You feel misguided.
When you started your blog, you thought you could just follow in the footsteps of your favorite blogger, right? Just publish great content and maybe spend some time on social media and you thought the readers would come.
But in reality, you find yourself grinding.
You stay up late after your 9-5 to write articles. You hustle for every single visitor. And you feel as if you’re spinning your wheels in a rut, not getting anywhere with your blog.
You wonder if it’s your writing. You wonder if it’s your topic. You wonder if maybe blogging just doesn’t work anymore.
But I have good news for you:
It’s not blogging that doesn’t work anymore. It’s these old-school blogging tactics that somehow still pop up online as effective methods of growing your blog.
Instead of throwing in the towel on blogging completely, throw in the towel on these outdated strategies and start upping your game (and your traffic) with what works today.
Tactic #1: Hoping “Great Content” Will Save Your Sorry Ass
You’ve been told that “content is king” and “if you build it, they will come.”
So you’ve spent countless hours building a hub of awesome content on your topic, and you just know it’s what your target audience is looking for.
Once upon a time, that might’ve been enough. People would’ve found you and spread the word about you.
But these days, everyone is writing amazing content. There are hordes of carefully crafted, ruthlessly researched, expertly written blog posts on every topic.
Readers won’t come looking for you. You need to go looking for them. You can’t do that if all you do is write, write, write.
What to Do Instead
Instead of spending all your time writing and publishing content, you need to spend more time getting that content in front of readers.
In fact, Derek Halpern suggests you should only spend 20% of your time creating great content, and 80% of your time promoting it.
So build relationships with influencers. Develop an outreach strategy to get links and shares. Repurpose your articles for maximum exposure.
If you don’t, it won’t matter how amazing your content is; you’ll keep struggling to build an audience.
Tactic #2: Guest Blogging on Huge Media Sites for Traffic
It was July 2015, and I was so excited.
I had only launched Unsettle six months prior and Huffington Post accepted me as a contributor.
So I got to work. I researched Huffington Post’s business section to find the perfect topic. I stayed up late to write an article that I thought would resonate. Then I logged into my contributor dashboard, loaded the article, and pressed “publish.”
The next morning, I woke up early, excited to check my stats, and … crickets. I saw maybe 20 visitors from the article I’d worked so hard to write.
What happened?
The problem is that these huge media publications keep on growing in size and staff. And the more they grow, the less chance you have of drawing significant traffic from them. After all, it’s much harder to stand out when they publish thirty or more posts alongside yours.
Sure, if they happen to feature your post prominently on their front page, you may go viral and draw more traffic than you can handle. But you’re more likely to lose the traffic lottery than win it.
When it comes to guest blogging, you have much more reliable options.
What to Do Instead
Guest blogging is still hugely beneficial for bringing in traffic, email subscribers, and social proof.
But instead of targeting huge media sites like Huffington Post, you should target more specific, topic-based blogs. For example,if you’re a finance blogger, instead of guest blogging on MSN Money, you would target Budgets Are Sexy or The Penny Hoarder.
These blogs usually have large, engaged audiences specific to your topic.
Also, these kinds of blogs are often run by a single influencer. Guest blogging for them will help build your relationship, which can lead to them sharing your posts in the future. (This could end up sending you more traffic than the guest post itself.)
As for those huge media sites, the only reason to write for them is if you’d like to add your logo to your “featured on” list. You may not get a ton of traffic, but having written for these big websites does lend you credibility in the minds of many readers.
Tactic #3: Asking Readers to “Subscribe for Free Updates.” (Is It 2009?)
Listen, you can no longer expect people to give you their email in return for “free updates” or your “free newsletter.”
Yes, you’re supposed to grow your email list, but if you’re asking for emails without giving anything in return, you’re ignoring an important psychological societal norm: reciprocity.
This tactic may have worked in the past, but everybody knows the power of email marketing today, so every blog, website, and shop is vying for your visitor’s email address. You’ll see pathetic opt-in rates if you’re not offering anything concrete.
What to Do Instead
Instead of just asking outright for email addresses and hoping your readers are generous enough to cough them up, you need to give them something valuable in return.
That means creating an opt-in offer your visitors can’t refuse.
An opt-in offer is a free resource you provide related to your topic that you give away in exchange for an email address to incentivize email subscriptions (and rapidly grow your email list).
With the right opt-in offer, you’ll see your subscription rate go from a measly 1%–2% to an encouraging 5% or more.
Tactic #4: Trying to Build an Ad-Driven Media Empire
Back before the days of affiliate marketing and product creation, there were the days of advertising — one of the only ways bloggers of yesteryear could begin to monetize.
