Maximizing Your Time and Traffic | What to Do After You Make a New Blog Post

27 May 2008

What to Do After You Make a New Blog Post – Maximizing Your Time and Traffic

Author: Jim | Filed under: Blogging Tricks

Many people have asked me what my normal routine is after I make a new blog post. In other words, what sort of things am I doing after publishing a new article in order to assure that I get traffic headed my way?

There is nothing worse than publishing post after post and getting little to no traffic for all your work. If I am going to spend a few hours sitting down and writing, I want to be repaid in the form of traffic. Knowing this, the work isn’t over just because the post is out, you need to let people know about it! Think of this like a post-interview follow up; you may have had a good interview, but you need to put yourself out there to get the job. Here are the best five marketing strategies that I use for maximizing my exposure after every blog post:

1. Send “Pings” to Web Servers
In the blogging world, many web servers scan blogs regularly for updates and publish the most recently updated sites. By “pinging” one of these servers, you are letting them know that you update… and people will be able to find your posts a lot easier. Luckily for us, WordPress now comes with a built-in pinging mechanism that alerts the popular “Ping-O-Matic” service (comprised of multiple servers). If you want to let more people know about your site, you can use additional services such as Pingoat to reach a wider audience.

2. Submit Posts to Blog Submission Networks
One of the most recent services available, these new submission networks allow you to notify entire communities of people of your new posts every time you update. This is completely free, and can be done in seconds. The two best services I have come across are Blog Engage and Blogsvine, both of which you should join and use. Essentially, you sign up and submit your posts after you publish them. These networks provide a link back to your post, as well as a voting system that will allow you to get these articles on the front page… where you can see some very impressive traffic. The whole process, start to finish, shouldn’t take more than 20 seconds.

3. Submit Your Article to Social Media Networks
This is probably the most commonly used method of getting some publicity to your posts, using social media networks. There are many large communities out there that allow bloggers and readers to submit articles that they like so that others can have a look. Using a service like StumbleUpon or Digg can literally account for upwards of 50% of your web traffic if executed properly. There are many other networks that are just as good, but a bit undiscovered: Mixx, Sphinn, Propeller, Reddit, del.icio.us, Technorati.

I’d go ahead and try out a few of these services. They are all easy to use, completely free, and I know some people getting insane traffic on a daily basis from these programs. It is best if you have other people discovering your stories, rather than you, but it can work for you either way. You can increase the odds of this happening on your blog by installing the free WordPress “ShareThis” plugin.

4. Comment on Blogs In Your Niche
One of the most overlooked tools for increasing traffic is being a regular commenter on blogs that publish information relevant to your website. I’m not talking about the five-second “nice post” comments, you need to be making useful commentary on the posts you are reading in order to get good feedback. After I make a new post on my blog, I typically load up my RSS reader and go down the list of blogs I am subscribed to, making constructive comments along the way. I usually see a good deal of traffic just from people clicking on the link in my comments every day… and it can be an awesome way to pick up new RSS subscribers interested in your focus area.

5. Submit Articles to Free Article Databases
Submitting articles is commonly known as “bum marketing.” However, I feel it is entirely different when you are changing around and submitting your blog posts to the service. Basically, article databases register quite well in Google searches, so you will get people reading your stuff and clicking on the link back to your website (you need to include this in the “resource” or “about” area). I would highly suggest submitting your best blog articles to these databases, namely eZineArticles.com, which is the only service that I will give a recommendation for.

Bottom Line: At this point, you are probably thinking to yourself “wow, that’s a lot of work.” Well I think you’ll find that once you do this a few times, you can get all of your publicity/networking/marketing done after you post within a few minutes. It is always very important to get the word out after you make a new blog post.

-Jimvesting