How to Set Up and Configure WordPress

Promoting Your WordPress Blog - Ways to Publicise It

OK, so once you’ve got those steps set up, and once you’ve got a good stack of content in place, you can start promoting your blog.

But here’s the thing:

At all costs, don’t try to push people towards it!

I cannot emphasise that strongly enough.

Nobody likes to be told to do something. Reading messages on networking sites and directories saying ‘please visit my blog, subscribe to my feed and I’ll do the same for you’, or similar, is just a huge turn off.

In many cases the blog they’re trying to get you to visit is completely irrelevant to your blog. So linking to them or subscribing to their feed is a complete waste of time.

Even if someone does visit, it will probably be the one and only time they do.

To get people to want to read your blog you first need to establish some credibility. And yes, that does take some time and effort – but so does anything worthwhile!

A Simple Blog Promotion Strategy

So here’s what I do. And you can adapt this to any forum, any notice board or any social site you want to, and any subject you like.

I log on to Twitter and set up a search looking for people asking questions on WordPress, or whatever subject I’m focusing on.

Then I answer those questions. Nothing else – just answer questions.

Over time you’ll notice some questions that are repeated. As soon as you identify one of these frequently asked questions you can do some research and write a blog post providing a detailed answer to it.

Then, when people ask that question again, you can refer them to your blog post.

As you get to know the questions that are repeated more often, you can write more blog posts answering those questions, and you can point more people towards them.

As you keep doing this, the number of visitors to your blog will begin to climb. And you will have done it without asking anyone to ‘please visit and subscribe’ - just by answering questions.

Again, you can adapt this approach to any setting, and for any subject, you like.

I've found that people are generally grateful for the information I refer them to. They frequently bookmark my posts and refer them on to their friends.

As long as you're writing quality, well researched articles, you'll begin to attract regular loyal readers.

Other Things You Can Do

You can search out other blogs in your niche and provide valuable comments on their articles. You can join forums related to your blog’s subject, you can join social sites, use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or whatever.

Just join a forum that’s relevant to the subject of your blog, look for the questions that are repeated frequently, write detailed answers, post them on your blog and point people to them when they ask the question.

Keep doing that, in a few different places, and the number of visitors to your blog will start to climb.

Just don’t ever ask anyone to ‘please visit my blog and subscribe’!

The major advantage of following this approach is that you know that you’re writing articles that are relevant to the people your blog is focused on. Which is the key step in developing a list of loyal readers.

Other Resources

Darren Rowse (ProBlogger) recently ran a course focused on developing and building a highly successful blog: 31 days to Build a Better Blog.

This looks at things you can do with (or on) your blog to strengthen it and attract lots of targetted visitors.

I went through his course and I can tell you this: it's powerful and it's practical because it sets you a series of tasks to accomplish - 31 in all.

These tasks are all things you can do to improve your blog, ranging from article writing through getting people to comment, making your blog famous and writing compelling post titles.

Check it out here: 31 Days to Build a Better Blog.

Ok - that's the final page in this tutorial.

If you'd like to review any pages (or see what else is covered) check out the Table of Contents.

You may also want to check out my blog for other information on WordPress or blogging in general.