Today we are going to chat about something that is really great for your blog and your readers.
Cross promoting within your blog.
What exactly do I mean by cross promoting?
This is a very simple blogging tip that is often misunderstood. Let me explain something first.
Your readers change.
The people who follow and read your blog will change not because you necessarily lose people (you will), but more because you will pick up new people who enjoy your blog. These new people will not go back through three, five, or seven years worth of posts to your first blog entry and read it like a book over the span of the next few months. That is where cross promoting comes into play.
Cross promoting the content of your blog is absolutely necessary to help your blog rating and to assist others in knowing who you are or get the full extent of your blog subject matter.
After you have posted about 50 blog posts, it is time to start cross promoting or in other words, linking to older posts within your blog. I do this on a regular basis and I bet you didn’t even really think about it. For instance, at the end of the “Rockin’ Friends” post each week, I always remind you to drop your blog URL in the Linky on the “Woo Us To Your Blog” post. That is just a simple example of cross promoting that helps you not forget an action I want you to take to help promote your blog and it cross promotes other content in my blog.
Another kind of linking within a blog is to link to other posts that add value to the current post. Maybe it is a different take on the same subject or expounds on it. Either way, it is great to link to another post so that the reader will get a bigger picture and more value from your blog. Isn’t that really the goal or are you trying to bore your readers?
Also remember that when cross promoting within your blog that you should make all your links magical. This will help your readers to keep track of what they are reading and not lose the link they want to bookmark “in just one minute.” We’ve all had that intention and then accidentally clicked the “x” that closes the page and it disappears. How often did you go back to try and find that “one” post you really wanted to bookmark? Yeah, just what I thought…not often.
When you find a blogging tip or something you know one of your readers would enjoy or need to know, don’t be afraid to email them with the tip. They will appreciate it! I can give you two examples of this from both points of view…
Yesterday, I wrote Dad is Gone and I am Grieving In that post, I gave you the link to my Twitter account because I was honoring my dad in tweets throughout the day on Friday and Saturday. I gave you the link because many of my readers do not have Twitter and I wanted them to know that they could still read my tweets without belonging to Twitter. I want people to read my tweets so that everyone will know how much I love Dad and why I am going to miss him so much. Through my tears, I messed up the link. Mom called me and I fixed it. I was very grateful that she took the time and cared enough to tell me. I make mistakes and since I want to provide the best posts possible, it is nice to know that my readers and my mother are watching out for me.
On the flip side, the other day I once again noticed that a blog I love to read didn’t use magical links and I took the time to send her my blog link explaining the how, when and why of magical linking. She was appreciative and even let me know when she started the new method that I taught her. You notice I am not name dropping. The reason I told this person was to help her blog, not to promote myself for being helpful to a big time blogger. Does that makes sense? Help people because you truly care about them. Their happiness is truly enough thanks…at least it is for me.
That my friends is cross promoting.
The last “Woo Us To Your Blog” post explored photo and image storage to help keep your blog visual with organized images. Do you remember the message?
As always, attached is the weekly Linky to enter either the main URL to your site or add each post you publish throughout the week. You don’t have to do anything special, just drop your link in and get a little extra exposure to your site.
Until next week’s wooing post, have fun cross promoting with links within your blog and I will see you back here next week with another blogging tip.
Hoping that you enjoy the blogging tips,
I never thought of doing this but it makes sense. I will have to try using it when I refer to other posts. Thank you!
Great idea. BTW…I try to always leave a message for you, especially when your hurting…I would love to hear back from you someday…I pray your heart is healing…
You are always so helpful to others even when you are struggling with other things in life. You ARE AMAZING!! Love, ((HUGS)) and PRAYERS!!
Thank you so much for that helpful post. Wanted to let you know that I am actually going to be linking back to your blog as I'm mentioning the domestic violence series you wrote. I was here to find the link and then got caught up in this post! Thanks again. My heart goes out to you. Your dad was lucky to have such love from you.
I am sorry for your loss..
Very sweet of you, and looking forward to more visits to your blog.