The idea was that you’d build a huge site with lots of pages ranking in Google, slap ads on them, and you’d see profit.
Now, even back in the day, the gains you’d get from ads were modest. Even then, you’d need a whole lot of people clicking your ads for a decent way to make money. But if you had enough pages ranking for profitable keywords, you could make it work.
These days, it’s even harder than it was before. Not only do you face a lot more competition, but most people have developed “banner blindness,” which means they pay so little attention to the ads on a page that they don’t even notice them.
Advertising is an ineffective (and unprofitable) means of monetizing your blog. Fortunately, you have much better options.
What to Do Instead
Blogging is more of a viable career than ever before.
But now, instead of relying on tacky display ads to earn you pennies for the hard work you do, you can earn much more by creating products, offering services, or selling online resources and courses.
Turn toward treating your blog as an actual business, and away from scammy monetization practices like advertising.
Tactic #5: Lurking in Comments Sections Looking for Traffic
Back in the day, the way to guarantee traffic was to leave comments on articles posted on other blogs in your niche.
If you left your comments in enough places, they could bring you significant amount of traffic. You’d just leave a link in the URL section of your comment, and wait for the traffic to roll in.
Why do you think you still see so much spam in comment sections? Because this used to work like gangbusters.
But now this no longer works. Nobody has time to comb through the comments section of an article and click the links to see if commenters have a blog they might want to follow.
What to Do Instead
Commenting on other people’s blogs is still an effective way to build relationships with other bloggers. If you connect with other bloggers in their comment sections enough, they learn your name and will recognize you.
Then, if you want to send them a pitch, or a link or share request, they will already have warmed to you. They will be a lot more receptive.
Of course, leaving half-hearted comments (“Nice article!” “I totally agree with your fifth point!”) isn’t the way to do it. You’ll actually have to read their articles and share which insights you gained from it, and if you have any additional ones to offer, mention those too. (Just make sure you don’t outright contradict them, if you want to build up your relationship with them.)
You want to be more like this:
Tactic #6: Writing Y.A.R.P (Yet Another Roundup Post)
It seems as if every time you open your browser, you see another headline like this:
“32 Productivity Experts Reveal Their Morning Routines!”
This type of post is called a roundup post, where the blogger has reached out to several influencers and bloggers, asking them the same question to use their answers in an article.
This used to be an excellent strategy for getting your blog on the map. The influencers who contributed would get a backlink and a feature on your blog, and in turn they’d share the article with their social media followers.
But because they worked so well, everybody started doing them. So influencers’ inboxes are now flooded with the same old roundup questions from everybody and their dog. If they even respond with an answer (because a link is a link), they’re far less likely to share it today.
What to Do Instead
Featuring influencers in your niche is still a good way to put your blog on the map. Instead of asking a generic question and making a list post out of the answers, you can take one of two other approaches:
- Using influencers as case-study-style examples (without bothering them for their input). This is what I did with my Buffer guest post that ended up being one of the top pieces of content on the Buffer blog that year.
- Getting extremely creative and interesting with your question. Instead of just asking what the influencer’s favorite superfood is, get more creative to capture their interest and rise above the rest of the roundup questions in their inboxes. Bonus: this also appeals to more readers.
Both of these options allow you to reap the benefits of a roundup post without ending up on influencers’ hit lists (or being completely ignored).
Tactic #7: Writing for Rankings (Rather Than Readers)
Not that long ago, bloggers could “game” the search engines.
You could write short, keyword-rich articles for your blog and actually rank. The more content you published, the more keywords you had the opportunity to rank for.
In fact, I wrote a blog called Suburban Finance, and because I wrote several articles about buying a house, I ranked in the top 50 for the search term “house.”
True story.
But since then, Google’s algorithm has become much more savvy.
See, Google’s business model relies on its users getting the search results they want — relevant, valuable content about whatever topic they’re searching for. So instead of valuing content based on quantity, Google uses measures of quality.
That means that it looks at factors like:
- “Dwell time” (how long a user will spend on the page)
- Bounce rate (the percentage of users who leave your site after visiting one page)
- Content richness (the length and depth of the search result)
These factors all show Google (and other search engines, not that they matter) that the result they displayed to their user was relevant and valuable.
What to Do Instead
Cranking out five 300-word blog posts per week so you can rank does not lead to relevant or valuable content.
Instead of becoming a content mill, hoping to rank for keywords, focus on creating quality content for the keywords you’re looking to rank for.
