PureBlogging

In order to make money off of your blog, you need to make sure that people are reading your blog. The more traffic that you have on each post, the more income you are likely to be able to make from blogging. That means that you need to be doing everything that you can in order to drive people to your blog posts.

Here are ten basic promotion tools that you should be using to drive people to your blog:

1. Craigslist. There are many different ways that you can use Craigslist to get people to land on your blog posts. Whether you’re creating online blogging events that you promote through the site or simply advertising a great post in the “general” section, this tool always snags a new audience for your work.

2. Link to yourself. In every post that you write, you should be directing people to other posts that you’ve written. You can do this through “related links” at the end of your post or you can do it simply through direct text links. Don’t just link to posts within one blog but cross-link to promote your blog’s work on the other blogs and websites that you write for (as appropriate to the terms of your blogging contracts, of course).

3. Email signature. Your email signature should have a link to your blog. It should also have a second link to a specific favorite article that you believe a majority of people that you email would be interested in reading.

4. Business cards. Most bloggers don’t carry business cards but every blogger should. These should be handed out whenever you get the chance. They can be placed at coffee shops and added to media kits. Yes, bloggers should have media kits.

5. Social bookmarking sites. You should be active on at least one of the major social bookmarking sites (Mixx, Digg, etc.) You may also want to be active on a social networking site (LinkedIn, Facebook) where you can have a link to your blog. Make sure to regularly promote your own blog posts through these sites to continually attract a bigger audience for your work.

6. Comments on others’ blogs. Hopefully you already know that this is one of the most important tools that you can use for bringing new traffic to your blog. Most basic comment sections include a place for you to add your blog link – and you should.

7. Ping Technorati. Many bloggers are failing to make use of Technorati which is a great site for getting some basic traffic based on keywords. Claim your blog on the site so that it will be regularly updated every time that you add a new post. Then make sure to use Technorati tags at the end of your post.

8. Blog links on your resume. Many people neglect to include links on their resumes which is unfortunate since most resumes are sent through the Internet. Add a direct link to your blog as part of your contact information at the header of the resume. Also include links to specific posts that highlight the skills that you are emphasizing throughout the resume. Even if you don’t get the job, you might get a new reader for your blog.

9. Add your blog to your bio. You probably have to publish your author’s bio on a semi-regular basis. Make sure that it has a direct link to your blog so that people who are interested in who you are can make their way to your blog to find out.

10. Boasting. Most bloggers diminish what they do when they are asked about it. They say they blog, but they kind of laugh it off. Or they vaguely say that they write for the web. Word-of-mouth is the single biggest tool that you have at your disposal in terms of promoting your blog. You should be taking pride in what you do and spreading the word with confidence every chance that you get.

You probably didn’t get into the business of blogging because you have a passion for marketing. In spite of this, you need to get a grasp on great promotion in order to draw people to your blog. Using these basic tools is a good start but you should also be regularly using new creative approaches to boost your blog promotion.

Question of the Day: What other promotion tools are a must for bloggers to be using?