Editor’s note:
Though much of the advice in this post still rings true today, some of
the specific tools and techniques mentioned here are no longer supported
by the companies that offered them. If you’d like additional guidance
on how to optimize the performance of your blog posts, check out CMI’s Ultimate Blog Marketing Checklist: 57 Tips.
You’ve just finished writing a great new blog post. You’re
excited that you’ve shared your ideas and expertise with the world. But
what should you do next?
As we work with companies to develop a regular content marketing and
social engagement routine, blogging is always key. A strong corporate
blog can pay big dividends in the form of increased customer engagement
and search engine rankings. But what many companies forget is the
“marketing” part of content marketing.
UPDATE: Looking for more ideas? Check out
7 NEW Things to Do After You’ve Published a Blog Post.
Even Great Content Can Go Unnoticed
We would like to think after hitting “publish” on a new post that the
seas will part, angels will sing and Moses will lead customers straight
into our shopping carts. But that’s obviously not going to happen.
In reality, the only people who know your post is there are you and
your RSS subscribers. After a while, a search engine spider will come
along and your post will begin jockeying for search-engine position
among the thousands of other web pages related to that same topic. Sure,
your post is probably groundbreaking, but Google might not figure that
out for months.
Rather than rely solely on search engines and a handful of subscribers to pump up your organic volume,
content publishers
need to establish syndication connections and plan for some targeted
promotion to ensure that each piece of content gets noticed by key
influencers and your ideal customers.
Blog Post Promotional Tools: Your 12-Step Checklist
1. SEO / Keyword integration
Your content may be good as is, but a little keyword research and
integration can have a big impact on search engine rankings and traffic.
Scan through your content and pick out the main topics covered in your
post. Plug those terms/phrases into
Google Adwords’ free keyword suggestion tool.
Take note of the most popular search terms and variations in phrasing
and wording. Go back to your content and try to beef up your post title,
content, meta description and tags with those popular terms/phrases.
2. Syndication
One of the most powerful and misunderstood mechanisms of a blog is its RSS feed. This
really
simple
syndication
method allows you to automatically feed your blog’s content to many
different places, including many social networking sites.
Let me say that another way. When your RSS feed URL is plugged into
your social networking sites or profiles, hitting “publish” on your new
blog post initiates an automatic “push” of that content to those sites.
This can significantly expand your reach and save you hours of time
versus posting content manually.
Also note that this step is more of a one-time setup. Once you have
established RSS connections on your social sites, you shouldn’t have to
do it again. To get started, locate your blog’s RSS URL and plug that
into the following:
Facebook Business Page – In your applications area,
search for the “Social RSS” application and get it set up to publish
your content to your Facebook page wall automatically.
LinkedIn Personal Profiles – Look for “Blog Link” or
“WordPress” in the applications section on your profile page and set it
up to auto-post your content to your LinkedIn profile. Don’t forget to
tell all of your employees to do this too. If you have a lot of
employees, the increase in your potential reach could be gigantic.
Plaxo – Although not as popular, Plaxo is another
great business networking site that makes it really easy to “add a feed”
and plug in your blog content automatically.
Ning Community Sites – If any of your fishing holes
are built on the Ning platform, you can plug in your feed using the “Add
RSS” widget included on your profile page.
Other Social Networking Sites – There are many other social sites that allow you to plug in your blog’s RSS feed. Scour your sites for this option.
3. Shorten your post’s URL
This step used to only apply to posting links on Twitter, but with
the addition of analytics (click-through tracking) on many of the URL
shortening services, posting a shortened URL on any of your social sites
is a smart strategy.
Here’s how it works:
- Copy your new blog post’s URL, paste it in a URL shortener that offers analytics (Bit.ly, Ow.ly, Cli.gs).
- Use the shortened URL in any status update, link posting or teaser you plan on executing.
- Check your URL shortener account for click stats, geographic and referring site data after your link has been up a while.
4. Status updates
While this one may seem pretty obvious, it’s not that simple. Sure,
you could just type your blog post’s headline into all of your social
site’s status boxes, include your shortened link and call it good. But
this might not get you the most clicks.
Realize that each social site is a bit different (environment, social
etiquette, audience demographics / psychographics). Tailoring your
status/headline for each community could make a big difference.
You also need to remember that when you post your new content via a
status update, only a small percentage of your friends/followers will
actually be online at that moment to see it. To maximize the likelihood
of your followers seeing and reading your new post, you may need to send
multiple updates on different days and at different times. You’ll also
want to use different headlines each time since you may get banned from
Twitter for sending the same post multiple times.
If your content covers multiple topics, create a different status
update for each topic and then spread those out over the course of a few
days. Don’t forget to ask your followers to share or retweet the link.
Productivity Tip: There are many tools out there
that allow you to set up and schedule your updates to go out anytime in
the future (Hootsuite, Twuffer, Later Bro). I’ll often schedule four to
five updates with different headline variations all at once to post
throughout the week.
5. Content teasers on other sites
Most social networking sites and online forums allow content
promotion as long as it’s valuable, relevant to the community, and not
blatant self promotion. A few examples:
- LinkedIn group forums
- LinkedIn Answers
- Facebook groups
- Ning community group forums
- Niche industry forums.
A great strategy is to write a compelling headline or question as
your forum post title, then include some thoughtful commentary followed
by your shortened URL. Lastly, ask for readers to provide feedback on
the forum to continue the discussion.
6. Social bookmarking
While this technique doesn’t have the horsepower it used to, posting
your content to popular social bookmarking sites (Digg, StumbleUpon,
Delicious, etc.) can still be a great source of traffic, backlinks and
overall exposure. Think of social bookmarking as peer-reviewed content.
If others bookmark/digg your content, the more exposure you get and the
more opportunity you have for others to link to you or reference your
content on their sites.
7. Seek out and comment on other blogs with similar topics
Providing helpful, valuable comments on other blogs can be a great
way to generate traffic, develop relationships, build a following and
add backlinks. If you’ve just finished a blog post on a topic, now is
the perfect time to do a quick search to find other blog posts on the
same topic. Are the other posts lacking something that you covered in
your post? Add your viewpoint in a genuine, non-self-promotional way. If
the comment form asks for your website URL, paste in your blog URL.
8. Seek and assist on Twitter
Genuine assistance is one of the best ways to build a community of
loyal Twitter followers. Let me use this post as an example. When it’s
posted and I’ve created a shortened URL, I might jump on Twitter and do a
search for a phrase like, “need help promoting my blog.” Scanning the
resulting tweets will probably offer me several opportunities to help
people who are reaching out for help. I reply to them with some genuine
advice and the shortened URL. The result is often a new Twitter
follower, a new subscriber to my blog and a blog comment. Then I get all
warm and fuzzy inside…in an opportunistic kind of way.
9. 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 pull your latest blog post
headline into your email signature automatically. Do it manually if you
have to. You never know when a prospect, vendor or client might read a
post that sparks a conversation or creates an opportunity.
10. Share your blog post with target customers
You’ve just created a blog post that you know would be beneficial for
certain customers. What are you waiting for? Send them an email with
the shortened URL and a note, “thought this could really help your
business.” Then check the analytics to see if they clicked on it.
11. Add your blog post to your next e-newsletter
If you have an e-newsletter, you should be incorporating at least
some of your blog content. Include a few post headlines/teasers and see
which posts get the most clicks. You may just find that you need to do
some follow-up blog posts on a topic that received a lot of clicks.
12. 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. Reciprocating promotional efforts can have a big payoff in
the form of high-quality backlinks and big jumps in search engine
rankings, blog traffic and subscribers.
source:contentmarketinginstitute
