The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 61. The Best Blog Marketing Ideas

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

Welcome back to the Ultimate Blog Podcast! It’s Amy here today and I am going to talk with you about the best blog marketing ideas.  If you are looking for ways to take a little more control of your content and put it out there in a way that people who need your content can find it, then you aren’t going to want to miss this episode!Thanks for listening! Connect with us on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsYou can join the Blog Depot for $9 a month using code: BLOGGER. Sign up HERE! Get 20% off of Keysearch Starter Plan using this link and code: KSDISCJoin the waitlist for The Ultimate Blog Bootcamp, our online course and coaching that helps you build the blog that you have always dreamed of.SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode61

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper. We're on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you're just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we're excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success and your own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging

and work from home life all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. Hey, welcome back to the ultimate blog Podcast. It's Amy here today. And I'm going to talk to you today about the best blog marketing ideas. We spend a lot of time talking about content creation and search engine optimization, keyword research. And while that is a really important piece of the puzzle, it's not the only piece. And so today, I really want to dive into what you can do to help generate more eyes on your blog posts that you're creating. I would love to tell you that you can just leave it up to the Google gods. Everybody's going to find you. But the truth of the matter is, is we just can't do that.

We need to take a little bit more control and put our content out there in a way that people who need our content can find it. So while I wish that that was the answer, it's just not. And that's definitely not what we would recommend. It's just creating content and then hoping that people would find it. So we're going to go over a couple things today, some things to consider each time you hit publish on a new blog post. First and foremost, something that I want to talk about is

the best tool for your business is consistency. Being consistent, staying on a consistent schedule, showing up when your audience expects you to is going to be more valuable than anything else I could possibly tell you today. When your audience knows that you are going to generate content for them to read and gain knowledge from, that will be such an impactful way to grow and become a successful blogger. Hosting every once in a while isn't going to give you that momentum that you need to grow. And I understand that we all have stages that that might happen, but I wouldn't stay there. I would really ask yourself, how can I create content on a consistent basis?

That's going to be really, really important. So we've had some episodes about creating systems and things like that, that I think will be really beneficial for you. And you're just going to want to get in that consistent pattern of creating content. Consistency looks different for everybody. So if you create three posts a week, for instance, you're probably going to grow faster than somebody who only creates one post a week. But is that realistic for you? And that's where you want to stay. You don't want to be pumping out so much content that you can't

stay on track, essentially, and that you're going to burn out. So if you can give yourself one to two posts a week and stay very consistent with that, and you don't feel burned out and you don't feel like you're kind of burning the candle at both ends, then it sounds like that might be a great place for you. If growing your blog is at the top of your list and you need to grow it quickly, three to four posts is what you're going to want to do. The more content that you have out there, the easier it is going to be for people to find you and connect with you. But you have to ask yourself that important question of what is realistic for me.

So I want to say that first and foremost, before we ever dive into how you can market it. There are several ways that you can market your blog. And we want you to understand prior to going into all of this, that you don't own these platforms that we are going to tell you to market your blog on. And that's something that you know that we're really passionate about is actually owning your content, which you do on your blog and you do your email list. So we're going to talk about email marketing first and you do own that. But the other ones that we are going to recommend is you don't own those. So just keep that in mind as we dive into this. What time has taught us as we have been bloggers for a combined 14 years now is that the algorithms change. And what different social media platforms want change literally all the time. And I think something to consider here is don't get overly frustrated or

overwhelmed every time there is a change because it is going to happen. So just prepare for that. And then you can have a much better attitude about that going forward. If you don't like change, I'm just going to encourage you to get really comfortable with it being a blogger because the fact of the matter is, is there is change that is involved here. And so having a fluid attitude that you need to do what needs done at any given time, I think can be really beneficial for you because blogging is such a mindset shift and knowing that you can use your creative juices and use your creativity that you've been given and all that, but know that the marketing piece of that might need a shift and change.

I think, honestly, that's just marketing in general. We have to see what the behaviors of the people listening to our content, reading our content, engaging with our content. We have to ask ourselves, are they seeing me? Are they hearing me? Are they connecting with me? Am I getting through? And if they're not, then you have to go back to the drawing board. I think that's really normal, quite honestly. So don't beat yourself up if you feel like you're not making much headway in regards to marketing your blog. I think that you can absolutely move in that direction just with a couple tweaks. If you are ready to start your blog, we have an exciting deal for you. You can join our beginner course, The Blog Depot, for only $9 the first month.

