Some of you requested tips on how to promote your blog effectively after reading my blogger self-promotion posts, so I put together this list. It was written with fashion bloggers in mind, but most of these tips actually apply to any kind of blog. I hope you find it useful. :) If there's anything you're still curious about, let me know in the comments!
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1. Make a Facebook page for your blog and post your updates there. Be sure the link to your Facebook page is visible on every page of your blog so that your readers can find it easily (for example, put it in the sidebar). When someone likes your page, it often shows up on their Facebook friends' homepages (News Feed). This way you also reach those who haven't visited your blog yet. If they like what they see when they check out your page and blog, chances are they'll come back and become your regular readers.
2. Make a Twitter profile and post links to your updates, but don't do only that. If you use Twitter just for linking to your blog, you won't get many followers because that's boring. The point of Twitter is interaction with others. Be personal. Retweet other bloggers' posts that you like. Don't be afraid to talk to people! We're all nice.
You don't have to tweet only about the things directly related to your blog. Tweet about the things that are you. If you're interesting, people will be inclined to read what you have to say on your blog.
3. Add the Facebook Like button to your posts. This works the same as Facebook pages: when someone likes your post, it appears in their friends' News Feed, which means it's suddenly seen by many people.
Setting up the Like button on your blog is no trouble - I'm on WordPress and use the Like-Button-Plugin-For-Wordpress (there are many more plugins that will do the same, but I like this one best because it has some extra features). If you're using Blogger, check out these instructions how to add the button below every post.
4. Leave comments on other blogs. We're talking meaningful, thoughtful comments. Think about what you've read. Contribute your ideas to the discussion. Share your own story or experience. Bloggers love this because it shows that you took time to really take in our posts. When someone leaves me a great comment, I always visit their blog and try to write an adequate response. Many bloggers comment back for every comment they receive, so if you spread the love, you're guaranteed to get it in return!
5. Write guest posts on other blogs. Think about what kind of people you want to attract to your blog and write a guest post for a blog with such (or similar) audience. Ideally the blog that will publish your guest post should have higher traffic than your blog, but if you're targeting a specific niche, this is not so important. Check out more tips on how to arrange and write a great guest post.
6. Ask your readers to share your content on other sites and make it easy for them by including social media buttons (linking to Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, email, Digg etc.) at the end of your posts. In Blogger you can enable the buttons by opening the Design tab, clicking Edit under Blog Posts and ticking Show Share Buttons in the pop-up window (see this picture for details).
If you want more share buttons than the 5 offered by Blogger, use a service such as AddThis or ShareThis (works both on Blogger and WordPress). If you're on WordPress, you can also choose from many plugins (I'm currently using SexyBookmarks on Dressful).
7. Find blogs and websites that do blogger interviews or profiles and ask to be featured. Similar to writing a guest post, this is a great way to expose your blog to a new audience (Katy of ModlyChic features a fashion blogger every Monday).
8. Socialize virtually. Join sites and forums related to your blog topic and connect with others. If you're a fashion blogger, I recommend Independent Fashion Bloggers (resources and articles on everything from tips for better writing to monetizing your blog), Friend Friday (Google group for discussion, a set of questions to answer every Friday) and The Fashion Spot.
If you're a beginner blogger, I don't recommend sites like Lookbook or Chictopia because you need to have a huge following to be successful on them. It's not worth to spend a lot of time on them in exchange for very little traffic. You'll be better off if you use these hours to work on your blog content.
9. Socialize locally. Attend events related to your blog topic, blogger and Twitter meet-ups and network, network, network. To avoid clumsily searching for a pen and a piece of paper when you want to give someone your blog address, always keep a stash of business cards in your bag (Moo is awesome for business cards design and printing - their quality is great and they ship worldwide from the UK and US).
10. Produce inspiring and original content, be it text, photos, video, anything. You can excel at all of the above 9 points, but what matters the most is continuously putting out content that people want to read and share. Before you start dedicating serious time to promoting your blog, make sure you've published at least a few posts you're really proud of.
