Getting in the habit of writing a consistent blog is tough enough, but the biggest trap most entrepreneurs fall into once they’re nailed that part is what I call The Cornfield Paradox. Succinctly put, The Cornfield Paradox is the long-held marketing belief that ‘if you build it, they will come’.

This is utter bullshit.

Why You Need Marketing Strategies For Your Blog

Blogging alone isn’t enough, you need to actually market your blog to ensure people find it.

Now, you might be sat there thinking, “Hang about, I thought the whole point of Content Marketing was that you didn’t have to bother with all the other marketing nonsense!”

Don’t worry.

To some extent that is true. Using complementary forms of marketing, like paid advertising, is always a good idea if you can afford them. But content marketing affords you a complete marketing strategy that can be done without expending any money at all if you’re DIYing it, rather than outsourcing it to an expert.

What you will need to put in, is time.

Time to write, but also time to market. Here are five really simple blog marketing strategies that you need in your life (which don’t require paid advertising!):

Vlogging

Video is an insanely powerful marketing tool. The best way to ensure people not only find but engage with your content is to record it. You can do this in audio and release it as a Podcast, but you will get a lot more mileage out of video blogs, or vlogging.

Starting a vlog for your business isn’t as complicated as it might sound. And while there are some technical requirements you can keep these very basic.

SEO

When you’re writing your blog posts it’s hugely important  to make them as SEO-friendly as possible. This means researching and including keywords, including metadata and other formatting tricks, and learning more advanced tactics like topic clusters.

You’re going to notice video is a recurring theme here, because having a video version of your blog embedded in your post, along with the written version, does wonders for your SEO.

The Search Engine Gods like to show people multiple formats. If you have a post on the same topic as someone else, and yours is in video while they only have a written version, you have an edge.

The gods are far more likely to favour you.

Social Media Marketing

Sharing your blog posts on social media is a no-brainer. But there are ways of doing it to ensure it’s as effective as possible. Experiment with scheduling things in advance (just be aware that some sites, like Facebook, will penalise you for using any scheduling too other than their own…Facebook really sucks), repurpose the content in your blog post to create social media content, and don’t be afraid to share your social posts more than once.

Live Video

Social Media Marketing is extremely powerful but engagement can be an absolute bitch. Vlogging helps with this, but if you really want to rock your engagement on social media (and particularly Facebook) you need to experiment with Live Video (like I said, video is a recurring theme).

On days when you’re publishing a new post, hop on your favourite platform, go Live, and chat about something related to the topic. Tell a story, relate the subject of your blog to yourself and your audience. Don’t simply regurgitate what’s in the post. People can already read or watch that for themselves.

Give them something more.

I find it helpful to write a prompt for Live videos when I’m writing posts, and often hold little nuggets back from the main post so I have something relevant to say beyond the scope of the post.

Live is all about juicy little extras and conversation starters, so don’t be afraid to ask direct questions and be a little controversial.

Networking

All the fancy marketing tricks in the world can’t beat good old-fashioned networking. Find some key groups on social media where your ideal clients like to hang out, and share your posts in them whenever you have a chance. You will often find such groups have a designated ‘share your posts’ thread once a week or so. If the group rules state you only post on that thread, make sure you abide by it.

Visit the posts of other members of these groups and, if you find them genuinely interesting, post a thoughtful comment. It doesn’t have to be long, but it does need to be genuine. You will often find people return the favour. Some of my best leads have come from nothing but sharing a blog post in a social group, so it’s well worth doing!

If you’re really looking to nail your blogging efforts and transform your blog in the complete marketing solution your business needs, download the first chapter of my book, Divine Blogging now – IT’S FREE!