The Blog Depot is for you if you are thinking about starting a blog, but you need more info, or maybe you aren't sure what you want to blog about yet. Maybe you also aren't sure where to start, and you want some advice from people who have gone through the process already. The Blog Depot is a nine-module course that was created for the person who thinks that they want to start a blog, but wants to ask important questions before jumping into the process. The blog Depot is a course and membership community that will help you understand what you need to build a successful blog. You get access to the course and community forum immediately upon signup, and also the opportunity to join us for a live monthly

coaching call. Today, you can join the blog depot for only $9 for your first month using the code blogger. If you are tired of sitting on the sidelines, join the blog depot today, but hurry because there is a limited number of spots at this $9 rate. The link to join us is in our show notes. We'll see you on the inside. So let's dive into this. I'm going to break down several different ways for you. And what I want to say first and foremost is this is not a podcast telling you that you have to do all of these things. In fact, I wouldn't recommend doing all of them. If you are working on your blog on your own and you have no help, then I'd recommend picking maybe one or two of these things to focus on. Now, if you've grown your blog a little bit and you have hired

help such as a virtual assistant, you might be able to add a few more if you want. But I want you to really look at your time realistically and ask yourself, what am I capable of doing? Okay, let's dive in. First and foremost is your email list. You own your list. So this is the one area that I'm going to talk about today that you actually do own. So this is just as important as your blog. You own the people who... You don't own the people. You own your email list. And so you want to nurture this list. And so you can grow it. The reason you want to grow it is because when your email subscribers click into their email and they see an email from you, those people are more apt to click over because

they've already inputted their name into a signup form and said, Yes, I like your content and I want to see more of it. So you already have them from a cold lead to a warm lead. And so they've said to you, I want to see more of it. So you already have them from a cold lead to a warm lead. And so they've said to you, I want to know more about your content. I want to get updates when you share it. And so those people are more apt to click on over. And they are going to be the first people who are going to see these new blog posts. So you can do that by creating a RSS feed, which essentially just means when you have a new post that goes out on your blog, your email subscribers are going to get an email that is going to have that new post

and directing them to it right away. You can also not do an RSS feed and you can just send out an email to them and letting them know that you have a new post out that you'd love for them to check out and go take a peek at. You can decide what works best for you, either an RSS or emailing them. You're going to have to for you, either an RSS or emailing them. You're going to have to write that email. The RSS feed is pretty automatic. And if you write the email, you will have to go in and write it. So ask yourself once again, do I need this automated? Or do I want this more personable? And I can go in and give more content that way each time I create a new blog post. So you can grow your email list by creating freebies that

might drive traffic. You can create... Well, you should create signup links on your blog that are easy to navigate and have them sign up. So we don't usually recommend a large pop-up box that they would sign up for an email list. But we would recommend places on your homepage like your sidebar and within different blocks on your homepage that they can sign up for your email list. You want to make it pretty easy for them. And when you're setting up your blog and you're looking at your email signups, you might ask yourself, geez, it feels like there's a lot of these on here. I can guarantee you that not everybody is going to see all of them. And

they might not see them for the first several times, or they might not know in the first time or two of coming to your blog that they actually want to stay connected with you. So you do want to have these on there so they can sign up when they are ready to do that. Also just providing valuable content. And if you're sharing that content, whether it be on any of the things I'm going to mention here, like Pinterest or social media, give people the content that they want to keep getting. And then they are going to sign up for your email list because they're going to feel connected. They're going to feel like you're adding value. And people want that. We don't

want to get bombarded with a bunch of emails that we're not getting any value from. That is a quick way to get unsubscribed. And that's okay. Speaking of unsubscribes, it's totally okay if people unsubscribe from your email list too, because you want to curate this list to truly be people who want to go to your blog, read your content. If you create products, you you want to curate this list to truly be people who want to go to your blog, read your content. If you create products, you want them to be interested in those products and have them be the target audience for that. You really do want your email list to be highly engaging. And so this is a great way to market your blog posts right away, right from clicking publish. Okay. The next way I'm going to recommend is Pinterest.