You must write for people. And people are looking for answers. When you write detailed, long-form content, it is more likely to have the answers they seek.
Tactic #8: Being a “Jack” of All Social Platforms (Instead of a Master of One)
It used to be standard practice to have a social media presence on every platform possible to cover your bases. But that’s no longer effective.
With the introduction of algorithms for many social platforms, your posts reach fewer of your followers than ever before, so blasting your blog posts to every social media platform won’t bring you much traffic at all.
If you have 1,000 likes and follows on your Facebook page, that used to mean you promote your blog posts in front of most of those followers, but now only 6% (and often far less) of your fans will even see your posts in their newsfeeds.
Facebook isn’t the only social platform that has taken this approach. Instagram is the latest platform to follow suit.
To get your posts in front of more people on these platforms, you need to drum up engagement so the platform trusts that your followers want to see your posts.
But that’s nearly impossible to do unless you know the platform intimately and build up a strong presence. And it’s tough to do so if you are spreading yourself across every social network out there.
What to Do Instead
Focus on just one social media platform and promote your articles more heavily.
If your preferred platform is Instagram, jump into Instagram and start building a following. If it’s Facebook, focus on Facebook. And if it’s Twitter, roll up your sleeves and learn all there is to know about Twitter.
The only way to get more people to see and like your posts on social media is to develop a deeper understanding of each platform and post on a regular basis so you can conquer those prohibitive algorithms.
How regularly?
CoSchedule says that it depends on the social platform, but here’s a quick breakdown:
- Post to Facebook 1–2 times per day
- Tweet 15 times per day
- Instagram 2–3 times per day
Develop a deeper, more intimate knowledge of the social platform to truly benefit from social media marketing.
Wake Up and Ditch the Outdated Blogging Advice
I bet you’ve thought it.
I know I have.
“If only I’d started sooner.”
You know, back when professional blogging wasn’t so popular. Back when the blogosphere wasn’t more competitive than the restaurant industry. Back when all you had to do to get traffic was post on Facebook every time you published a new post.
It’s tempting to write blogging off as one of those things you had to start back before it became popular.
But I have good news …
You can still make in the blogosphere. You just have to ditch the old-school blogging tactics that no longer work and lean into the new strategies.
And sit back and watch the traffic, readers, and subscribers roll in.
Hi Sarah,
I LOVE the example you used for leaving a thoughtful comment 😉
Seriously though, I’m glad you highlighted these archaic techniques. They’re definitely done for. I had success on Huffington post for a bit (I started posting there a few months before the “collapse”). I do think the new Media site de jour is Medium — I’ve had great success with it — although I worry it will suffer the same fate down the line.
Thanks for keeping us updated!
Off to share.
Haha i thought you might 🙂 Medium is good, but you already have to have a decent audience (at least on Twitter) to make it on Medium.
Sarah,
Don’t overlook writing for Medium.com. That’s where credibility lies. And posting frequently to Pinterest also.
The Pinterest side hustle is really serious business. If I knew this stuff way back in the day when they first came out, I would’ve been way ahead of the game today in Pinterest marketing skills.
Interesting. What you you define as a decent audience on Twitter?
You are absolutely right that these blogging techniques don’t exist anymore and to use them is really useless, so it is better to use an alternative way.
2 Write My Essay: As far as I see from ur nickname here, you DO consider aforementioned techniques useless 😉
2 Sarah: Thank you for the informative post!
Hello Sarah Peterson!
I totally agree with you in Tactic #3 (Asking Readers to Subscribe for Free Updates). To be frank, i still do it till today. But one of my friends advised me to stop it recently. It is really an old fashioned style of getting subscribers 😂
Oh completely! I like the idea of a free resource for an email list. That’s an excellent way to build an email list. Also I find guest blogging now to be the way I can get good writing samples these days ha. This also makes me glad that I focus a lot on Twitter which is my go to social media service. Although I need to post more obviously. Lol.
Guest blogging is the best. It’s definitely how I grew my email list to my first 5,000 subscribers.
Sarah, your guest blogging tip is gold. I’ve noticed that myself. Not only does guest blogging on relevant niche blogs develops a relationships with the blogger influencer but the referred traffic is also bigger than from large media outlets. Actually, leaving meaningful comments on blogs with an engaged audience got me more referred traffic than publishing articles in renowned travel magazines. Thanks for the article!
I’m surprised that was the case with comments over republishing, but it’s good to hear! Thanks for your comment.
