Creating an awe inspiring WordPress site is one thing but to actually make it visible and drive traffic to it is a whole other chapter. Why spending countless hours designing the perfect website if no one will see it? Sure, your website should follow high-standards and be as professional as possible, but you should also not forget to market it. It is wise to have some sort of a promotional plan before you even launch your site to the online space. This way, you can craft your site to follow all the modern web practices.

If you are just starting out or already have an established site which you would like to grow, below are 8 tips how to market your WordPress site. Most are free (require only your time) while there is also the powerful paid promotion. Depending on your time and budget, pick what feels right to you and start from there.

1. Create compelling content

You know how the saying goes, “Content is king.” No matter the industry you are in, being an expert as you are, it is a must for you to start crafting mind-blowing content. You are the expert in your field so why not sharing your experience and skills with the like-minded people. Not only will you help people, but insightful and helpful articles will also do good for your overall brand image. It creates a win-win-win situation. The readers get a ton out of it, search engines will love your site and, lastly, you grow your WordPress site above and beyond. Sounds like a fantastic plan, doesn’t it?

If you lack time, you can outsource content creation. Just make sure the person you plan to hire has an excellent understanding what your brand is all about. Otherwise, outsourcing might do more harm than good.

As for the content itself, make it information-rich, shareable and readable. Unless you are in some sort of a tech niche, try to avoid all those fancy words. There is no need for those. Keep it simple, yet outstanding, and chances are it goes viral.

2. Strategic social media marketing

With new social media platforms popping out almost every day, you might feel overwhelmed by the idea to promote your business on social media sites. While it is a must to be present on those, you should definitely not be on any platform imaginable. Picks a selected few which you think would fit your brand and industry best. If you are a one-man-band, it is advisable to pick one, max two, and stick with those first. Let it be Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit or G+, master one first and then move on to the second one.

When it comes to Facebook, the platform offers a great tool called Insights. It allows you to gain a better understanding of your posts’ reach. Detailed analytics show you when users are most likely to engage with your posts and a whole bunch more. Examine the stats and plan your posts accordingly and experience much better results.

There is a lot of hard work needed for an effective social media marketing. However, if you do it strategically, you can save yourself a ton of time. But first, test as many different ways how to present yourself on social media and go from there. Meaning, at what time of the day to post, do your posts perform better on weekdays or weekends, what kind of angle gets the most engagement and so on. If you do not know what works for your audience, you have no clear vision what you would like to achieve with your website. Just like Simon Sinek says it, “Start with why.”

3. Guest Blogging

Some are advocates of guest blogging while the others not quite so. If you are the latter, you should definitely reconsider it. At the end of the day, guest blogging is just another way of content marketing. Since you are already hammering out these incredible articles, get in touch with related websites and hammer out a few more. Or let your outsourcer do it for you.

Finding sites with high domain authority and massive traffic, or at least bigger than yours, should be the first step to your guest blogging success. There are other factors that you should follow, too, but that we might discuss in some other article. Get in touch with the owners/contributors and start forging something extraordinary for them. Not only will you drive more traffic to your page but you will also gain quality backlinks. In short, guest blogging can have a big impact on your WordPress site’s growth. Do not underestimate it rather jump in with both feet and spread your knowledge across the online space.

4. Email marketing

First, you create an email list and then you start sending out intriguing newsletters. In theory, this sounds super simple but in reality, more likely the opposite will happen. However, if everything is done correctly, email marketing might be one of the most effective methods to promote your blog, services or products. The possibilities are almost endless. You can send out industry news, company updates, how-to’s and just anything that will be beneficial to your (not already) customers. Speaking of which, there is a greater chance that a guest will subscribe to your newsletter then make a purchase on their first visit. But once you have their email, you can start interacting with them and turn them into loyal clients. Some cool plugins for achieving remarkable results with email marking are Contact Form 7 Newsletter, OptinMonster and MailChimp WD.

To make a long story short, just have the right strategy, do not sell too much and voila, you are marching towards victory. In other words, follow Gary Vaynerchuck’s, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook,” strategy, and you are good.

5. Search engine optimization + Backlinks

Picking up a premium WordPress theme, in most of the cases, it will follow all the modern search engine optimization practices. Having your whole site structured correctly, Google and Bing and all the rest will adore your site. Meaning, you will rank higher what will be seen as the increase in organic traffic.

But let’s focus on the articles. Just like your overall website, these should be SEO friendly, too. Even if you are not an expert in SEO, with a useful plugin, you can easily have your content ready for search engines. One which I personally use for several years now is Yoast SEO for WordPress. A special field appears below the content field where you fill the meta descriptions, focus keyword, follow the text readability and more.

Last but definitely not least, backlinks. Building high-quality links (DA matters) to your website will let search engines know that you are a real deal. They will rank your site higher and drive more SE traffic to your page.

Bear in mind, SEO is a long and tedious process. Be patient and do not expect overnight results. It may take weeks, even months before you see any effect on your site.

6. Paid promotion

When you would like to see fast results, spending money on promotion is the way to go. How much you intend to spend is totally up to you. It is advisable to start with a small daily budget and then scale things up accordingly. You can use Google, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, native ads and a variety of other options to drive traffic towards your website. Paid reviews by heavily trafficked sites are great, too.

From text ads to banner ads and even pops in some cases, there are many ways to use paid promotion. Stick with one traffic source and master it before moving on to the next one. With Google and Facebook, there is enough traffic for everyone. One thing you surely do not want to do is to be all over the place. Unless, of course, you have a huge marketing budget and people who know what they are doing.

One cool (but is it really?) feature are the Gmail ads. These ads look almost as genuine as actual emails, but are filtered and limited only to the Promotions tab.

How do Gmail ads actually work? You target other website owners/competitors’ newsletter lists. You can now easily reach Gmail users’ inboxes without sending them an email. Needless to say, this works only for those with Gmail emails.

7. Website branding

To brand your website or not to brand? If you have long-term plans for your WordPress site, you should create a unique experience guests will remember. Upload a logo, add a favicon and be consistent with colors. Even when it comes to your writing style, you should have a steady flow. Write with a friendly tone others can relate to.

Social media, emails and even your marketing funnel should all have the same style which represents your website and your brand best. Try not to distance yourself from it or it may happen that users will lose trust in you.

For a solid first impression, create an inviting landing page. Those first seconds are very important and determine whether or not the visitors will stay or leave. Hook them with something striking so they will not be able to resist and keep on browsing your site.

Branding your website will help you grow your business that is a fact. Make sure you stay true to yourself no matter at which level you are at, starting out or fully established. Still, always be testing and see what works and what does not.

8. CSS Galleries

Another great way to market your WordPress site is by submitting it and its content to CSS galleries. But you should be careful with these and stick only to the top ones. Not that they may harm you or whatever, but you could waste a ton of time. The fact of the matter is, there are many which are outdated and not even active anymore. Instead, focus only on the top CSS galleries and see the traffic (and conversions) start coming in. Additionally, some of the galleries also add a do-follow tag to your links – great for SEO and your page authority.

While most of the submissions are free, some galleries request a small fee. In most of the cases, those which require payment are of higher quality compared to the free ones. You can even use services which will do high volume CSS gallery submissions for you. CSS Gallery List is one of the tools but it does not include the highly popular galleries. The best approach would be to blend “automatic” with manual gallery submitting.