If people visit your blog and don't see anything interesting, they won't share it. Great content is a call to action by itself.
November 15, 2010 at 9:36 PM
This was such a good article! I am always looking for new ways to get viewers to stop by my blog. I do some of these, but the one I have been resisting is making a facebook page for my blog. I don't know why! I think I better do that, and also add a fb like button to my posts too. Thanks!
November 15, 2010 at 9:39 PM
You're very welcome! I'm glad you found these ideas useful :)
November 15, 2010 at 10:11 PM
Thanks for writing this Eva! I am going to have to reread it later, to actually make a lot of use out of it, but it's so informative. I guess my biggest barriers is being anxious about promoting myself and somewhat looking conceited... especially on my personal Facebook. Should I just make a new Facebook page?
Nancy recently posted week 1- blogging is tough business!
November 15, 2010 at 10:23 PM
I think you should. I had a similar concern about posting blog updates on my personal profile because not all of my Facebook friends are interested in my blog. So I created a separate page for it and those friends who read my blog just became fans of that page and now get updates that way.
November 16, 2010 at 11:00 AM
I'm concerned about the Fb thing too. It's difficult to keep your personal life separated from the 'blogger' part, and Fb just unites it. Maybe a separate page is the right solution. Thank you, Eva!
Kifki recently posted Why does not exist a Delete key for the memories
November 16, 2010 at 11:59 AM
You're welcome! :) This solution worked for me, all my (FB) friends who read my blog liked (I prefer the old times when this was called "become a fan", like just sounds weird in a sentence) the page and don't miss a single update. Not to mention that your blog is very likely also read by people other than your FB friends and it's good to have a FB place for everyone.
November 16, 2010 at 3:17 PM
hey, great tips! honestly,
but its really hard to socialize locally since the passing of blogging business card is not practiced widely here. i tried doing once at a flea (all fleas here only sell clothings) and i passed them out and there were like weird look given to me. so i'm still trying to work on that on whether i should continuing doing so or not.
also, i've not been blogging lately due to lack of content to post about and i'm afraid it will drift away from "the fashion blog", any tips?
(: With Love,
Sabrina
withlovesabrina recently posted Loots & Me
November 16, 2010 at 5:35 PM
You should hand out business cards only after you've already been talking to the person for a while and established contact. If you hand them out just like that, people won't know why you're doing it. If however you did talk to people and gave them your business cards afterwards, I don't know why they reacted that way. :/
As for your blog, ask yourself if you really need to have a *fashion blog* or can it be a personal one. Nothing wrong with the second option. You can look at other blogs for content ideas (i.e. write about something someone else has written about already), but if you have trouble coming up with fashion-related ideas for a longer time, don't force it. Just write about what interests you.
November 16, 2010 at 4:36 PM
Great tips here. I love the diagram "The History of My blog" I think I'm still stuck at 2006 LOL
Michelle
Michelle Howard recently posted Friend Friday- Is It Really All About You
November 16, 2010 at 10:05 PM
I'm so happy I came across this... I was starting to lose patience. I know I started bloggin for myself but it feels nice to know that someone is reading it. Now I know how to spread the word.
Thanks a lot!
November 17, 2010 at 9:15 PM
Great post! I think it will be helpful to any new blogger just starting out! My problem is that I find it hard to keep original content between Twitter and Facebook. I don't want to post the same thing on both because that seems redundant. Do you have any recommendations?
http://www.ChiqueChic.com
November 17, 2010 at 9:19 PM
On both Facebook and Twitter, but especially on Twitter, it's good to also post other things than just blog updates. My Twitter mainly consists of personal tweets + links to blog updates while on my Facebook page I also post fashion-related news and pictures. It's definitely a good idea not to post the same things on both!
November 23, 2010 at 5:30 PM
Great ideas, thanx for sharing. It's just one little thing, I hate fb. Not a good thing for my promotion, but can't help it....
