8 Ways to Promote Your Blog Content
These days, all it takes to launch a blog is a theme, a few clicks of the mouse and a string of words to publish. That isn’t to say that blogging is inherently low value because the barrier to entry is low. If you’ve spent any amount of time online, you’ll quickly see that there’s plenty of amazing content being shared.
But ultimately, it takes more than an online presence and compelling content to be successful with blogging . If you don’t have traffic coming in, all of your efforts are a waste of time. With that in mind, here are 8 tips to help you take action and start promoting your blog content to build traffic, encourage shares, and increase visibility:
So, anyone can throw random content up on a blog and call it a day. But that’s not going to get you any real traction with your target audience. The most successful content producers make sure their content is beneficial to their target audience.
Being helpful means providing something of value so your audience comes to see you as a trustworthy and reliable resource. If you’re writing something that can help your audience solve their pain points, answer their questions, or show them how to make their lives easier, odds are you are providing value.
You’ll likely put a lot of effort into writing content for your audience this year. Don’t let that effort go to waste. Do keyword research relevant to your topic, and naturally insert those keywords into your content. Doing this will greatly improve the odds of your blog posts being found organically through search results.
For example, if you do a Google search for “Pizza making tips,” you’ll see a number of articles and blogs at the top of the search results that talk about how to make the perfect pizza at home. You can easily see how the search query matches the title of the posts listed in the results. This is what you want to replicate so that your content comes out at the top of the search results.
The people you connect with in your personal and professional networks don’t want to feel like you’re just using them as a tool to spread your blog content – no matter how good it is. Everything you do to promote your blog posts will be far more effective if you take the time to build better relationships through direct engagement and relevant contributions to the conversation.
Saying, “Hey, that’s a great post – take a look at mine” is not the way to do that. Don’t try to game your network for links and shares. Real two-way relationships are far more scalable, require less work, and will provide better results as your blog grows. Which brings me to the next point…
Two-way relationships mean you have to give as much as you get, and you’ll get a lot more if you make the effort to build an authentic relationship. The people who follow you, and those within your network, will appreciate any extra help and attention you can provide.
So share their content, regularly engage them on their blog and social channels, and talk shop. When the time comes for your new piece to be published, those people are far more likely to share it with their connections when they see that you’ve been doing the same for them.
Your immediate social connections aren’t the only ways to leverage social media. Dig into relevant groups and forums where you can share opinions and take part in discussions. As your involvement in (and trust among) the community grows, you can start sharing your content within those communities.
Got a really great post you want to spread as far as possible? Post it to your social channels and try a short paid campaign to “boost” the post and get additional reach outside of your immediate network. For example, Facebook allows you to promote individual posts to make them more visible to those who like your page, and their friends.
Email might be aging, but it’s far from obsolete. Place email opt-ins on your blog and other channels (like Facebook) that help you gather email addresses. Provide a great freebie or regular tips exclusively for subscribers to increase conversion.
Use that subscriber list to let your fans know about new content, to revisit old content relevant to trending topics, and to encourage them to share the content with their networks. With a strong call to action and the attention of your followers, you’ll be amazed at how willing they are to promote you.
According to Search Engine Land , YouTube officially became the second-largest search engine in 2014, with over 300 hours of content uploaded every minute , and those billion unique visitors watching more than 6 billion hours of video every month.
When you incorporate video, now you’ve got one more channel to promote your content. Whether you record a talking head video, a mini white board lesson, or narrate a presentation of your blog content, there are plenty of ways to work sites like YouTube and Vimeo into your blog promotion strategy.
Paid promotion
That’s because Facebook provides you with some incredible targeting features that will ensure your blog posts are going to be shown to people who are most likely to engage with them.
But, you can also adapt the following tips if you have an email list or you have a Facebook Pixel installed on your web site (this all comes under the ‘A Custom Audience,’ category).
If we take a look at a little bit more information, we can see that there are some locations in which there are a disproportionate number of people present (in comparison to the rest of Facebook) who like the page.
Use Google Alerts and Twitter to find people talking about related content
What we would do now is click through to each of these posts and leave a comment letting other readers (and the owner) know that we enjoyed the content and that we have something similar.
Maximize content exposure on social media
Social media sites offer a direct connection to some of the biggest online communities out there, allowing you to proactively market each brand new blog post to thousands or even millions of potential customers at once.
Sharing that valuable insight across the most relevant social networks not only keeps your followers updated on the latest company news, but also creates an additional and powerful online asset through which to inspire engagement and encourage readers to take the next step.
There are many ways you can leverage social-media platforms to promote your blog articles online. For starters, linking to your blog page within each social-media bio makes it easy for followers and newcomers to access and share new posts at any time.
You can also add social-share buttons to each new blog page. This allows readers to instantly share value-add content across their social feeds, potentially exposing your blog to hundreds or even thousands of other users with each new visitor.
Hashtags also offer an excellent tool for expanding blog post reach and driving more blog traffic on each social-media platform. Using relevant hashtags to market your blog creates an immediate connection between your own blog and trending topics or events, potentially putting your brand in the center of the conversation.
And by sticking to a consistent social-network posting calendar and promoting blogs at optimal times, you can cultivate the reliable resource of industry information customers trust when they need it most. Whether it’s through your Twitter account, a relevant Facebook group or your Instagram business profile, using social media consistently and on schedule can give your blog-marketing efforts a valuable leg up on competitors.
Whichever social-media accounts you use to promote your blog, it’s hard to deny the value a smart, active and robust social-media advertising approach can provide your website and your business.
Sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sujanpatel/2016/08/24/8-ways-to-promote-your-blog-content/
https://www.seedprod.com/how-to-promote-a-blog/
https://neilpatel.com/blog/the-uncensored-guide-to-promoting-a-blog-post/
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/413075