Pinterest is a fantastic tool to utilize in regards to marketing your blog. We strongly suggest that everyone who has a blog utilizes Pinterest. The reason being when you create a Pinterest pin and get that out into Pinterest, it lives on forever. So you also don't know when a pin could take off and sometimes it could take a year or more. So I want you to know that right out of the gate that Pinterest is a long game. Don't feel frustrated with Pinterest if you've been pinning for one month or two months and you're not seeing much. I promise you, it just takes time to build the juice. It will come, I promise. The effort will pay off in time. It's funny. Some of my most popular pins are from when I initially started my blog. So 2018, 2017 in there, some of those pins are still my most

popular pins. They're just getting shared time after time after time after time. So know that creating these pins are really important. Pinning them on Pinterest is really important as well. And that it is a long game, but it's something that we really do recommend you just staying the course for. We've interviewed Kate All on the podcast. And I think that those would be really great episodes for you to click back and look at. We will put both of those in the show notes for you to listen to because Kate is the owner of Simple Pin Media. And she really is a great resource for all things Pinterest. Jennifer and I really do not claim to be Pinterest experts in any way, shape, or form. is the owner of Simple Pin Media. And she really is a great resource for all things Pinterest. Jennifer and I really do not claim to be Pinterest experts in any way, shape, or form.

But we do believe in creating a pin strategy for yourself that is realistic. But if you want to dive more into the research and strategy and all of that, Kate Aul is really a great resource that we recommend. So speaking of a pin strategy, that is going to be something that you can do on your own, that you can devise on your own. It might be that you want to listen to a couple of Kate's podcasts and decide what you want to do. But essentially, what a pin strategy is, is how are you going to share your posts on the Pinterest platform? So we use Tailwind to schedule out our Pinterest pins. That way, we don't have to go into Pinterest every day and live pin our content. We can just schedule it out using the scheduling tool. Tailwind also has the ability to send it out at times that are optimized for you. And so that's

something that is nice to utilize as well. We can put a link to Tailwind in our show notes here as well. So you can take a look at that. But utilizing that is something that could save you time because you could batch your work. It's something that you could sit down and if you had all your Pinterest pins embedded into your blog, then you could share it on Pinterest and get all of your Pinterest pins done for the week or for the month at any given time in one sitting. So it's a way that you could definitely batch your work. So when you write a blog post, we recommend having at least one Pinterest pin in your blog post. We also recommend using the Grow plugin. And that's for social sharing.

And that's so when people come to your blog, and they hit the share on Pinterest button, that's going to pull up the pins that you want them to share on Pinterest. So the Pinterest pins that you've created. And that's really important. That way, kind of random photos aren't just circulating on Pinterest that you don't really want out there. But your Pinterest pin likely should have your blog post title, an image, and generally your domain name on there as well. So the amount of pins that you are going to share is going to be dependent on you and what you're comfortable with. Once again, what you can be consistent with. So that could be three pins a day for you to start out with. That might be five or it could be 20. This number is completely up to you.

And I think that just doing a little bit of trial and error there and asking yourself, how many times is realistic for me to pin? How many posts do I have? If you're in the beginning stages, it might be one, honestly. But don't diminish what one pin could do too. You're still getting stuff out there. It's still circulating and new people are still going to find that content. So I think that Pinterest is definitely an area that you can pour into and it can have a really excellent return in time, but just know that it does take a while to build. All right. Social media. It's really not one of my favorite topics, if I can be honest, but I would be amiss to tell you that it's not important and that it couldn't make a difference in your blog traffic and how people can find your blog. So first and foremost, one of the things I

want to say is just because you have a large following on social media does not mean that you are going to get all of those people to convert over to blog readers. So if that happens to you, do not be discouraged by this. It's really important to have different avenues coming into your blog. So that can be people from Google that you're generating by using SEO and keyword research, people from social media, people from Pinterest. There's lots of different ways that you want to bring people into your blog. So don't feel discouraged if you have 30,000 followers on Instagram and you get 100 hits on your blog. Seriously, do not feel bad

about that. It's okay. Not all of those people, A, see your content, or B, not all of them want to go over to your blog. They just want to be on Instagram. That's okay. That's perfectly okay. So just know that going in. But social media is a really great way to repurpose your blog posts. So here's how I want you to think about that. When you create a blog post, I want you to look at that post and think about how you can use that content to repurpose content in other areas. So could you create Instagram posts that pull out the tidbits that you need and create one Instagram post or a carousel? Or maybe you can create a reel that will tell them the gist of the blog post, but then tell them, Hey, go to this blog to learn more. Maybe you have a food blog and you're making the recipe.

