Steven Snell

All bloggers and website owners want more traffic, regardless of how much they currently receive. In recent years social media marketing has become a popular and effective practice for many bloggers. Still, even with some getting excellent results from social media marketing (SMM), many others have not adopted SMM as a promotional method of their own.

1. Enormous Traffic Potential

For those bloggers and website owners that do use social media to promote their site, most likely what first caught their attention was the traffic potential. Although there are plenty of other ways to market a site, not many other methods carry as much potential as social media. Anyone can have success with social media with the right approach and effort.

2. Search Engine Optimization

Of those who do not use social media to promote their site, most claim that they are more interested in search traffic. While the value of targeted search traffic cannot be denied, SMM can actually help you to achieve this. Posts that are successful with social media tend to draw in-bound links, which in turn will increase search rankings.

Link building can be time-consuming, difficult, and costly. If you can produce a few popular items with social media you will likely draw a lot of links from other bloggers, which will be great for SEO.

3. Viral Nature of SMM

Some of the best social media content will be passed around by thousands of users of various social media sites. You may promote your content in one place, but others may pick it up and pass it around the web without any additional effort on your part.

Of course, this only works for the very best content (a very small percentage of submitted content), but the potential is there.

4. Huge Potential Audience

As social media and social networking sites continue to become more common and popular, the potential audience that can be reached with a successful SMM campaign is huge.

Part of marketing a website or blog is getting it in front of a large number of targeted visitors. With social media that audience will not always be extremely targeted, but it can be very large.

5. No Cost Necessary

Social media marketing doesn’t have to cost a dime. Of course there are consultants and writers that you can hire if you choose, but that is not necessary. SMM includes a potent combination of huge potential and low cost.

If you do want to hire someone to help with SMM, chances are, you will still spend less than you will for other types of marketing, and you’ll get more bang for your buck.

6. Networking Potential

Social media marketing is social – I know that’s a big surprise. With all the attention on traffic and exposure it’s easy to overlook the potential to meet and connect with other bloggers and social media uses. You will likely find that the networking aspect will be equally as beneficial as the traffic that you receive directly from the social media sites.

While starting a new blog can be an exciting experience, getting people to visit and return to the blog is very difficult. There are already millions of blogs with more being launched each day. Readers will need to have a reason to pay attention to yours.

Content is critical to every blog, but getting people to notice that content is a real challenge. You could have the greatest content out there, but if no one is seeing it it really isn’t doing you any good.

As a new blogger there are a lot of things you can be doing with your time to promote the blog and start to build an audience. In this article I’ll point out some of the best ways that bloggers can focus on getting that new blog off the ground.

1. Use Social Media

Want a great way to quickly and inexpensively market that new blog? Social media is the answer. Social media sites are capable of sending huge amounts of traffic, which will get you noticed and help to build some in-bound links.

Many bloggers use social media unsuccessfully. To have the best results you need to be an active user yourself. Pick a few social media sites that you want to use to promote your sites and start visiting regularly to get familiar with the site, the users, and the types of content that draw response.

Now you should be able to create some content based on what you know the social media users tend to respond to.

2. Social Networking Site Profiles

If you’re already a user of networking sites like Facebook and MySpace you should add a link on your profiles to your new blog. This will not send a ton of traffic, but it will help to start getting the blog moving forward, and it will start your link building efforts.

While this may not have huge results, it will only take a few minutes and will be worth your time.

3. Use Twitter

If you’re not already using Twitter, you need to start in order to avoid missing out on a great promotional tool. While Twitter is a conversational tool not created for marketing, many Twitter users post links to their blog posts.

For the best results, be sure that you are also tweeting about other things so that it doesn’t appear that you are blatantly using Twitter only for the purpose of promoting your site.

If you are a Twitter user and you already have some followers, this is a great resource to announce and promote your new blog.

4. Pay-Per-Click Advertising

If you are willing and able to invest a little bit of money into the blog, adverting can provide a good return. Banner ads are a popular online option and they can be great for increasing your exposure and bringing new visitors.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads are another useful option. With PPC you can bid on certain search phrases and your ad will appear when people search for these words. You will only pay if someone clicks on your ad and comes to your site.

