Before we even explore some ways, it is important to understand that the better and more useful and informative your article is, the better. The more original, fresh, entertaining, and valuable, the easier it is get people to read it.
If your article is merely regurgitating information that can be found on a hundred other websites, or if it is poorly written and contains an English teacher’s nightmare of spelling and grammar mistakes, all the promoting in the world won’t do it much good.
However, if your article is perceived as useful and valuable to readers then it will be a lot easier to promote. Here are eight free ways.
1. Mention your new article on each of your social media accounts
If you’re posting on Facebook for instance, be sure to include:
- A link to it
- A summary of the article
- Reasons people will find it valuable
- An image (this one is vital!)
- A few, relevant hash tags.
If you don’t have any social media accounts for your organisation, you probably should take the time now to create at least one.
Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook are all good.
2. Add a link to your article from the homepage
There are two reasons why this helps. First, internal links help with your search engine rankings. So a link from your homepage (which usually has the most search engine ‘power’) will give a slight boost to the page it is linking to, which will help it rank better in the search results.
The second reason to add your link to your homepage is your homepage is probably viewed a lot. So more people will see the link to your new article which will help funnel more people to it.
3. Send an email blast to your list
If you have a list of subscriber email addresses (which you should) then be sure to craft a special email message that’s purpose is alerting your subscribers to your new article. In the email, be sure to include the following:
- A greeting explaining why they are getting this message
- A summary of the article
- A link to the article
- Reasons people will find it valuable
- An image (this one is vital!)
If you don’t have a subscriber list, start making one. This is an important asset for any business.
4. Alert Related Websites
Do a search for complimentary websites, sites that are not direct competitors with you but are related businesses or organisations. Create a list of 10-20 and email them one by one about your newly-published article.
In your email message, let them know that you thought they might be interested in your new article because it is very much related to the subject of their website.
5. Leave comments in a related article
Do a search for the topic of your new article (or a highly related subject) and then review each of the website in the results. Look for the ability to leave a comment at the end of each. If that’s possible, leave a useful comment and include a link to your article. Be sure that the comment you leave adds to the conversation and has some value.
6. Use Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo is a great tool, but a bit pricey. Fortunately, they offer a free trial. The concept is genius. It finds people who linked to or promoted similar articles to your own, and often times these people are influencers.
For instance, if you wrote an article about the best fly fishing spots in Kansas, you could add the keywords ‘fly fishing spots’ into Buzzsumo and it will find people who read and promoted other fly fishing spots articles on their social media accounts.
All you then have to do is let each of these people know that you just published an article that is very similar (and hopefully better than) the article they previously liked and promoted. Since they likes the last one, there is a good chance they will like yours too.
7. Create a YouTube video
Create a video that either discusses your article or discusses a related subject. Post the video on YouTube and in the description below, include a link to your article.
8. Mention your article in a forum
If you belong to a forum in your industry then either create a new thread about your new article’s topic and then link to it, or mention it in a reply to an existing, related thread if one exists. Just be sure you’re adding value to the forum with what you post. Otherwise, it could be considered spam.
If you don’t belong to a forum in your industry, you ought to. This might be a good time to find one or two and join. After contributing for a while, you can then consider adding a link to a future article of yours in the forum.
The great thing about the eight ways outlined above is that most can be repeated each time you publish a new article. Two important things to remember: almost no one is going to read your article unless you promote it and the better your article is, the easier it is to promote.