Kristina recently posted Tags
November 23, 2010 at 9:51 PM
I think you can have a FB page without creating a personal FB account first. But even if it's the opposite, you can just not use the personal account. :P
November 24, 2010 at 8:24 AM
Thanx for you replay. I did think long and hard about creating non personal fb account, but I find it user NOTfriendly and I don't have the time to update on my blog as well as fb. I might create fb account someday in the future. Until then I shall use other means of promotion. Thanx again!
Kristina recently posted Tags
December 10, 2010 at 12:44 AM
Thank you so much for doing this! I just started a fashion blog called fashionforteens a little less than a month ago. I am having trouble getting the word out there and getting more views. This really helped! I really don't know much about blogging and am not particularly technologically savvy, so it's been difficult for me to figure everything out. I do love blogging though and my site has grown considerably in terms of number of views. Do you know exactly how to insert the twitter and facebook buttons because I read this, then went to the wordpress tutorial but I still can't quite figure it out. I also read something about not being able to use plugins on a wordpress.com blog but am not sure if that's true or not.
Thanks,
Liza
Liza recently posted Shop once- Wear Tons!
December 27, 2010 at 3:34 PM
When I had Twitter and Facebook buttons on this blog, I just used plugins (Simple Facebook Share Button and WP Tweet Button). I don't know much about WP.com blogs, but I think plugins should work there too?
January 2, 2011 at 12:18 AM
I found this helpful...but I have a specific question...I have been getting a lot of views, but not a lot of followers. Like I will go on other blogs that have only 3,000 views, but they have 120 followers. I have over 20,000 views, but only 67 followers. I am wondering why I am getting so many views, but not a lot of followers, and also how to get the people to visit to want to follow my blog. I know a lot of people get followers by "if you follow me, i will follow you", but I don't want to do that because it seems fake to me. I only want people to follow my blog if they are genuinely interested in what I have to say...but how do I get people to follow, and not just read? I hope that makes sense...thanks!
thelibertybelleblog.blogspot.com
January 2, 2011 at 11:47 AM
Hi Leigh,
number of views and number of followers aren't necessarily related. Maybe you're getting a lot of visits via Google because somewhere in your blog you used good keywords people are constantly searching for. Maybe people who know you offline are checking out your blog 24/7 (a bit stalkerific, but it's what people do).
It might also be that you've had your counter installed for a longer time than those bloggers with (seemingly) less views, which would explain the higher number.
Counters in general aren't a good tool for measuring the number of visits, simply because people install them at different times, so it's impossible to compare. What counts is the number of daily or monthly unique visits. You can track it in Google Analytics. I highly recommend you to sign up for GA if you want to know your real statistics.
It sounds to me that in order to make people return (or stay), you need to improve your content. What's happening to your blog is this: people visit it, but they're not entirely convinced (and leave without following). We follow blogs when we like the content so much we don't want to miss the next post(s).
I went to your blog and saw you've had it since August, so 68 followers is not at all bad for such a short time. You most likely also have people who follow you via RSS.
Hope that helps!
February 8, 2011 at 10:29 PM
Thank you so much for sharing these promotion tips! I started blogging recently and it can be a bit overwhelming to figure out the best ways to go about it all. I'm already working to check off some of the things on your list! Thanks, again!
February 9, 2011 at 6:58 AM
What a great post!
It actually gave me a little hope, seeing as I have been blogging for over a year and it seems like I just can't seem to get many views. I am wondering though- why does it seem like people who use blogger always have a ton of comments? I use WordPress and love it, but if blogger seems to be better with getting traffic should I change?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
:)
Amanda recently posted A lovely place called Planet Blue
February 10, 2011 at 7:10 PM
It seems so because the majority of fashion bloggers use Blogger and its followers system (which can't be transferred to WordPress). So if they follow someone, they'll always see their posts in their Blogger dashboard.
Let's get one thing straight though: the number of comments doesn't have anything to do with how much traffic a blog receives.