5. Blog Carnivals

If you want to start building links to your new blog, carnivals are an excellent option. A blog carnival will be hosted on a particular blog and others can submit their own posts. If you post is included you will get a link back to your blog.

The best resource for finding carnivals is www.blogcarnivals.com

6. Write Guest Posts for Other Blogs

Possibly the best way to promote your new blog is to write posts at other blogs that have a similar audience. That way you can showcase your knowledge and expertise to targeted readers, and you will get a brief author bio that includes a link to your blog.

You may get some visitors that click through from your guest posts, but not that many. Those that do will be highly qualified visitors. Writing for others is also a good way to build some connections with influential bloggers.

7. Link Exchanges

Link exchanges are popular among bloggers because links are needed for search engine rankings. Find some other blogs in your niche that offer solid content and see if they would be interested in exchanging blogroll links with you.

Starting to get some in-bound links can help to establish your blog in the eyes of search engines.

Every day there are thousands of new blogs being launched. The ease of starting a new blog means that there is tons of competition if you are launching a new blog of your own. This may not be an issue if your blog is personal, but for business blogs developing readership is critical to success.

Many new bloggers underestimate the difficulty that they will face in attracting and retaining readers. When a new blog launches, the first few days present a very valuable opportunity to present your blog as a great new resource for readers.

In this article we will look at a number of different things that you can do right away to start the traffic flowing.

1. Notify Friends and Family

By announcing the blog launch to your friends and family you can get a few visitors to the site easily when it is brand new. Send an email to your contacts telling them a little bit about the blog, why you are starting it, and including a link so they can visit.

3. Use Your Other Sites to Link to the New Blog

If you have other websites or blogs you will be in much better position for promotion, especially if you have an established site in the same niche or industry. Using your existing site(s) as a springboard for your new blog is one of the most effective things you can do to promote it.

If you don’t have any other websites yet, this may seem like a disadvantage. While it may make things a little more difficult for you now, once you get your new blog established it will give you an excellent platform with which you can promote other new blogs that you may launch in the future.

3. Link to Your Blog from Your Social Media Profiles

Social networking sites are common haunts for bloggers. If you have some social networking profiles of your own, be sure to add a link to your blog from the profile. This is an easy way to get a few links, and the visitors that arrive at your blog will probably already be familiar with you, making them a higher quality visitor.

As a new blogger, link building will be more of the most important hurdles that you will have to overcome. Simple links from profiles can be a start.

4. Write Posts and Submit Them to Social Media Sites

One of the best ways for a new blogger to quickly start seeing some real traffic is to leverage social media websites. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of social media sites, some much more popular than others. With interesting and unique content you can get amazing results with social media.

Social media is a great resource for new bloggers because with the right type of content, and with quality content, exposure to a very large number of people is possible, and free. New blogs can quickly become recognized in their industry with a few posts that generate interest from social media users.

Man bloggers get excited about social media, only to be disappointed when it doesn’t work for them. In order to have success you will need to create content with social media users in mind, and work on building a network of other social media users.

5. Blog Commenting

Blog commenting is a proven way to help increase the exposure of a new blog. With well-thought-out comments and feedback you can catch the attention of the other blogger, plus all of the readers that browse through the comments.

If you want to gain exposure for your blog through commenting, focus on leaving helpful and intelligent comments. Most blogg commentors are just leaving generic garbage comments that ultimately add nothing to the post. Use your comment to show that you know what you are talking about and that people should pay attention to you.

6. Network with Other Bloggers

One thing that all successful bloggers have in common is that they are surrounded by a strong network. Blogging is too personal in nature for someone to have success without developing relationships with other bloggers.

Leaving comments on other blogs will be a big help in getting to know others, but don’t stop there. Be active at social media and social networking sites, especially niche sites, and don’t be afraid to contact other bloggers just to introduce yourself. Most bloggers are very open to getting to know other bloggers, so your inquiries will generally be very well received.