I’m not even talking about republishing, like on Medium or Linkedin Pulse. I’ve had articles on large websites such as TimeOut and New York Magazine with my author box and that sent less traffic than leaving a long, insightful comment on a niche blog 🙂
Gah, I was totally guilty of the roundup posts last year as a content manager. Glad to see things are improving and blogging is moving on from that. I disagree with the very first entry though – I believe in writing as much valuable content as possible. But the trick is to update it regularly so it’s never outdated when it comes to organic traffic. Of course, promotional traffic is a different thing 🙂
I’ve been guilty of it, too, Mandy.
The idea isn’t that you shouldn’t write a lot of valuable content, but that you shouldn’t spend ALL your time writing it. You should spend time promoting it as well 😉
Hi:
The hardest thing that I found in starting to blog as a newbie is how to get people to register or leave a real email address as most of the email addresses that I received were phony. I get frustrated as I am a retired handicapped male and it can get hard physical and mentality to keep blogging. Blogging I enjoy as it keeps my mind off all the pain that I deal with in life. Any advice would be very welcomed thanks.
JOHN
The biggest thing to remember is that the people who try to sign up with fake emails never would have been engaged members of your audience anyway, John. I totally get the frustration, though.
Sarah – Thanks for sharing this article. I was blogging back in the “old days” and I’m familiar with all the tactics you mentioned above. Especially the one about commenting and all the spam comments! And the newsletter sign up, I’ve been trying to encourage clients to offer up something in exchange for asking for emails for a couple of year now.
I took a long hiatus from writing and now I’m ready to get back into it. Hopefully I’ll be able to come up with a great incentive to build my email list.
Hey Stephanie! I definitely think it’s worthwhile to offer an incentive to sign up for your list. Good luck!
Top notch piece. So useful and valuable! I still see a lot of posts on Pinterest promoting old methods, but what you say makes sense, these methods are so outdated. Blogging is so overwhelming tbh. I got almost 300 page views one day and then 50 the next and I have no idea why. It’s so hard to tell what I need to do. But it’s true, I definitely need to offer something with my subscriptions.
Oh yeah, blogging is overwhelming for sure. There’s just so much information out there! Try to laser focus on what’s already worked for you.
What a nice tip i read. Will put most of this into practice.
Internet is full of these old and not working blogging tactics.
Thanks for updating us Sarah.
Writing for human readers and optimizing it for search engines is the working tactic in these advanced days.
Totally agree (rather than the inverse where you’re writing for search engines and optimizing it for humans, which can make it so it’s not actually all that human-friendly).
Sarah, I have to admit. I read the headline and I thought, “Really?” I was a bit skeptical, which isn’t necessarily like me. Usually, I am simply eager to gather new intel.. lol
But, you blew it out of the ballpark! Granted, I realize, after reading your article that I was doing things correctly in most areas, but that serves as encouragement and I hope that others gather that, as well, as reinforcement for a job well done. But, I also learned some things, so thank you and hey, “Job well done!”
-Deborah (a.k.a. “Deb” to friends 😉 )
I’m glad the article exceeded your expectations, Deb! Thanks for the comment and I’m glad you’re doing many things right!
Oh my God!
This post is just so good.
You are so on point.
Thanks alot for sharing.
The blogosphere is not the same as it used to be. So many things have Changed and the competition is extremely tough right now.
But the thing is, 70% of blogs out there are still covered inside this envelope of old blog tactics, they think it still works and they are not ready to make the big move at all.
If only we can separate ourselves from these type of bloggers and move on to the new trend of things, the smart bloggers way. We will surely be successful in all our endeavours.
Ones again, thank you for sharing this post. It is highly informative.
Thanks, Jay! I’m glad it was useful. Those old tactics may still work for established blogs because almost anything will work for them. So it’s one of those things where you have to be able to weed through all the advice.
Very good points! Thank you!
This post is full of such good information! I have to admit that my narrow focus on keywords and SEO has done damage to my writing process. My writing just didn’t seem as authentic as it used to be when I wrote on more private blogs. I also like the idea of targeting smaller blogs in my niche and creating my own products to sell. Thank you!
Hey Nancy, I think a lot of people make that mistake. You’re not alone!
Sarah, great 8 tips but can I suggest something?
Please consider now writing 8 tactics (in order of priority) which do work. Opposite of this article.
Cheers and thanks. Great article, simple language.
That’s a great post.
Unlike most of boring articles chewing the same subject over and over.
