A Quick Guide To Blog Promotion
If you write it, will they come? Unfortunately unless you already have a loyal following or strong promotion plan in place the answer to that question is typically “No” when talking about blog posts. Top web development companies understand that writing a great blog simply isn’t enough; you need to do extra work after the fact to get it in front of people. So let’s dive into that topic with our Quick Guide to blog promotion!
How much time and energy do you spend on a blog post? Most people devote at least an hour or two if not much more depending on the overall process. It takes time to research topics, determine keywords, discover the slant for what you are writing, working up a title, editing…whew…you can get tired just thinking about it.
So after all of that work, why do so many people skip the promotion step?
Is it because people are okay with wasting time and energy? Or is it because they aren’t sure of the next steps that should be taken to socialize that blog post and get it in front of as many readers possible? Many successful bloggers have stated that you should be taking almost as much time promoting that finished piece as you do writing it.
Guide to Blog Promotion
After you have edited, tweaked and adjusted that post you should then:
- Map out options – Where are all the places you can post information about your latest creation? What social media platforms are you using? Do you use email lists to help spread the word?
- Update profiles – When using social media to promote your blog make sure your social media profile links back to your blog.
- Consider visualizations – Rather than just sharing a post, you should look to enhance the offering with visuals. For example, things like infographics, images with a snippet of text overlaid or even quote boxes are all great ways to entice people about your post. You can use different visualizations on each platform for variety.
- Schedule appropriately – Content and promotion of content should take place on a proper schedule. As content has its strongest legs in the first 48 to 72 hours you need to make sure you start off at the right time. One reason Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are such popular days to post is because it increases the likelihood of it being viewed. On the flip side, posting content on the weekend or a holiday limits initial views.
- Use proper tagging – One huge benefit of social media is the ability to tag people, brands, etc. When you are making a post you should use the proper hashtag and tag people when it makes sense.
- Ask friends and influencers – Ideally you want to build a network of friends and influencers who will help promote your blogs and you help do the same for them. Even a small business can benefit from this concept if you ask associates and friends to read your post and promote it on their social media accounts if they feel it has value.
- Use social bookmarking sites – Sites like StumbleUpon or Digg are places where you can post blogs within certain topic niches to help increase organic views.
- Cross promote – Email is a great way to cross promote stories and is a good option to re-inject life to a post a few days after initial posting. Make sure to include social shares within your emails and include a link to the blog in your signature line.
- Re-promote – Keep track of your most popular posts and make sure to re-promote them periodically.
The bottom line is that writing something great is only part of the battle; you need people to read it as well. This quick guide to blog promotion can help anyone get started with ideas on how to get more eyes on your content which in turn can help increase the reach and effectiveness of what you are posting.
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