Writing blog posts can be a great (and free!) marketing tool for your business. But to be effective, it needs to be seen!
If you’re like me, writing content for your blog takes a lot of time. (I typically spend 2-3 hours on each blog post.)
If you’re making this kind of time commitment, you want to be sure as many people as possible are seeing your blog posts.
There are a few things you can do to help boost the number of people that are viewing your posts. Today I’m sharing 6 essential things to do with each blog post before and after you hit “publish” to maximize the potential of each and every post you pour your heart and soul into!
Plus there’s a bonus checklist and social media sharing calendar that you can use every time you create blog content!
Before You Hit Publish
SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which helps your blog posts and website to be found by Google and other search engines. I know that sounds complicated and scary, but don’t worry. You don’t have to be very tech savvy to make SEO work for you.
If you’re using WordPress, download and install the Yoast plugin. This plugin makes it easy to implement SEO best practices into every blog post you write, without needing a degree in Google!
Choose a keyword that fits with the content of your blog post and put it into the Yoast keyword box. Next, write a description that includes your keyword and put it in the “meta description” field. Ensure that you’re using the keyword a couple of times in your copy as well as in at least one heading. Yoast will give you suggestions of other places to use your keyword as well to help your blog post rank even higher in search engines.
Related: Read this blog post to get started with choosing a keyword for your blog posts that will help you get ranked higher in Google.
Images
Creating unique images for every blog post is an important part of your blogging and social media strategy. Visual content is 40x more likely to get shared than plain text content, and content with relevant images gets 94% more views! So adding an image to your blog post is one of the easiest ways to ensure more people are going to see it.
When you’re creating images for your blog posts, be sure to choose an image size based on the social media platforms you’re most active on. This way, every time you share your blog post it will look great in your audience’s feed.
Related: Learn more about how to create stunning images for your blog posts.
When you’re adding images to your website, you can also optimize them for SEO and social sharing by using what are called ALT tags or ALT text. This is the text that search engines recognize when they scan images, so it helps you to rank in search. This is also the text that will show up when someone shares your content on a platform like Pinterest. Having this text pre-populated with a relevant message as well as your website name will encourage people to share your image more, generating more views and traffic of your post.
Include A Call To Action
The point of writing a blog is to attract readers to your website, but then what? Including a call to action (or CTA) is a great way to get those readers to take a next step. That next step might be as simple as leaving a comment on your post or sharing your post on twitter, or perhaps it’s reading a related blog post or signing up for your newsletter or your free opt-in gift.
By including a CTA, the reader is prompted to take that step because the option is right in front of them. In my blog posts, I typically include 2 CTAs. The first is a question related to the blog post content to encourage discussion. This is a great way to engage your readers even further. The second CTA is a free gift to encourage new readers to opt-in to my email list. If someone likes what they read and want more of my free content, they can opt in and will now be kept in the loop.
Choose the action or next step you want your readers to take and create a call to action for it. I recommend creating a CTA inviting people to sign up for your free gift – so you can grow your email list with every single blog post.
Related: How To Use Your Free Gift To Build Your List
After You Publish
Share on social media – more than once!
If you only share your content once, on the day you write it, most of your audience will never get a chance to see it. The lifespan of a tweet is only about 90 minutes, so if your followers aren’t online in that window they’ll miss it.
You want to share your content on every social media channel you’re active on so all of your followers will get the opportunity to view it. Be sure to use the images you created that fit the social network you’re on, so it looks great in the feed and catches the eyes of your followers.
Related: How To Use Social Media To Build Your List
Email Your List
Everyone who signed up for your email list has basically raised their hand to say “Yes! I want to hear from you!” So you should be sending them every piece of content you create. You can send a weekly email with a quick intro to your post (like my weekly emails), or you can include a link to your blog post after sharing promotional or personal content. Whatever fits with your typical newsletter style!
However you choose to communicate with your list, be sure to let them know about all the great content you’re publishing on your blog. They definitely want to hear from you! Include a link and ask them to leave comments with their thoughts so you can start a discussion.
Related: Email Marketing 101
Contact Anyone You Mentioned In The Post
If you mentioned anyone in your blog post, they will want to know about it! Maybe you used a client or colleague as a short case study. Let them know! Send a quick email with a link to your post that tells them they were featured in your latest blog about x topic. Chances are they will appreciate the shout out and will share the post with their followers without you even asking.
You can also tag them in any tweets or Facebook updates you make about the post. Hopefully they see the post and share it with their audience so your updates are reaching new people! Of course, if you’re sharing something personal, you always want to get the client or colleague’s permission beforehand.
Now I’d love to hear from you!
What are you currently doing to get more people to see your blog posts? What’s one thing that you’d like to start doing on a regular basis to expand your reach even further?
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