Your blog is complete: Here’s the next 14 things you need to do to promote and boost traffic

Do you have a travel blog?

Would you like to increase traffic and create some interest with all that great content you’re posting?

Sure you would, who wouldn’t.

Crafting great content isn’t easy, so how do you maximize everything that you can to ensure that it gets all the attention and recognition that it deserves?

In today’s post we’ll review a checklist of 14 simple tips and strategies that you should implement to ensure your post gets the biggest bang for the buck.

1. Keyword optimize your post
   Scan through your content and pick out the main topics. Plug those terms into Google Adwords free keyword selection tool. Identify the most popular search terms in phrasing and wording, go back to your content and try to beef up your post title.
   
2. Syndicate your content
   One of the most powerful and misunderstood mechanisms of a blog is its RSS feed. This method allows you to automatically feed your blog’s content to many different places, including many social networking sites.
3. Shorten your post’s URL
   Have you started your page title tag with a keyword? The closer the keyword is to the beginning of the title tag, the more weight it has with search engines. Try to keep your title tag short.
   
4. Embed long tail keywords into your title
   In addition to the above tip, find super long tail keywords that you can include in your title tag. That’s in addition to your target keyword.
5. Include a benefit
   This simple strategy may change the way you write blog posts. Check your post and make sure you’ve included a benefit in at least 25% of the sub headings in your post.
6. Tailor your status updates
   You could just type your blog post’s headline into all of your social site’s status boxes, but this might not get you the most links. Tailoring your status or headline for each community could make a big difference. You may need to send multiple updates on different days and at different times to be successful.
7. Post teasers on other sites
   Most social networking sites and online forums let you promote content as long as it is relevant. A great strategy is to write a compelling headline or question as your forum title, then include some thoughtful commentary followed by your URL. Lastly ask readers to provide feedback on the forum to continue discussion.
8. Bookmark your content
   While this technique doesn’t have the horsepower it used to, posting your content to popular social bookmarking sites (Reddit, Digg, or StumbleUpon) can still be a great source of traffic. The key is to become part of the community and give more than you get.
9. Comment on other blogs
   Providing helpful, valuable comments on other blogs can be a great way to generate traffic, develop relationships, build a following and add backlinks.
10. Seek and assist on Twitter
    Genuine assistance is one of the best ways to build a community of loyal Twitter followers. Search for your blog topic and share your post with people who are asking for guidance.
11. Add to email signature
    Another powerful little technique is to add your latest blog post headline to your email signature. Many email platforms now have nifty little apps (Wisestamp for Gmail) that will put your latest blog post headline into your email signature automatically.
12. Share your blog post with target customers
    You’ve just created a blog post that you know certain customers will find valuable. What are you waiting for? Send them an email with a shortened URL.
13. Add your blog post to your next newsletter
    If you have an eNewsletter, you should be incorporating at least some of your blog content, including a few post headlines or teasers and see which posts get the most clicks.
14. Ask other bloggers to mention your post
    Building relationships with other bloggers in your space and asking them to blog about or link to your post can be a great way to expand your reach.

Now back to you
Are you using any of these recommendations in your travel blog? Do you have other tips that you can pass on to our readers? Don’t be shy, we’d love to hear from you.