Blogging plays an important role in a business’s ability to drive traffic, increase conversions, and promote customer loyalty. Whether you’re an eCommerce veteran or are just getting started with your first online store, any and all businesses can benefit from the power and pull of a blog.

Great content is one of the easiest and best ways to generate backlinks, which serves as the bedrock of nearly every business’ SEO strategy. Not only is this marketing channel one of the most effective avenues for building your brand, it’s also completely free.

Before you get started blogging, you’ll want to allocate a decent amount of time to researching trending and relevant topics related to your brand or industry. New, awesome content is a surefire way to building a strong following, and ensures readers will continue to visit your blog in the future for more interesting content.

Once you’re done crafting an article, you’ll of course want the world to read it. Unless you’ve already established a large audience, your blog likely isn’t getting the traffic you’re hoping for.

Fortunately, there are numerous ways to overcome this hurdle. Check out the following tactics on how you can attract more eyeballs to your penned pieces.

Utilize Your Social Network

If you’re looking to ensure your business’s financial success, you’re hopefully an active poster on various social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Take advantage of the communities you’ve amassed on your personal and/or business accounts by updating your network about your newest post.

If you’ve got followers and fans, that means people are interested in what you have to say. Providing a quick link and a short blurb about your latest article can boost your blog’s traffic in little time and at no cost.

Participate in Forums

Whether you’re looking to post at forums related to your industry or at an online community such as Reddit, engaging with people online is an excellent tactic for advertising your blog. Actively take part in discussions and debates to build a strong presence and following in your chosen communities.

When crafting posts for forums, you’ll want to ensure your posts consist of quality, helpful content. Don’t treat forums as a free billboard to splatter links and advertisements. Readers will only visit provided links to your blog posts if you’re able to establish yourself as a credible, trustworthy voice.

Send a Newsletter

Customers aren’t interested in having their inboxes spammed with sales pitch after sales pitch. Promo and sales emails will always play a role in a great marketing strategy, but they’re not the only type of newsletter at your disposal.

Let customers know you’re interested in more than just their hard earned money with a helpful and interesting newsletter that serves to aid and/or inform them. A great way to accomplish this is by sharing your blog posts in an email. These types of emails are an excellent tool for building relationships and simultaneously promoting loyalty.

Take a Stab at Guest Blogging

Increase your blog’s chances of acquiring new readers by guest writing for another blog. Get in touch with a blog that’s related to your post or industry and inquire into guest blogging. Your expertise is a valuable commodity that other bloggers will eagerly seek to exploit, if only to bolster their own blog.

Feel free to link and discuss your post, if relevant. Creating backlinks for your blog posts ensures a larger number of readers will discover your post in the near and far-away future.

Run a Great Contest

Few things get customers excited like a contest. They’re an excellent way to build anticipation, excitement, and best of all – generate advertisement for your blog!

You’ll likely want to spend a great deal of time selecting the reward – after all, it’ll be heavily featured on your website. How contest entries are submitted, however, is just as important a factor as the reward itself. Aside from collecting emails for your mailing list, you can also have participants submit their entries through blog comments or social media sharing. All three entry types will serve to build your blog’s audience, so feel free to experiment with whatever option generates the best outcome.

Syndicate Your Blog

Just because you’re the main or sole contributor to your blog doesn’t mean your post(s) is restricted to one website. Get your post syndicated by having it published on another website related to your industry or post. This is a great way to generate traffic and attention from an audience that may otherwise be unfamiliar with your business or brand.

Take time to explore which websites and their audience will find your content most appealing; for optimal results, you’ll always want to make sure you’re targeting the most appropriate readers.

Stroke Some Egos

Get businesses and bloggers to share or feature your post by including information or links to their businesses/products in your post. People love to know that their name or business is on other peoples’ minds, and are eager to let their social networks know of their success and growing reputation.

Optionally get in touch with a specific blogger or company that’s relevant to your post and see if they’re interested in providing a quote. If your article positively features someone, they’ll likely go the extra mile to advertise your post, solely for some personal limelight.