Listen to “MIH029: 5 ways to grow your blog on a budget” on Spreaker.
Let’s grow your blog!
Let’s face it, not everyone has a spare $50-$800 to place in Facebook ads. And when you’re just beginning to build and grow your blog, you won’t initially have sponsors or a huge following. Here are a few ways you can grow your blog on a budget.
Use SEO strategies for each blog post
If you want to truly start building organic traffic from Google, this is the best way to do that, and it’s not as difficult as it may seem. Simply pull up the Keyword Planner tool and search for keywords you plan to use on your blog post. If that keyword has a good amount of traffic and has low competition, you’re on to something. Use the keyword by weaving it into the context of your post. Make sure to do a final SEO check using a tool like Yoast SEO to make sure you have the green light. Then you can just sit back and wait on traffic to begin accumulating for that post. It won’t result in a rush to your blog overnight, but you’ll begin to build credibility in Google for that keyword- especially if you get the average searches to competition ratio just right. I talk about this in more detail in my book.
Start commenting on other blogs
If you haven’t already begun this strategy, start now. To grow your blog on a budget, you’ll need low-cost strategies that are effective- and blog commenting is one of them. If you’re not already using Feedly or some other RSS reader, go ahead and sign up for that. Subscribe to blogs you’re clearly interested in and which update their content regularly. Then set aside time to read those blog posts daily, a few each day. When you read the post, leave a comment along with your blog URL. How does this help? You’ll begin building organic traffic to your blog by building up your inbound links. This, in turn, starts to grow your traffic, which has the desired effect of growing your blog.
Provide a mailing list subscription box
Services such as MailChimp or MadMimi allow you to start your mailing list for free if you are under 2,000 subscribers. Your goal, of course, is to eventually have to pay (because you want your list to grow)! Meanwhile, there’s no excuse for not growing your list simply because you didn’t ‘have a subscription box on your site. Make sure you have that box, nice and bold and clearly visible. And keep it on every page of your blog on the sidebar as well. This is a low-cost strategy in the beginning stages of your blog, and it will grow your blog by way of subscribers, readers, and viewers- all of which you want.
Participate in Facebook groups
I’ve found over the past few weeks as I began building this brand new blog, Mompreneurs in Heels, that by participating in blog hops with Facebook groups, I’ve begun to grow my visibility within those groups. My advice to you is, to find groups that you can participate in frequently- groups that bring value to you that you can also offer value to. Then join in on the weekly activities which are meant to help you grow your following. Some groups work better than others, and not all groups will have value for you, so pick and choose carefully.
Share your posts all over social media
Last, but not least, I recommend you share your blog posts as much as you can. In order to grow your blog, you need to be sharing your content regularly. I always recommend placing a share plugin such as Shareaholic on your blog and be sure to get every post out there on social media. Each time you publish a post, make sure you tweet it, pin it, and share it on Facebook, Google Plus, and even LinkedIn.
So, what are some ways you grow your blog?
