Congratulations! You have an amazing blog post with content that will make buyers excited enough to take action– but you’re not done yet. While there’s no substitute for great content, there’s also no way to get prospects to see it if you don’t promote your post.
1: Schedule your post
Even before you write that great blog post, you need an content calendar. This helps you stay on task, regularly generating valuable content and putting systems in place to ensure great posts are being published. Posting on schedule is very important because it lets your readers know when to expect new material. Additionally, it sends a signal to search engines that lets them know when new content will be available on your site. Robyn-Dale Samuda points out, “the history of the importance of posting frequency is closely related to Google and its SEO guidelines.”
Beyond the editorial calendar, you should also schedule your posts to be published at a specific time in the future. After all, “your posting schedule can make or break this entire experience for you, your readers, and your ability to have huge success with this wild endeavor you’ve chosen to participate in.” You should test this and figure out what time resonates best with your audience.
2: Share with influencers
Share your blog post with individuals that have a large reach on the social networks where your buyers concentrate (e.g. Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest). Once you know which networks respond to your posts, you can keep focusing on those platforms. Social sharing for sales reps is a top priority.
3: Ping the web
Most people are using WordPress for their blogs (60 million users and growing), and for good reasons. Often, the best search engine optimization (SEO) tactics are built right into the WordPress platform. One of these is the ability to ping websites when a new post is published.
Rather than waiting for Google, Yahoo, Bing, Technorati and other sites to send a bot out to check for new content on your site, WordPress can send them a ping or notification. In the Codex, you can find a guide to setting up these pings and a list of addresses you should consider notifying every time you publish something new.
4: Email your followers
There are several reasons to email your new posts to your followers. The first step is to build a mailing list of potentially interested candidates. Once you’ve got that, you can start bringing visitors back to your site and keep your brand central in the minds of your potential buyers. Some experts argue that email is dead, that it is a thing of the past. Both you and I know that they’re wrong. Email is still the most personal and private way to build a reliable database of targeted subscribers.
5: Revisit old posts and set links
There are many strategies for creating links within your site and inside your older posts. Internal links work to keep visitors on your site. Increasing engagement builds trust in your brand and helps to increase conversions. Besides, your new post is probably relevant within one or more of your past blog entries. You need to find those old posts and link readers to your new material so they’ll see you as a source of up-to-date information. You can start by editing your most popular pieces.
6: Link from your other sites
Depending on the topic of your blog post and the subject of your other sites, it may be a good idea to set up links between them. However, this is not always a viable solution. Over at Moz, they’ve worked out a way to help you figure out if linking between your sites makes sense.
7: Reply to comments
It can be overwhelming to reply to every comment, particularly if your post gets a significant amount of traffic. However, you should always reply to the first comment—and perhaps, to the first 10. The more engaged you are with your readers the more they will engage with you. When you do start getting comments, you should respond to encourage future feedback.
Creating the best content you can is always a requirement to get results from your blog. However, good content alone will not get targeted loyal readers. After you write your next post, implement these eight strategies to put eyes on your article.