February 18, 2011 at 9:14 PM
what a great post! thanks for sharing this :) receiving comments and followers lightens up my day but I'd like to think that someone "follows" me because they genuinely want to read my posts, images, etc. that's my personal made-up rule when I follow someone. "do I really want to read what this person blogs about? am I really interested? or am I just following for the sake of having more views/traffic on my blog?" though it's tricky sometimes because who doesn't want to have their blog read by a large audience?
anyway, I think I lost myself here, ha! Now, how do I "follow" you if I'm on blogger and your on wordpress?
xo,
julie
http://sundaypicnics.blogspot.com/
julie iliana recently posted RING!
February 18, 2011 at 10:43 PM
Hi Julie! You can follow my blog by going to your Dashboard, then under Reading List click ADD (blue button), select "Add from URL" in the pop-up window and copy/paste http://dressful.com . Let me know how it works!
April 1, 2011 at 5:21 AM
this is a super late reply! but it worked perfectly! thanks :)
julie iliana recently posted Insomnia blogging hiatus
March 1, 2011 at 6:28 AM
Really great post! I just started my own fashion blog and I wasn't too sure how to get it out there. This info is so helpful! Thanks for sharing :)
Camille xo
March 6, 2011 at 7:31 PM
Hi
First of all I love your blog! It is very unique, different and inspiring.
I recently started my blog and am finding it quite difficult to promote it, etc. However your post has really helped me out! If you have any other tips I would be so grateful if you could contact me. Thank you so much, Leona
March 7, 2011 at 10:11 PM
These are some great tips. Thank you for sharing!
Tyler recently posted Third Outfit- Stripy Cardi
March 12, 2011 at 12:40 AM
This was amazing and so glad I found you :) Thank you for the tips and I'm looking forward to implementing these ideas. I just started blogging a couple of months ago and I have to agree that it is content that keeps people coming back. I figured that if it's something I love, someone out there must love it too. My blog main feature is outfit of the day, but I try and mix it up with book and film recommendations. Once again, thank you and now I'm off to explore more of your blog.
-AlbeeLucky.blogspot.com
October 3, 2011 at 3:14 PM
Thank you for the lovely words!
April 10, 2011 at 2:44 AM
Great post and so true. I think everyone focuses so much on writing FOLLOW ME all over the net, and forgets about the blog content. I've been guilty of this, but I'm trying!! x
Mandi recently posted Op-shop Thrift store Haul!
April 13, 2011 at 8:47 PM
Thanks so much for this post! It was really helpful!
Jo recently posted John Galliano’s Lust
May 10, 2011 at 1:47 AM
Thanks for these tips, I will be using them in my site. Don't forget to mention commenluv as it helps promote active readership and it turn gets you more visitors.
Sarah recently posted Guess Hondo Pump Shoe
September 7, 2011 at 4:02 AM
These are all really great tips! I agree with you about the difficulty of starting up on lookbook and chictopia, but if it doesn't take up too much time I think it doesn't hurt to post your looks up there as you go. I tried to join up to IFB recently and I was immediatley bombarded by people messaging me to 'please check out my blog'. I was so turned off that I took off the IFB banner from my blog.
I know this is an old post and you probably don't respond to msgs on these, but I just wanted to know how important you think it is to have a clear purpose for your blog. I've visualised having both a beauty and fashion blog, but in my experience my readership are either one of the other, so I feel like I'm alienating one category of my readers no matter what I post about!
Closetvoyage recently posted Tutorial: Sayoko Ozaki inspired smokey eyes
October 3, 2011 at 3:13 PM
Honestly, I've been wondering about the same question. I've seen blogs that pull off both successfully, but you're right that it could mean two different categories of readers.
Dressful is a fashion blog, but I've had a few beauty posts here nevertheless, especially about perfumes. It's difficult because fashion and beauty are so closely intertwined, if you care about how you look, it probably means you care about clothes *and* make-up!
I suggest you simply ask your readers what they'd like to see on your blog, or if they would be alienated/bothered with two major themes.
October 3, 2011 at 4:51 AM
this was really helpful!! I'm 17 and I just started my fashion and beauty blog! So far I have 20 followers so im excited about that!!