You don't give all the ingredients, but you tell them that they can find the ingredients and all the information that they need to know over on your blog. So it's kind of like a tease. I kind of want you to think about social media as a tease, as a way for them to engage and connect with you in that space that does feel honestly a little bit more vulnerable, and then get them to come over to your blog. Repurposing content is something that we strongly suggest. It is so helpful. That way, you don't feel like you're constantly having to recreate the wheel because that's exhausting. Let's be real. That's just exhausting. So if you can create a blog post that then you can turn into several social media posts that could go out throughout the course of a month,

think about how much less effort you have to put in on social media when you're writing the blog post. And then it's essentially all of this stuff is just coming out of those blog posts. So focus on the blog post first, and then ask yourself, how can I turn this content into what I need over on my social media platforms? By social media, I should have said this when I started. I'm really talking about Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. Now, here's something else I want to say. These can be places that you can get really distracted in. And so I would tell yourself to set a timer or have some really specific boundaries

into how much time you're going to spend there. Because otherwise, you're going to waste a lot of time and then that blog post might not get written or the email might not go out to your followers or your Pinterest pins might not get created. So just know we can spend hours a day on social media. But is that time actually being utilized for the good of your business? I would ask yourself that question. And I'm being completely honest here and saying that I think we're all guilty of going down the deep, dark hole of scrolling and you just end up losing all of this time and then you get frustrated because you've wasted time. So social media is an area that I recognize a lot of people do utilize to grow

their blogs. But I just want you to be really intentional with how you're going to use that. Because it can be very frustrating when you feel like you're spending hours on social media and you're not growing. I would ask yourself, how are you spending your time on social media? Because scrolling is not an income-producing activity. Scrolling is just scrolling. And so ask yourself, is this productive or is this hindering me from actually what I want to do and with my goals? I think we can be intentional with the time that we do spend on social media. And like I've said, by repurposing content and things like that, you can also ask your followers on those platforms to join your email list, which is a great way to

keep them connected to you. You will have some diehard social media followers who want to follow you on Pinterest and be on your email list and all of that. You will absolutely have that. And so give them that opportunity often to sign up for your email list. That way they come from a place that you don't own, which is your social media platform, onto a place that you do, which is your email list. That's really important. That way you can stay in front of them and connected. And also, we're not going to go into this a lot, but we just don't know if social media is going to be there tomorrow. Lots of people wake up and their accounts are gone. And so if you have your

email list there, that is a way that you can stay connected with these people who have liked connecting with you over on social media. It's a great way to make sure that you can still do that if something, God forbid, were to happen. So LinkedIn is another great way to market your blog. And this is honestly a relatively new way to us. We brought in Brittany Miller on episode 53 to talk about how you can promote your blog on LinkedIn. You can do articles and you can connect with people who are in your niche. And I've played around with it a little bit myself. And I think that's just an area that is going to take some time. But it's been really interesting just to spend some time on there.

I thought, to be completely honest, it was just for somebody like my husband who is in the corporate world. But it very much is not. There are a lot of brands on there that you can connect to. And there are people who are interested in the kind of content that you're creating there for sure. And so if you don't want to be on social media, even though I think LinkedIn is considered social media.

So if you want to avoid Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, you might consider listening to that episode with Brittany Miller and asking yourself, is LinkedIn a space that I feel like I can be more intentional with my time and share my content there and know that you're connecting with a specific group of people who are interested in the content that you're creating. Implementing keyword research and competition analysis into your content strategy is a surefire way to improve your chances of people finding your content. And we love how simple KeySearch makes it to find keywords we actually want to use in our posts. KeySearch is a powerful keyword research tool that makes finding relevant, low competition keywords for your blog simple and easy. If you think optimizing your blog and doing keyword research has to be hard, think again. Give this powerhouse tool a try and see how much easier

it will be to create content for your blog. Not only is it reasonably priced, even for beginning bloggers, but you can use our code for 20% off your subscription. Click the link in our show notes to learn more. Okay, the last one I want to share today before some other tips I have are Google Web Stories. And they are all the rage right now. A lot of bloggers are seeing really great results with implementing Google Web Stories. Essentially, what they are is a visually rich and they're a full screen content format for the web that allow you to tap or swipe through stories. So think of like Instagram stories, but on Google. And you can consume it in a very similar fashion. You can tap or swipe through. And people find

them either on Google Search or Discover. We brought Lauren from Pinch of Parsley on the podcast on episode 48 to talk all about Google Web Stories. If you want to utilize this in your business, I would highly encourage you to go listen to episode 48. Lauren gave so many good pointers and tips and a step-by-step process for how to do this. And make sure you grab a notebook before you listen to this episode because it is enlightening. Essentially, Google Web Stories is also with content that's popular right now. So think about what people are searching for right now instead of... A lot of times we create content that's like 45 to 60 days out. So it can generate some juice. But Google Web Stories is what are people searching for now? And so if you are not always great at creating content ahead

