In many circumstances (indeed, most) you will want your new post to be seen by as many people as possible, so what options are there available to successfully promote your blog content?
There are several ways this can be achieved, and to a degree, it is down to you to conduct some trials to see what works best for you – this will depend on your market, your position in that market, your budget (yes, not everything in life is free) and even your past successes and current following on various platforms.
The main areas we will cover here are:
- SEO
- Past content
- New content repurposing
- Social media
- Email lists
- Curator sites
Not only will these work with varying degrees of success, but not all these methods will work for all business, so again, you will need to experiment a little to discover what works for you and what doesn’t.
This is not a ‘try these and we guarantee success’ posts, therefore; this is not an arena that can really guarantee results, however, it does have some good options to try so you can discover for yourself which ones will most successfully promote your blog content.
1. Only post high-quality content
Before we say anything else, we need to reiterate what we have said in other posts on this subject; always post high-quality content.
There are two reasons for this – first, Google and other search engines are less willing to promote content that is not of quality and that does not help the user – and this will become even more important in the near future.
Secondly, if you do attract visitors to your post, they will not stick around if they don’t like what they find when they get there – it will reflect badly on you, on your business and they will simply go elsewhere.
This applies to the content as much as it does to the presentation (images, graphs, grammar, basic spelling and so on. Read how to write the best website content for more explanation on this subject.
Now that is said, let’s look at the strategies you can employ to get people reading your content.
2. Maximise your blog SEO
Your SEO strategy has got to include your blog content. Your blog posts should be written with well research keywords and conform to the company’s overarching marketing strategy. This aspect is reviewed in detail in designing content for your marketing campaign.
As far as attracting ranking for a specific post is concerned, then your on-page SEO is of primary importance.
- Make sure your titles are keyword-based and not already in common use.
- Make sure your titles are actually being searched for!
- Always use relevant, well-researched keywords.
- Use images and video where appropriate.
- Always title and write appropriate alt text for visual elements.
- Ensure you use H1, H2 and H3 tags correctly.
- Use internal and external links (external to sites with a high DA).
- Use descriptive anchor text.
- Check for plagiarism.
Many of these elements are explained in more details in the SEO principles for the next 20 years article.
3. Take advantage of older content that is still working for you
If your company has been running a blog for some time, then periodically assess which older articles are still generating traffic through Google or other means.
Go back and re-examine these articles and see if they can be updated with fresh links to your newer posts. This way, you will capitalise on that traffic generation by funnelling some of it on to your more recent articles.
This is a great method of increasing attention to your new posts – and it’s free!
4. Social media promotions
You doubtless have a presence on several social media platforms, so use them to promote your blog, not just your website.
You will already be linking back to your site, but when you publish a new blog post, promote it on Twitter! And not just once; repeat 2 or 3 times over the following few weeks with a differently worded tweet appealing to a slightly different target audience. That way you will pick up new traffic on each cycle.
And repeat the same tactic for Facebook, LinkedIn and any other social platform that you use.
Each one may not individually generate a huge amount of new incoming interest – sometimes as little as 1% or 2% of your followers – but it slowly builds, and all new traffic counts.
While we are talking about social media – run a trial with Facebook ads. Compared to the cost of producing your article post in the first place (which may have taken a few hours at your hourly rate value), this can be comparatively cheap, and you will often pick up a few extra hundred click-throughs or even more.
This is one of those areas you need to experiment and evaluate for yourself, but to not try it may be costing you business which you otherwise will never have.
5. Repurpose your new (and even old) content
There is a lot of traffic mileage that can be gained from repurposing your blog posts for other platforms.
To reach a new audience, you sometimes must go fishing in different waters.
Rather than just posting a link from Twitter or Facebook, you can re-write a shorter version of the post itself (or key points, for Twitter) and you suddenly have new social media posts to use! They can still link back to the full article to drive readers back to your site, but it’s given them more than a quick “Interested in this? Click here” link.
Or, if you have a great post, consider making a video version and putting it on your YouTube channel (what do you mean you don’t have a YouTube channel?). Again, you can use it to drive traffic back to your blog or website, and now you are appealing to a different group of people than your ‘usual’ followers, as you have stepped into a new medium altogether.
If you need help with videos – or any other visual content, then speak to a company such as Splento. They have specialist photographers and videographers who are happy to help – even if you just need some advice.
Incidentally – YouTube is a great place for posting content, as it has its own search engine, and with careful keyword selection, you can often rank higher, faster. Even though Google owns YouTube, it won’t actually count towards your Google rank, but it can still drive traffic back to your site.
You can deploy the same tactic across a myriad of other sites too – Medium is a great site for posting articles with a link back to your page. Again, the content can be adjusted for the platform you are posting it to.
6. Maximise your mailing lists!
You have email addresses – so use them!
When you post a blog, email notification to your subscriber base. Keep a separate mailing list for your blog posts, as some customers will request to unsubscribe from this, but you will want to keep them for other mailings.
A creatively worded email can drive a good amount of traffic to your blog; you need a subject and title text that captures the attention though. Or even better, an image or link to a video.
Read the feature visual email marketing best practices for more practical tips on this.
If you have a back catalogue of your ten best blog posts – ones that still generate traffic for you regularly – then set up an automated mailer for new subscribers, to make sure they get emailed these most successful articles first. That way, they can see straight away the nature and value of your posts and are more likely to continue following your new ones.
7. Curator sites can help increase exposure
There are many curator sites around on the internet now. These (such as mix.com) are websites which allow the user to gather links to websites into theme groups – like a Pinterest for articles.
Whilst this is never going to generate a large amount of traffic, it is another online location that can push your articles out to a wider audience – sometimes it is all about casting the net in a new direction, and these can help.
8. Guest blogging to find a new audience
Guest blogging is another method to reach out and find a new market for your articles.
It won’t produce amazing results overnight, but given time, and done right, it can increase your online exposure in a huge way.
This is a whole other subject to itself, however, so go to how to win with guest blogging for a comprehensive breakdown of this subject.
What these suggestions all represent are ways that over time can make a big difference to your blog exposure, but it will not happen overnight.
They take time – and effort – so should be a part of your ongoing marketing and blogging strategy. Once you have found which ideas work best for you, implement them into your regular work routine and they will take less energy than at first.
Successfully promoting your blog content, in other words, is a commitment, but one that is worth making.
This post is one of a series of articles published in support of Splento’s Ready for Work (R4W) programme. This was initially a successful four-week programme run in July 2020.
As of September 2020, R4W v2.0 – a six-month full training and work experience programme – has been created and submitted to the UK DWP for approval to be a part of the UK Government Kickstart Scheme. Further announcements will follow once approval has been granted. For more details, read The ultimate guide to the UK Kickstart Scheme.
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