Chi Jessica recently posted Look of the day: Pink Blazer and Vintage Purse
October 4, 2011 at 11:45 PM
Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting this! I just started my blog a few weeks ago, and it's been super slow with the comments. I'm still trying to figure out how to get more followers and comments on my blog, but this was such a useful article. Hoping to become more successful with that soon! Thanks, again :)
Diana recently posted SEEING STRIPES
November 1, 2011 at 9:00 AM
Great article. You gave me good ideas on how to promote my site. thank you
Laura recently posted 1960s Babydoll MOD Dress Vintage 60s 70s Psychedelic Floral
December 23, 2011 at 9:00 AM
Great tips! I'm immediately going to look into adding a Facebook Like button to my Tumblr...
Fashion Abecedaire recently posted The role of clothing in Colette's Green Wheat
January 9, 2012 at 10:56 PM
Hi!
Great post, it finally inspired me to use social media to increase traffic on my blog.
I have a tiny problem though and I hope you can help me out: I'm worried that my blog will get enough views, but not a lot of followers, because my blog doesn't concern fashion (or something else) only. It's more of a pick and mix of anything I can find.
Maybe it's hard for others to relate to the things I post or something...
Do you think that having some kind of theme or goal will attract more followers?
Nadia el H. recently posted Topshop shirt dresses
January 15, 2012 at 4:57 PM
Is it smart to have a blog and Tumblr (and of course Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, etc.) hire a PR firm in New York who reps other dopey fashion bloggers, then kiss each others ass appropriately making sure to post each other daily and have each other on your blogroll and when asked how many viewers just say 100k and 600K on Tumblr.
January 19, 2012 at 4:11 AM
Thanks sooo much :) answered a bunch of questions I was having and I loved the link to the how to add the "like" button. That was super helpful and straightforward. It is crazy how much social networking you have to do outside of your blog to gain a larger following. I made myself a list of sites to visit daily in my social networking rounds :P
Thanks again
Check out my makeup blog
lilchicmama.blogspot.com/
It just gets more and more fabulous as I go :D Do tag along for my journey through makeup and blogging.
January 20, 2012 at 3:38 AM
Thatnks for the article. It's nice to know there are people out there who are genuinely interested in helping others succeed. I'm pretty new to the fashion blogsphere so I find your tips helpful. Whenever possible I try and relate my posts to personal experience. I'm in my final semester of my Masters degree in a totally unrelated area to fashion, but I'm finding blogging so exciting that I often relegate my school work to the background. Lol
Herfashionchapter.blogspot.com
January 22, 2012 at 11:12 AM
Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting this! I just started my blog a few weeks ago, and it's been super slow with the comments. I'm still trying to figure out how to get more followers and comments on my blog, but this was such a useful article. Hoping to become more successful with that soon! Thanks, again :)
February 17, 2012 at 9:56 AM
Thank you! I just attended about 30 shows and presentations at NYFW and am organizing all my photos and videos to put on my website: http://www.downtownduncan.com but was wondering what would be the best way to increase traffic. I'll definitely use your tips!
Dominique recently posted Check out my video of the final walk at Vivienne Tam’s...
February 20, 2012 at 8:21 PM
Thanks for the tips! Going to implement them RIGHT NOW.
Love Grace.
Grace recently posted throw out the maps.
February 21, 2012 at 12:55 AM
Thank you so much!! I will definitely use your tips for my blog!! :D
March 10, 2012 at 2:20 AM
Thank you so much for these helpful tips! I just started a blog a couple of days ago and have been wondering how to build a following. So helpful for the newbie :) I just used your tips on how to add the facebook "like" button to my page! Thanks so much :)
March 11, 2012 at 1:23 AM
This post is really usefull for new bloggers! thanks a lot! :)
nika recently posted a thing for beige/soft pink
March 13, 2012 at 2:54 AM
Hello Dressful,
I just randomly googled tips on great blogging and come across your site. From my experience very few ppl in the fashion/creative industry are willing to help or share information with newbies....so finding your blog with great tips was very refreshing for a change. Thank you soo much!!! I liked tip number 6 and added it to my blog: http://blog.punjabandiva.com/.
Wish more people were willing to share information like you.
xoxo