of time, and maybe you create content, let's say it's Valentine's Day. And let's say it's February and Valentine's Day is coming and it's like February 2nd and you haven't done your Valentine's Day post yet. Google Web Stories is a way that you can have that post out and then do Google Web Stories for it to generate some traffic to that post that you just created, even if you didn't create it a month or two in advance. So it's a really great way just to bring people to content that is relevant in the here and now. Once again, that episode is episode 48 with Lauren from Pinch Parsley. Okay. Lastly, there are some important tips I want you to consider when you think about the best blog marketing ideas. First and foremost, make sure your content is shareable. That is one of the

best ways to get in front of more people is getting people to share your content. So make it as easy as you possibly can for them. So we recommend the Grow plugin from Mediavine that you would utilize on your website. It gives people those tabs right away to share on Facebook or Pinterest. And right away, they can share that content with people. So make it very easy for your users who are coming on your blog to share your content. If you are creating content that is about a brand, maybe it's not a sponsored post, but you've written about a specific brand that you use a lot of, or maybe you're linking another blogger's information or content,

don't be afraid to reach out to them. Let them know that you're sharing about them. And you would love it if they would share it with their communities. I mean, the worst thing they can do is say no. But the best thing they could do is share it. And then that's a win for you both. And it's just getting yourself in front of more. I've done that with some brands. I've created some blog posts about products for different brands that I use. They're not sponsored because I like to have the freedom to write what I want in an honest review. And some of those have been really lucrative for me and with affiliate sales because they're very honest opinions. And then I can share those with those brands when I'm pitching them to be like an ad on the podcast or something like that,

that I've already generated this content for you and it's done really well. And so you have that market research that you've already done when going into pitching a brand or something like that. So that's something to consider. A couple other things that you might want to think about when marketing is including internal links to other pieces of content on your blog. The reason being you want people to really know who you are and what you're about, and then they will continue to connect with you. So when you have those internal links, that's a really great way just to continually add value to your reader that's coming on. You'll also want to consider having a call to action at the end of your post. Or if you share

on social media, tell them to leave a comment or engage with you in conversation about the post over on your blog. Tell them what to do. I know that sounds kind of silly, but I think if we tell people exactly what we want, then they're more apt to do it. If we want them to share our content or if we want them to leave a comment, just say that. And a lot of times that kind of gives people the nudge to do so, especially if you have created that relationship with them and been engaging with them, then that's a really great way to generate excitement surrounding your post and getting others to engage with it as well. Lastly, if you've tried some of these tips and you still feel like you're not growing the way that you want to, I would just encourage you to go back to the drawing board and ask yourself where your focus

can be placed differently. How do you need to maybe look at things a little different? Are you spreading yourself too thin? Could you add a Pinterest pin or two? Or do you not have a strategy at all and you're just pinning whenever? Do you not have an email marketing strategy at all? Just ask yourself, what are some things that I could do just to tighten it up a little bit and make it a little bit more relevant? I don't want you to ever think of things that you're doing as failing. Instead, I want you to flip that script and their lessons instead. We're always learning something.

And sometimes adjustments do need to be made. That's just the nature of this business. And so don't be afraid to track what you're doing, see how it's working. And about every quarter, ask yourself, does anything need to be adjusted? Or what is working really well for me? And how can I do more of that if it is working well? But the last thing that you need to do is stay stuck in what you're doing and not change if growth is what you want. If you're wanting growth and where you're at is not producing the growth that you want, then please think about how you can go back to the drawing board. I hope that these tips today give you a lot of inspiration to

promote your blog in 2023. I think that the longer that I blog, it is such a great way to connect with people who are like-minded. And it is absolutely a great way to create an additional stream of revenue for yourself. And we just wish you the best of luck this year. We would love to hear what you thought about this episode. So if you want to email us or DM us over on Instagram, we would love it. And as always, if this episode or any other episode of the Ultimate Blog Podcast resonated with you, will you share it? Because that would mean a lot to us. We've had great growth in our first year and we are so excited in 2023 just to get in front of even more people and connect with even more of you. It is such a joy to be in this space with

each and every one of you and And we love it so much. So hope you enjoyed this episode. Hope you learned something new. And we will see you back next week. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with us, please find us on Instagram at Spark Media Concepts. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips and inspiration.

You can sign up by finding the link in the show notes. For those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your own blog, join the waitlist for the ultimate blog bootcamp. The link to join the waitlist is also in the show notes. Go out and make today a great day.