Thank you Sarah
Hi Sarah,
Sadly that’s all great advice. I say sadly, because it’s getting harder and harder to keep up these days, isn’t it? Just when you think you’ve got this blogging gig down pat, the goal posts change again. I think the 80:20 rule is the undoing of most bloggers because it’s downright hard work and everyone wants instant results. But the point that resonated with me the most was the one about social media. I use 4 platforms and have been thinking about shutting some down, but which ones? That’s the million dollar question. Thanks for a great post
Cheers, Mel
Hey Mel! I wouldn’t shut any social down, I’d just focus more on the ones that work – ie the ones your audience hangs out on. Just pick 1-2 they spend the most time on.
Hi Sarah,
Great stuff here.
All are fear-based strategies which may have worked when we had a more fear-based, budding, unclear blogging niche developing. This stuff was OK because folks didn’t really know what blogging was.
But as readers and Google wisened up, we were forced to be a student of blogging, to learn a craft, to add value and to help people, persistently, by serving them and by solving their problems and by promoting other bloggers to build friendships.
If you help people, enjoy the ride and detach a good deal from outcomes, you will succeed online, in any era.
In truth, the bloggers who are killing it today – guys like Darren Rowse – are the ones who largely stuck to the fundamentals and avoided these old school tactics back in the day. No need to be nimble or agile because he was doing simple things that are timeless, and helped grow his 300,000 member community at Pro Blogger.
Thanks for sharing Sarah.
Ryan
Hey Ryan
Partially I think bloggers like Darren are so successful because they’ve been consistent and stuck with it for almost a decade =) But yes, sticking to the fundamentals is important, too!
Hi Sarah!
Great tips here!
The only one I would have a different opinion on is Blog Commenting. Blog commenting has actually been one of my number one source of traffic to my internet marketing blog. Whenever I do a lot of it, on a daily basis, I always, and always see a spike in the traffic flow. I can say with confidence that blog commenting works very well, but only IF you know how to do it Smart!
This is definitely a post worth sharing to my audience. Thank you for all the value!
Keep up the great work!
Cheers! 🙂
Interesting, Freddy! I’d also be interested to hear how you scale commenting since I imagine that to do it properly it takes a LOT of time each day to get a meaningful amount of traffic 🙂
Thank you for this! I have struggled to know what to do in several of these areas. I know how important opt ins are but have a hard time coming up with a creative idea. I was really grateful to hear that I don’t have to master all the social media platforms though! I am only on facebook so far and adding any more seems really intimidating!
Coming up with ideas is really tough, but I’d focus on anything you can create that will help your readers action the content you’ve just put out.
Hello Sarah,
this post’s really got me.
There are many rules or strategies which we don’t know are outdated.
Content is king. Whatever that means. How can content be king when content without promotion is crap? Instead of wasting time writing great contents, spending time looking for ways to promote your content is worth it.
But if I must let you know, guest blogging is not necessarily done for traffic or link building. It is done for friendship building and so I cannot call it outdated.
Also blog commenting has really been driving me real traffic because I do it the right way and with the right motive.
So even though some of these points may seem outdated, there is always an option for upgrade. I spend time looking for a way I can modernize the socalled outdated blogging pratices and its been paying off.
Once again, thanks for sharing.
Do Have a nice day.
Golden
Golden,
I wish I honestly knew how to do this stuff back in the early 2000’s, because as I told another affiliated blogger, I would’ve probably been hitting or been past the $10 million affiliate commission online millionaire mark by now.
Hey Golden, I think that’s why Sarah recommended you guest post on specific, topic-based blogs, rather than huge media sites like Huff Post. These sites usually revolve around a single influencer rather than a team of writers, so they’re better for building relationships too 🙂
Hey Sarah,
I don’t want my comment to look like spam comment, but this is for sure one of the best articles I have read on this subject. It’s not that just points outdated tactics, it has great tips on what tactics will work today! Also, Derek’s theory is something that you need to follow in 2017. Even the best content will be wasted if it’s not promoted well. Thank you for sharing this!
Sarah – my kids always say “that’s so 1999”, now even they are dated! I’ve not yet started my blogging endeavour so this is really helpful and it perfectly calls out how I interact as a reader. Lots of good karma coming back at you! Thank you.
Do email lists really work? I get inundated with them now, I delete 99% of them without opening them. I find them overwhelming and, now they are getting annoying. I asked the people who follow my blog and everyone, except one person, said they did not want anymore email. Don’t I have to listen to what they want?
Nobody wants more e-mail, Leanne. But if an email contains something valuable to us, we do want THAT email, don’t we? 😉 Email lists are the best way to build (and eventually sell to) your audience, no contest.
