If you have decided that you would like to earn a part time income from blogging, your first priority (aside from writing great content) is to establish a community or audience of readers for your blog.   This is the part that can be a little frustrating, particularly if you know you have great content that people will be interested in reading.

The question we get asked most frequently by bloggers is for advice and tools to help them get  their blog noticed.   The truth is that you can have the most amazing blog in the world but people still have to know you are out there.  The solution is to make your blog easy to find and there are a number of ways to do that.

The first myth of blogging is that content alone will drive your success.   If you are serious about  monetized opportunities, you have to provide a reason for advertisers to be interested in your domain.  More Brands are realizing that blogger outreach is a fantastic way to inform consumers about products and promotions.  Brands are eager to connect with bloggers who have established not only a large audience of followers but an engaged one with comments and discussions.

So how do you get your content out there?  You have to take a public relations approach to your blog and actively seek out any opportunity to put your writing and domain under the nose of interested readers.   Here are some great tips and links to get you started.

1. Social Media

Using social channels to distribute your blog posts is by far the most effective method of expanding your audience.    On Twitter alone more than 175 million tweets were sent to 465 million accounts each day in 2012, while Facebook posts received more than 2.7 billion likes each day. Think outside the big two social networks when it comes to discovering new audience.   Consider sharing on Linkedin for finance or other business related topic matter.

According to a 2013 report by the Content Marketing Institute the average B2B (business to business) blogger shares content on up to five social networks targeting five unique audiences in each.   Click here for the full report “B2C Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends-North America”.

2. Blog Directories

Submit to have your blog verified and listed on quality blog directories.   Readers frequently review these directories when they are looking to discover new blogs and writers.  It is also a great tool to see what other bloggers in your niche are doing and connect with them for guest blogging opportunities.

The largest directory is Technorati.  But there are a number of other free directories that are worth the time and effort to get listed on.   They include Blog Hints, Best of the Web Blogs, Bloggeries and many more.   The reputable Eaton Web Blog Directory charges a fee to review each blog submission, but the results (and their review) are valuable from an SEO perspective.

3. Guest Posts

A great way to expose your writing (and create traffic back to your own domain) is to seek out guest post opportunities with other bloggers or contribution sites in your niche.   For instance, if you have a cooking blog you might offer to do a guest post for a local food producer that you like.   If you use their product or service and it is related to your niche topic, send them an email and offer to do a guest post for their site in exchange for a “do-follow” link in your signature line that will allow readers to track back to your own domain.

One of the great things about the ShesConnected Community is that it brings together bloggers from all backgrounds and experience levels.  If you have some ideas or tips of your own please comment or connect with us on Facebook.