Making Your Content Work Smarter: Blog Promotion
Previously, we’ve discussed selecting targeted long-tail keywords for your blog and how to optimize your posts for SEO purposes. Mastering those two components are essential to your blog’s success, but there is still one last piece necessary to give your work all the oomph it needs – content promotion. Unfortunately, this last step is also frequently overlooked. To steal an analogy from my boss, it’s like running the perfect race only to trip just before the finish line.
Can search engines find your blog even if you put in no outside effort beyond the initial keyword research and optimization? Sure. Is it more likely to be found by your audience if you put some promotional effort behind it? Absolutely! And, we aren’t even talking about paid promotion. That’s another topic for another time. For today’s purposes, we’ll be looking solely at organic methods that help your content increase its reach.
Social Media Content Promotion
When it comes to promoting your site’s content, social media can be effective, simple, and FREE. Here’s a major avenue where you have the potential to make serious impact without spending a dime, but only if done correctly. A quick link to your new blog thrown across your various social media profiles may be easy, but it isn’t likely to be very effective. If you’re serious about making social media work for you, you’ll have to take a more thoughtful approach. Doing so, will help you engage and establish relationships that allow your own original content to expand its reach.
- Find the best platform – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+….the list of potential social platforms for promotion of any given piece of content is long and continuously growing. And, while options are great, this is a great time to remember that you simply can’t be everything to everybody. Each of these platforms is unique in its audience, form of delivery, and typical usage habits. The first step for any business considering social should be research to determine on which social platforms your audience resides and how they communicate while there.
- Don’t make it all about you – Once you’ve identified your platform, you’ll naturally want to connect to your potential customers right away, but there’s a right (and a very wrong) way to do this. If you want your social media presence to be entirely about self-promotion, you can expect your newfound audience to lose interest rather quickly. After all, who wants to hear someone talk about themselves all the time? Instead, include outside resources among your postings that you find valuable. If you find them useful, it’s likely that your audience will as well. Furthermore, sharing such content can help you be seen as a trustworthy resource and not just a salesperson for your own product or service.
Promoting Content through Influential Relationships
They may not yet be on your site, but your target audience of ideal consumers is out there somewhere. Do some digging, and discover exactly where that is. Who is considered a thought leader in your industry, and how can you connect with them? Do they operate an active blog? Are there online communities where users are engaging in conversations relevant to your own business?
Find these places and become active within them. Use your thought-provoking content as a foot in the door for potential guest blogging. Or, become an active contributor and trusted source among other active members of the online community. Eventually, you’ll have the opportunity to share your own content with them, and if you’ve put in the work, it will be both welcomed and respected.
Keep Your Blog Alive
Don’t let your blog fizzle out after a great post or two. Sure, developing ideas can be tough, but for long-term success, regular posting is a must. Not only does consistent blogging help from an SEO perspective, allowing search engines to see that your site houses new and fresh content, but a well-kept blog also makes you more authoritative and knowledgeable in the eyes of your consumer. Each blog on each topic, represents additional knowledge that you and your team possess – knowledge that you are openly sharing for the benefit of others.
There is no shortage of promotion opportunity for your content, but try not to let the options overwhelm you. Start with the intent of sharing valuable ideas that readers will find useful. Avoid blatant self-promotion, and share your content only when and where is appropriate, amongst readers with whom you’ve established trust. It may take more work up front, but approaching your content promotion the right way has the greatest potential for long-term rewards.