I have been blogging for many years and your comments are a timely reminder that what we think we know about blogging might not be entirely right and that everyone still has not only the capacity to learn more about their field of expertise but that they need to learn more, too.
I love this post,
It is true that most of the time we spend our time hoarding outdated tactics. To make matters worse, many people spend most of their time taking this outdated advice from countless blogs and end up not starting on anything.
Cheers!
Great Article as always!
love to read your detailed articles.
thanks for sharing
regards Tricky Geeker
I love the format of this post – Adding the “What to Do Instead” takes this from a typical advice article to actionable steps. It brings it to implementation mode which is really about raising your audience up. This format in itself could be #9.
Thanks for posting!
Getting organized and putting yourself in the online position to earn that long money with no delay is a game of entrepreneurial patience. There’s virtually unlimited opportunities for bloggers and website owners to earn healthy revenue online through affiliate marketing. As long as you have a working computer with a solid internet connection and your own self hosted blog on your own web hosting plan and a willingness to put forth the necessary effort online to make money full-time with a love to create content and engage with people meaningfully in search engines and social networks, you’ll pretty much have the ability to potentially earn a full-time income on the net.
There’s all kinds of wonderful money making opportunities which are not MLM based. A lot of people are sick and tired of the old school MLM ways. When joining online programs as a publisher, there so many ways to uniquely make money. You can make money from a publisher program when a sale is generated, and you can also make money from contextual advertising, if you have text ads embedded on your blog or website and people click on the ads. These are just a handful of virtually millions of ways anyone can use the Internet to make money over time.
Well written with very informative tips any blogger could use.Really appreciate your sharîng this as I`m ashamed to say I still use some of the tactics mentioned above.
I guess my worst mistake is being a jack of all social media an^d not being an expert in any.Im one of the very few people I know who was never using social media before I started blogging and I still feel quite intimidated by most of them so I keep jumping from one to the next not really knowing what really works or what I`m supposed to do in social media to get the results I`m looking for.
Great tips Sarah!!
Just one thought about the algorithm, I believe it’s more related to money that anything else…
IG is following Facebook steps because the owner is the same…
Cheers
Sarah… Just as you’ve rightly said. Guest post on popular blog does’nt work anymore for traffic. You may likely not get the attention you seek. Thanks.
Michael,
Shift focus to Twitter. They’re now upping the limit from 140 to 280 and will pan out well among savvy affiliate marketers because they’ll be able to cloak more affiliate links and add inside the tweet section with content. Just a thought.
Wow!! This was definitely worth the read. I first created a website in 2009 and while it flopped, that was my first introduction to how to build a site and get traffic. I didn’t even think about the fact that so much has changed, especially the number of people blogging. (Notice I said website. Even then, blogging was just getting going.) I don’t feel like it was that long ago, but as we come up on 2018, yeah, it was almost a decade and technology has changed our lives so much since then. I sometimes feel discouraged when I read that older tactics don’t work anymore, but I recognize the sense it makes. Just glad I read this now.
Hello Sarah,
Great content. Finally, I found someone who thinks like me. Your point number 3 is really great. I never subscribed those blog who just asking for subscribe to get latest updates. I agree with your no 7 point. Most of the people doing this common mistake.
Thank you
Hey Sarah,
Great article. After reading half of it I realized I was doing all wrong. That is why I am not getting traffic or views. I have also bookmarked this article for future help as well 🙂
Just one question. I am 16 year old student so i barely get any time to promote my blogs on social media. Any solution for this problem? Any ideas and help is highly appreciated.
Thanks for this great article once again 🙂
Hi Sarah,
Your article was on point!
I agree with everything, but, the rebel inside of me got a tiny winy bit offended at number 4:
“away from scammy monetization practices like advertising.”
Advertising definitely has its downsides but not so much when you’re working with topnotch companies like Mediavine or Adthrive.
They do have some requirements before you can apply but once you make it there, it’s definitely worth it.
I don’t think it’s fair to judge all advertising companies simply because Adsense pays “peanuts”.
Other than that, I agree with everything else.
PS: The link in your bio is leading to a suspended page for some reason.
Cheers,
Hamz
Hamz,
Always know that the side hustle will always help anyone gain financial freedom.
Hello Sarah,
These are indeed great tips to make sure the blog stand unique in the crowd. Seems like you just busted the myths which we’ve been following blindly.
Thanks for share.
Hi Sarah
You’re article comes at a perfect time for me as I am brand new to blogging. Your tips are great and I want to start on the right path to building my community around my blog about impactful art, culture, and travel experiences.
