Startup Guides > Small Business Blogging - 5 Easy Tips

Publishing a blog post? Starting a business blog is just the beginning, not the end. You need to let the world know that your awesome blog and business exist!

So how do you do that? That department is called marketing. Blog marketing could sound like too much of a technical word and many small business bloggers don't even want to hear about it. Of course, there are advanced marketing techniques that you need to learn, and master someday. And, there are certain marketing techniques that would demand you to invest a lot of time and money to it.

Here are 5 "simple" marketing tips for small business bloggers, aimed to be useful to beginner bloggers. You can try these tips right away for your business and enjoy the benefits.

So, let's get started!


1. Join blogging communities.

Blogging communities are a great place to promote your content. A blogging community is a great place to make connections. It is a place where like-minded users gather. So, it is a place where you can find people to connect to. Don't just stop there though; engagement is the key.

2. Embrace social media marketing.

Social networking mostly turns out to be a distraction in many cases; we cannot deny that fact. It is because social networking sites have become a place to chill and hang out. But it can be used for business too. That is both a plus and a minus.

You just can't ignore social media. The number one reason is because your target audience is hanging out on social media, so you should be present there too. Now, you don't have to overwhelm yourself by trying to be present everywhere. You should try out all possible social media platforms and then stick to 2 or 3 platforms that work best for you. This way you can strategically do your work on social media and reap the benefits too.

To make it easier on yourself, try social media marketing automation sites. For example, you can visit 40Billion, which is the fastest-growing network of entrepreneurs and crowdfunders. They specialize in marketing small businesses by broadcasting and promoting to its large network of several million users across the most popular social networking sites at once - including Twitter, LinkedIn, 40Billion, and even Facebook. Innovative services like promoted company listings and promoted posts were created for entrepreneurs to tap into a growing, active network online without spending thousands on pay-per-click ads or traditional advertising. In other words, they save you time and money.

3. Do comment on blogs.

Blog commenting is still alive and not dead -- Well, sort of. Blog commenting for links and spammy blog commenting are dead. But blog commenting to build connections, to build authority, to build brand awareness, and to build traffic is alive and it will always be.

Blog commenting can be beneficial in four ways:
(1) building genuine connections;
(2) voicing your opinion;
(3) sharing your expertise; and,
(4) building your brand and authority.

Make sure you seek out blogs in your industry and blogs that have a decent amount of activity. If no one else is commenting on that blog except you, you won't get much benefit from your efforts.

4. Don't forget guest blogging.

This has become a controversial topic. Guest blogging was misused by many marketers to an extent that Google had to penalize many sites on a bulk basis. Since then the spammy guest blogging is dead. That's what Google aimed to kill anyway, even though some of the genuine sites got hit too.

Nevertheless there is no reason to believe that genuine guest blogging is dead. It isn't.

5. Pay attention to what works.

This is a very important marketing tip! No matter how advanced the marketing tactics that you use are it is important to log the information.

Did you try out a new marketing strategy? Did you recently do a lot of guest posts? Do you see a spike in traffic? Do you know what marketing effort of yours brought that traffic in?
Do you see an improvement in rankings? Can you relate that to any of your marketing efforts?

You should be able to track your progress and closely monitor the results you are getting with your efforts. If you don't track or if you don't pay close attention, you won't be able to know what works and what doesn't. And this is crucial. Ideally you should start applying a marketing strategy and watch for the results. If the strategy pays, you should be doing more of it. If the strategy just doesn't get you results, you should stop wasting time, money and efforts on it and move on to trying a better strategy. Keep optimizing your strategy so you can get the best bang for your buck.

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