’ll be honest and say this is the one I am absolutely the worst about. When I’m on top of my game, my Facebook blog promotion strategy looks like this: 8am(ish) a funny image or meme, 10 am(ish) a blog post I really liked, 12(ish) an Instagram photo, 2(ish) a blog post from my site, 4(ish) another blog post I like, 6(ish) either another blog post I like/Instagram photo/funny image.

I will also occasionally throw things up in the middle of the night while I’m up nursing Miss S. I like that schedule because it’s manageable, I’m not posting so often that I run out of things to post. Also, I always want to be sharing posts from others more than my own, it’s good bloggy karma.

And because Facebook likes to never show anything to anyone, I like to post my own content after an Instagram photo. These photos are normally of my kids, and they typically get a lot of engagement, so it kind of “tricks” Facebook into showing my posts to more people! So, I’ll either post this post to Facebook the day I post it or the day after, depending on timing.

Twitter Blog Promotion Strategy

I. Love. Twitter. It makes it so easy to interact with other bloggers and brands, and I’m working on steadily growing my numbers over there. That said, twitter brings me hardly any traffic, especially when you consider how many followers I have over there.

The thing is, that’s totally okay with me. I am building up my presence on twitter for interaction, not traffic. So I share each post to twitter a few times. That said, when I was really working for traffic on twitter, I would tweet each new post three times the day the post went live, twice again through the week, once two weeks from the original post date, and twice in the month following the post (all scheduled in advance with hootsuite).

For example, I’d tweet this post 3 times today (Sunday), once on Wednesday, once February 6th, once February 12th and once February 26th. Keep in mind that not even half of your followers will see each tweet, and to use different hashtags and phrases with the tweets. Also, it’s important to make sure you’re tweeting other people’s content more than your own! In the last 24 hours, I’ve tweeted 79 times, so tweeting my own post 3 times in one day isn’t crazy overwhelming.

Blogging Tribe Blog Promotion Strategy

If you don’t already have a blogging tribe, you need one. I cannot emphasize this enough. It deserves it’s own post (and I’ll likely write one soon) but basically a blogging tribe is a small group of bloggers who work together to grow their blogs. What that looks like is a little different in each tribe. Maybe you chat on Skype once a week, maybe you have daily accountability threads, maybe you guest post for each other.

Trust me, though, you need a group of bloggers who will understand what you’re going through. This is probably the most organic blog promotion strategy out there. I’m in a handful of tribes and they each have different purposes.

One of my tribes does a weekly share thread so that we can easily find and share each other’s content, so naturally I share my posts there. In another tribe we don’t do share threads, but if we need something specific shared we post asking for help. I typically do that if I have a post doing really well on a particular social platform to keep the momentum going, or if I have a sponsored post that needs a little boost!

Bottom line? You need a blogging tribe, and participate in whatever share system your tribe has set up!

The Blog Promotion Strategy That Tripled My Pageviews

Facebook Share Group Blog Promotion Strategy

There are several groups on Facebook that are purely for posting your content so that others can find it and share. They’re also helpful when you’re looking for content to share, to fill up your twitter feed and Facebook schedule.

Some of my favorites are the Kid Blog Share group (for members of the Kid Blogger Network) and B2B Parenting Share. For either of those, search in Facebook and they’re easy to find! These groups can be hit or miss, so I only share in them when I have a post that I am fairly certain a lot of people might enjoy.

There’s a lot of kids crafts and activities in them, so if you are an activity blogger find these groups! Also, if you’re really looking to get the most from Facebook groups, be sure to check out this epic guide to 31 Facebook groups from my friend Suzi!

Facebook Trade Groups Blog Promotion Strategy

You might have heard VA’s advertising “chore threads” and not known what they meant. Basically, in these groups there are threads (daily or weekly) that you can post your links, and everyone in the thread will act on it assuming you do the same for them. For example, everyone in the thread may agree to re-pin all of the pins in the thread, or “like” every post on Facebook, or click every link, etc.

Some popular share groups are Bloggers Get Social, Promote Your Website, and Awesome Bloggers. Be careful with this blog promotion strategy, though. We don’t want to artificially raise our Pageviews, we want real readers! So I tend to focus on the threads that will allow more of my readers to see my content, not threads that force other bloggers to look at my content.

For example, I like the Facebook threads because interaction on a Facebook post gets it seen my more of my followers. I like the re-pin threads because re-pins to relevant boards gets my post seen by more people.

Facebook Share Days Blog Promotion Strategy

Facebook share days are when a blogger accepts posts to be shared to their page’s Facebook wall on a certain day. Some do this to find content to share, others simply because they like the interaction. Either way, it can be great for pageviews!

The best way to get the most out of this blog promotion strategy is to choose some of your highest quality, most relevant posts. It is especially helpful if the post has done well on Facebook before, or it’s highly shareable.

Next, make sure that post has a square image, and a horizontal image to make it ideal for sharing on Facebook. (hint: you can save your horizontal image in your Yoast SEO plug in so that it isn’t actually in your post!). To find out what pages accept shares on what days, I use the list in the Kid Blogger Network Facebook group.

I typically pick 3-5 pages that fit my niche, and I make sure that I always share as my page. I upload the square blog post image, write a blurb about the post, leave a link to the post and a link to a pin of the post and share.

I know that seems like a lot, and it is. That’s why I started this post saying that I do not follow this blog promotion strategy for every single post, and I often do it over several days. I have a spreadsheet of all of my posts and each of these activities so that I make sure I don’t repeat, and I get to them as I have time. Pinterest and Facebook are my first steps, always, because they’re my highest referrers, and I’ll schedule it to tweet mainly so I don’t forget.

Then I poke around in trade groups and share groups. Finally, if I have a post I really love that fits with the Facebook pages accepting shares I’ll do the share days, and if I really need a boost I’ll turn to my blog tribes.

I hope that you found this blog promotion strategy helpful! I feel like you deserve a gold medal for sticking with me through the whole thing, but I’ve been asked several times what I changed in order to grow my pageviews, so I wanted this post to be thorough! How do you grow your pageviews? Am I missing anything major in my blog promotion strategy?

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