I’m having a hard time coming up with opt-in ideas for my email list. I totally understand giving something of value to subscribers. Although I’m passionate about my topic, I am also learning more about it everyday in order to become more of an expert. Do you have any tips for newbies about ideas on what to offer of value?
Thank you,
Matthew
Very helpful, thank you!
All of the 8 points are very crucial.
Above all now days collecting email leads are much more harder than previous days.
Now bloggers are use many new techniques to generate leads like spokesperson in lead form, automated lead chat etc.
Thanks for sharing this informative article.
Love this… Glad to see more people saying this. Especially #6 and #7…
I really need to work on my social media presence! I barely post once per week let alone 2-3 times per day!
Great article, with some useful points, thanks for sharing.
This is amazing! I love it. It’s amazing how quickly the trends change from what’s working to what isn’t. Gotta stay on our game at all times.
this article is very helpful i really like this article
Hi Sarah,
Many have the misconception that blogging will start generating money right from the first day itself. Their perception does get a boost when unfortunately, they see screen shots of bloggers boosting their incomes or their fancy life in front of cameras .
Your second half of the post should be an inspiration for bloggers where they need to be inspired by case studies of those who have undertaken a rigorous journey to be “what they are”.
Thanks for sharing 🙂
Matthew,
There’s a ton of information resource videos about coming up with creative ways to write good opt-in messages for attracting new e-mail subscribers. Just take a quick look on YouTube and punch in a few search terms such as “how to write good opt in e-mail messages,” and YouTube should give you some pretty good video results. Hope this helps.
Hi Sarah,
That was an awesome piece. I still do a lot of blog commenting from time to time. Though they bring me tons of traffic but my primary aim has always been targeted at building relationship with other bloggers in my niche.
On guest posting on authority sites, that credibility alone is enough to help one close important deals faster. You will have lesser restrictions if you are perceived to be an expert in your industry
Thanks for this masterpiece. I love it.
Emenike
I also believe that these 8 techniques are already outdated, I really enjoyed your article it is difficult to see someone talking about these techniques.
Hi Sarah,
This is a mythbuster post.
Thanks for sharing these tips.
I just go ‘WOW’ for this article of yours. My business needs it 😀 Thank you for sharing Sarah.
Gah, I was totally guilty of the roundup posts last year as a content manager. Glad to see things are improving and blogging is moving on from that. I disagree with the very first entry though – I believe in writing as much valuable content as possible. But the trick is to update it regularly so it’s never outdated when it comes to organic traffic. Of course,
Hi Sarah,
Your post is the reflection of how we should focus on things in a professional manner. Yes, instead on focussing on so many different social media platforms, we need to focus on one and justify our association through promotions and sophisticated content.
Thanks for helping us with the post
Hi, Sarah Peterson.
First, thanks for writing this informative article. I wasn’t a regular reader of your blog, but after reading this article am going to follow your blog. Am doing blogging since 1 year, and I was spending the whole day in writing good content only. But after reading your post I realize, Now I should start writing guest post also.
Once Again Thanks 🙂
Hi Sarah,
This post has made my day and would surely boost up me for leaving the old Techniques which i have been following . A Big Thanks for sharing these tips. Apart from these please do share more tips regularly. Can you answer a small question should i Invest more in Content or on Backlinks ?
Thank you once again for the Post
Dolly,
What are some of the newer blog promotion techniques you’re using now?
Great article Sarah,
I used all these techniques and would like to adopt your tips as well. I didn’t get the point 6.
“Cranking out five 300-word blog posts per week so you can rank does not lead to relevant or valuable content.”
Please confirm this here. I started blogging in July 2017 and looking forward to learn more.
Very good ideas and a great post! Back links are very important for the promotion and optimization of any web site.
One thing I really enjoyed in this article is the recommendations. You did not only explain the old techniques, yet you gave a practical and new approach to adopt. This is a great post.
Awesome article with solid advice about new techniques for blogging. And you are so right about promoting content, without it, how are people supposed to like and share your content? Medium is a good place to put your blogs too, they even allow you to import blogs from your site. I’ll be checking smarblogger daily for other great tips. Thanks!
A great Post i will say. About Content, i am 100% sure good content is always a positive sign. A good content make promotion easier. Also, People are bored with text & text articles.
Your post need to have good UX. I mean Images, tables, Breaks, graphs, charts, tables, also there are some visual content builders who can make any post engaging.
You will have lower dwell time if you have good landing page.
So my final word will be articles are old, engaging articles is must now a days.
