GREAT TIPS FOR MARKETING YOUR BLOG
A Comprehensive Nuts & Bolts Guide By Karen Repoli
I frequently discuss blogging and, if you follow me, you know I’m an advocate of blogging being an integral part of your overall marketing plan. If you have any doubt about the value of blogging, just check these stats from Hubspot.com
“Companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website.”
The first step in promoting your blog is actually part of writing and posting it. You must have a schedule and be consistent. Yes, I know I’ve said it before, but it’s one of the most important, yet often ignored aspects of blogging.
Your readers, or future readers, are busy. They are looking for reliable sources of information. When they know they can depend on relevant posts from you on a consistent schedule, they will return to your blog, again and again.
So how often should you blog?
What schedule can you maintain?
How often can you provide valuable information or insights to your target audience?
For SEO (search engine optimization) purposes, the more frequently the better. Some entrepreneurs find 2 – 3 times a week manageable and it is my recommendation. However, if you can only consistently manage once per week that should be your goal.
Now that you’ve determined your posting schedule, it’s time to look at when, where and why promote.
Where Do I Promote My Blog?
Social Media is the first place that comes to mind when promoting your blogs. Ideally your followers, fans and connections are already interested in what you have to say. You have established (or at least started gaining) their trust and a relationship of sorts.
Now, let them know when you post each blog entry. You should include a brief description crafted to entice your contacts to read more and a link to your blog post. Some network specific tips:
You should notify fans of your Facebook page each time you post a blog and ask for their comments.
- Before posting find out when your followers are on Facebook. (see video demo)
- Open Your Facebook Business Page
- Click on Insights
- Click on Posts
- Click on When Your Fans Are Online
The dark line will show you the time of day, your fans are on Facebook.
- Include an image by uploading it from your computer. Facebook will upload an image with your link but it will appear better if you upload the image from your files. After the link appears, click upload image and choose the image from your computer.
- Include an image as often as possible
- Don’t forget hashtags
- Schedule 1 post every 8 hours for a total of 4 per blog post. This increases your chance of being seeing by followers across all time zones.
- Include an image
- Research shows that the best time to post is between 7-8 am or 5 – 7 pm.
- If your content is business related, don’t miss LinkedIn’s publishing feature - Pulse. You can repost your blog post in its’ entirety here and all your connections will be notified.
- My schedule is to post a Status Update the day my blog post is published and post to Pulse the next day.
Summary For Promoting On Social Media
- Where: All social networks where you are active.
- When: Same day you publish – time dependent on network.
- Why: Alert current followers that you have a new post.
Promoting Your Blog Through Social Bookmarking Sites.
“A social bookmarking service is a centralized online service which enables users to add, annotate, edit, and share bookmarks of web documents.” Wikipedia
Submitting your blog posts to websites that function as book marking sites or discovery engines will increase your SEO (search engine optimization) and enhance your credibility as an expert in your field by getting your writing in front of more of your target audience.
1 – Increase the SEO of your site. Listing your site on bookmarking sites helps search engines in multiple ways:
- Indexing Sites Faster: Humans bookmark sites launched by their friends or colleagues before a search engine bot can find them.
- Deeper Indexing: When you manually bookmark information (posts) that may be deep within your site, you make it easier for the search engines to find it.
- Measuring Quality: Essentially if more users bookmark a page, the more quality and relevance that site has.
- External Meta Data: Users who bookmark sites tag them with keywords and descriptions which add an honest and unbiased definition that is created by the public and not the owner of the site.
- Number of Votes : Similar to the number of bookmarks, the more votes a page receives on a site such as Digg, the more useful that information usually is. If the same page receives multiple votes across multiple social news voting sites, the higher quality the site.
- Categorization: Can help define the subject of a site, therefore better helping the search engine address searcher intent.
2 - Enhance your credibility as an expert. When searching for a particular topic, content marketers will frequently go to the book marking sites. There they can find articles based on their topic or keywords. When they mention your article in their marketing with a link back or list it on a curation site, your blog posts reach a wider audience. As your content is found throughout the internet, you become known as a thought leader in your field.
Some of my favorite social bookmarking sites are Digg.com and Pingomatic.com.
Summary For Promoting On Bookmarking Sites
- Where: Popular bookmarking sites.
- When: Same day you publish.
- Why: SEO and Expert status.
Promoting Your blog Through Content Curation Sites
Content curation is the process of collecting, organizing and displaying information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest. Wikipedia
These sites are another platform to get your information in front of a wider audience and increase inbound links to your site. In some cases, you simply post a link and short description of your blog post. On others, you post the entire content.
Some tips to make the most of your content curation:
- You should change the title of your posts. Google may penalize you if it finds the same title on multiple sites.
- Include a customized image. This customization can be as slight as adding your company name or url to the image. The point is to make sure it will lead people back to your site.
- Make sure you include your author bio and it has a link back to your site.
Two of the content curation sites I use are InternetBillboards.net and BizSugar.com.
Summary for promoting through Content Curation
- Where: Content Curation sites.
- When: Same day you publish.
- Why: Building your audience and expert status.
Putting it All Together
A frequently asked question when I discuss blog promotion is, “What system do YOU use, Karen?” So, here it is. The schedule I use to promote all my blogs and my clients blogs.
- Post on website. Include:
- Keywords
- Meta Description
- Appropriate Category
- Featured Image
- Call to Action
- Create Short URL. I use gl.
- Schedule Twitter Posts. 4x – 8 hours a part.
- Post LinkedIn Status Update
- Schedule Facebook post
- Post to Google+
- Submit to Digg.com
- Submit to Pingomatic.com
- Submit to StumbleUpon.com
- Submit to BizSugar.com
- Post on InternetBillboards.net
- Post to Instagram
- 24 hours later: Post to LinkedIn Pulse
Once a week, I post the customized images (with url) on Pinterest.
Blog Promotion Form
I use this form to stay organized. Complete it for each post before starting your promotion and the process will be more efficient.
Title:
Description:
Keywords:
Long Link:
Short Link:
Tweets –
On Publication | |
+8 hours | |
+16 hours | |
+24 Hours |
Facebook/Google+/LinkedIn Post:
Digg:
Pingomatic:
StumbleUpon:
BizSugar:
Internet Billboards:
HTML CODE (Copy this from your WordPress post then you can paste in the text tab on sites such as Internet Billboards.)
How To Get More Reader Interaction On Your Blog
Meet Karen Repoli
Karen Repoli, is a successful entrepreneur with years of experience in office management, internet marketing and business systems. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of NC, Greensboro and is VACertified.
Karen launched her company, HIT Virtual Assistants in 2007. As a professional team including virtual assistants, social media experts, web and graphic designers, business systems specialists and bookkeepers, HIT Virtual’s practical, proven systems helps entrepreneurs accomplish their business goals. Karen is passionate about helping motivated entrepreneurs so they can manifest their brilliance to the world.
She is the author of several books, ebooks and white papers. Her blog consistently delivers timely, relevant information to her audience. Karen is the Charleston Internet Business Examiner on Examiner.com. Examiner.com is a top 100 website, reaching over 37 million unique visitors a month.
Check out Karen’s “NUTS & BOLTS” book series as well
The Nuts and Bolts of Blogging
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