[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_link_target=”_self” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]You put in the time, thought, and energy to create a great blog post. However, you can’t just post it and hope that it finds the right readers. You have to do some blog marketing to make sure that it gets noticed.
Many bloggers (and yes, if you write a blog post, that means you) forego this step because it feels challenging.
However, it’s not as hard as you might think, and it makes all the difference in how many people actually see, read, and share what you’ve written.
What is Blog Marketing?
Many people get intimidated by the term blog marketing. After all, people get advanced degrees in marketing, so it can seem like something out of reach for you if you haven’t studied it. Don’t let the name intimidate you, though.
Blog marketing simply means that you use a variety of different tools to get eyes on your blog, in general, and on individual posts, specifically.
It’s about getting your name and content out there, using the various resources that are already available to you. You should definitely create a blog marketing strategy, but don’t let the logistics of that overwhelm you.
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Edit Your Blog Post to Include Keywords
Maybe you already have a great blog post that you want more people to see. Or perhaps you’re just now brainstorming a list of topics to write about. Whatever stage of blog writing you’re at, make sure that you learn about keywords.
Incorporating the right keywords into your posts immediately helps search engines identify what the post is about.
Therefore, when people search for that topic in Google and other search engines, your post is more likely to come up.
If you’ve already written your post, then you just need to edit it to incorporate your chosen keyword phrase. Moving forward, you can build the post around your selected keywords. Here are some blogging tips for keyword research:
- Use keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Tool to find relevant topics in your niche.
- If your business relies on local traffic, incorporate the name of your city and state into your keywords. For example, if you have a therapy practice in New York City then you might add NYC and New York to your keywords. Instead of “individual counseling” you might incorporate the phrase, “NYC individual counseling.”
- Use the keyword phrase in the title of your blog post. You should also try to use it in one of the post’s subheadings.
- Include the keyword phrase in your blog post enough times that it makes up .5 – 2.5% of the word density of the post. If you are writing your blog in WordPress, you can use plugins such as Yoast that will let you know if you’ve met goals such as this one.
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Use Social Media to Your Advantage
Keyword research is a foundational blog marketing tool that helps get your post noticed by people searching for those terms. However, you don’t want to rely on keyword research alone. Your blog marketing strategy should also incorporate many other tools to get eyes on your writing. Social media is one key tool.
Take the time to build up your social media platform.
Choose a handful of sites that you enjoy, want to be active on, and where your community congregates. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram are some of the big ones, but you may find that a niche social media site is more appropriate for your business. For example, knitters and crochet bloggers use the site Ravelry to communicate with others in that niche.
Once you are set up on your social media sites, stay active there.
Engage with others. Share relevant, interesting, unique material. Of course, when you want people to notice your blog post, be sure to share it on social media. You can use different tools on each site to draw more attention to a specific share.
For example, on Facebook, you can use pinned posts and promoted posts to get more eyes on what you’ve shared. Used strategically, this can be a great way to promote your blog. These sites also often provide statistical insights that can give you tips on when and how to best share your work.
Connect with Others in your Niche
When you’re blogging for business, it helps to connect with others who are in the same niche as you. Of course, you might not want to work directly with your competitors, since promoting their work might directly take away from your own. However, you can seek out non-competitive blogs in the same niche, and work with them to elevate everyone’s work. Here’s how to start:
- Research to come up with a list of high-ranking non-competitive blogs in your niche.
- Visit those blogs regularly. Comment on them with relevant, interesting comments that add to the conversation. You want people to look at your comments and think, “this person seems to know a lot about this, I wonder who they are.”
- In addition to commenting on the blog itself, engage in comment communication with the other users who are commenting on the site.
- You might also visit the social media sites of these same blogs and continue those conversations there.
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As you become more and more connected with these other bloggers, you can work together to take your blog marketing to the next level.
For example, you might:
- Swap guest posts on each other’s blogs.
- Do a Stories Takeover on Facebook or Instagram.
- Join each other’s tribes on Pinterest, sharing each other’s work.
- Host a collaborative giveaway that draws attention to each of your blogs.
There are many ways that blogging for business can be collaborative and help everyone involved. Start networking and get creative.
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Use Your Email List to Your Advantage
Hopefully, you’ve been gathering a list of people who are open to receiving emails from you. Ideally, you’ve got a newsletter that they receive regularly. You should offer value to them through that newsletter, so that it’s not just all self-promotion.
That said, you should also do some self-promotion. When you’ve got a particularly great blog post to share, make sure that you highlight it in your newsletter. Give them a teaser and let them know that they can finish reading it on your blog. Include a link to the blog to facilitate that for the reader.
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Spread the Word in Real Life
Most of your blog marketing will be done online. However, don’t underestimate the value of connecting with others face-to-face. Attend industry events and conferences, give talks at local organizations, and find other creative ways to meet people who might like to read your blog.
Give them a business card and follow up with an email or social media message that links directly to the blog post that you want to share with them. When they put a face to the post, they’ll be much more likely to read it and share it with others.
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Go Back to Your Blog Post
Many bloggers publish their post and never look at that page again. That’s a mistake. You want to make sure that you go back to your blog post to see what’s happening in the comments. It’s very important that you monitor all comments with an eye towards keeping in line with your brand.
First of all, delete all spam. Then, follow any rules that you’ve established about moderating comments. For example, if you have a “no hate” rule then you might delete hateful comments and remind people now and then that you do so. This should leave you with relevant comments.
Make sure that you respond uniquely, authentically, and personally to each comment.
Don’t give one-word answers. Go deeper than that. You want to engage your community. Plus, each comment is a chance to take the content of the blog post even deeper.
Finally, make sure that you reference this blog post again in at least one other blog post on your site.
For example, if you’re a web design company that specializes in helping therapists, you might want to link to your blog post on writing great therapist website copy.
See what I did there?
I gave you a link and incorporated it on a keyword phrase to keep building attention to the post.
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Additional Blog Marketing Tips for Getting Posts Noticed
Here are some additional blogging tips and tools that you might want to learn more about:
- Each blog post should have appropriate, relevant tags and categories that identify what is in the content of the post.
- Sharing and scheduling tools such as Tailwind and HootSuite can facilitate sharing and re-sharing of your posts in the right time frame.
- Incorporate internal links (to other posts on your site) in every blog post. When using external links (to sources other than your site), try to only link to very high-value relevant sites in your niche.
- Use interactive marketing tools to get people interested and engaged with what’s in your post. Quizzes, charts, videos, and other surprising elements can make your blog post stand out.
- Use on-site tools to encourage people to share your post. Make it easy for them to click a button to share to major social media sites.
- Many people find that detailed, in-depth posts that share valuable information (going beyond surface level) will be the most successful on their sites. Break up long posts visually with sub-headers, white space, and images.
- Speaking of images, make sure that you use keywords in the title and description of any images on the blog post.
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Don’t let blogging for business get the best of you.
It seems like a challenge to get heard over all of the noise in the online world today. However, developing a blog marketing strategy that incorporates the above tips will set you well on your way to making sure that your posts get noticed by the people who matter to your business.
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