This is one of only two articles I’ve seen recently (and I am pretty sure both of them were on this website haha) that actually gives good advice. 99% of them are still telling people to spam all over social media, to post 15 times a day (more posts = more readers, right??? Hyuk hyuk).
I’m binge-reading your blog right now, because the advice is frankly amazing, and I can’t wait to put some of it into practice.
This was very refreshing. I look forward to reading some more!
This is amazing! I love it. It’s amazing how quickly the trends change from what’s working to what isn’t. Gotta stay on our game at all times
Sarah,
Great information to use now. I am happy to have found a source to address my blog-world. At times I feel like I am stepping into the great unknown.
Permission to stay with FB and Twitter and not have ot get my head round all the newer stuff yay!!
Tweeting 15 times a day though? Seriously? Who does that? I think I might mute the person doing that!
I don’t know how blogs that request email addresses for nothing more than “the latest updates” can ever get any subscribers these days, as you say. So many still don’t give people a reason to sign up, probably because they haven’t figured out what they’re going to email them yet. Also, I appreciate you introducing YARP into my vocabulary.
Great article Sarah, Back links are very important for the promotion and optimization of any web site.
I really enjoyed your article it is difficult to see someone talking about these techniques.
Hi great article,
After reading this I came to know where I’m making mistakes. Each line adds a lot of value of what im doing. I really appreciate your writing.
Thanks
Thanks for sharing this post!! it was great reading this article! would like to know more! keep posting! Blogging is something i love and its old school techniques still work!! Blogging together is just an amazing concept!
Hey Sarah,
Such a firing post! I loved the insights you have shared and pretty much all of them are true in the current time. The proven tactics of yesterday might not be so useful to stay in the competition and gain better results. However your tips could help a lot to look at these things with a newer approach.
Thanks for sharing! I really appreciate it. 😊
Always love to learn unique blogging from you sir. It was great experienced to read this article. I came to understand my mistakes in blogging. Now I will fix them all by following your tips. Thanks smartblogger..
Great article Sarah, I stumbled on this article when I received an unsolicited email today trying to convince me to install a plugin that will automatically create links on my site for advertising. So I did some research and somehow ended up on this site ….What a great find!
Thanks for the advice I’ve read a few of your articles today and totally agree the best way to monetize your blog is selling your own services or products.
This article is great and hits right to the spot. Most of the blogging tips are getting outdated and video content seems to be dominating. People will move on after reading your content if you dont make the readers feel special or your content is too awesome.
Thanks for taking the time to put this post together. We use many of the tactics you have described.
Days of just putting out just a few pieces of content and hope for rankings to come in are over.
As a blogger then, you need to do what works and be constantly learning.
Thank you, this is excellent and a great critique!
Great article. It appears that now that Microsoft has bought LinkedIn it’s changing the algorithms for how posts are seen. It used to be I’d write a post and get hundreds of comments and likes and shares. That’s no longer happening. LinkedIn now defaults to “top trending” articles and posts, so new posts by non-influencers almost never get seen. It’s time to find a new way to reach the audience. Thanks for the article.
I’m planning to start my blog soon, but I’m a little lost on everything. Would you suggest starting with a free platform like WordPress or go for a paid option? There are so many choices out there that I’m completely confused. Any suggestions? Thanking you in anticipation.
Hi Sarah,
Great article, thanks!
I don’t suppose you could tell me if HuffPost still accept guestposts from bloggers?
I’m looking into writing an article for them (not for traffic, for social proof), but it seems they’re only accepting ‘personal posts’?
Since my blog topic is seperate from my personal life, that’s not going to help me much.
Unless…
If you post a personal story, can you still say ‘as seen on’ on your blog (as you’re the author)? Or would this be cheating?
I hope to hear back from you.
Thanks,
Zoe.
Hi Sarah thanks for sharing this article, I learned new stuff
Great post but… The sad truth is that in my experience some of those so-called “old strategies” for ranking still work.
I have a small SEO company in Bulgaria where Google algorithms don’t work as others say in blog posts about backlinks and ranking. There are still people having satellite websites, tons of spammy backlinks, redirects, guest blogging, you name it.
What works for me is coming up with a very detailed post that answers the user’s question and creates more questions that are going to be interesting for the user. The idea is that once you grab people’s attention you keep them in a loop.
Videos and audio are also becoming a huge factor, so I spend some time reading the articles for mobile users. Everyone these days is so lazy that they just want to be spoon-fed. I wonder how good social platforms are now when Google doesn’t index their content the way it does and social signals are now worthless when you know 60% of the users on Facebook and Instagram are bots.
I think you just inspired me to write a blog post, Sarah! Thanks