10 Steps to Promote Your Blog Post

There’s a lot of noise on the world wide web. Including a lot of blogs.

To give your posts even a slim chance of getting the attention they deserve, you need to ensure you’re putting a solid effort into maximising their visibility.

In this post, we’ll explore the ways you can do just that.

Is your blog ready for an audience?

Before we dive into the how, the where and the why of blog post promotion, there are some checks we need to make first. Namely, is your post good enough to command attention?

It goes without saying that there’s a LOT of content out there, and competition is fierce.

So, before you start trying to shine a spotlight on your post, you’ll need to make sure it’s high-quality, high-value stuff. That it’s easy-to-read as an online piece, with headers, images and bulleted lists included to break up the text nicely.

And that your spelling and grammar is of an impeccable standard.

After all, you want to land people on your post and keep them coming back for more. So it’s crucial that you give them a good reason to do so.

How to promote your blog post guide

So, you’ve written a killer blog post. Great stuff. Now you need to get it out there for the world to see. Here’s how you do it…

Step 1: Make your blog post easy to find

It’s not enough to have an awesome post if no one’s going to find it. That’s why every blog post you write must be SEO-friendly. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimisation, and it’s kind of a big deal.

Essentially, you need to have a strategy in place that ensures search engines recognise your content as useful and reliable, and therefore push it up to the top of the list when a user searches for something relevant.

For example, if you’ve written a blog about 20 different ice-cream flavours to try, and a user types “top ice cream flavours” into Google, you’d want them to see your blog as a search result and click on it.

Your blog’s SEO strategy is a whole other article for another day, but one of the most important things you can do to make a blog post search friendly is to carry out keyword research. That is, using SEO tools – such as Ahrefs and Google Keyword Planner – to establish the terms that people are searching for that are related to your subject matter, and sprinkling these ‘keywords’ into your blog post.

The search engines then recognise your blog post as a great match to the user query, and voila! Your post is served up in the results.

Be mindful of keyword stuffing, though – the search engines are very sophisticated, and you’ll be penalised for using too many in a way that doesn’t flow well or make sense.

Step 2: Explore online forums

Post your blog on Reddit or similar, and you’ll have a whole new world for promotion at your fingertips. These online communities are fantastic for driving traffic to your blog – that is, if they’re used in the right way.

The most popular forums are Reddit, as mentioned, and Quora.

They’re essentially discussion sites, with millions of users and millions of topics – from beauty products to breastfeeding techniques, there’s quite literally a thread for every subject going.

Spend some time getting used to the sites – be warned, the layout and design aren’t the most user-friendly – and you’ll be glad you did.

You can post links to your blog post in relevant areas and boom! Instant traffic generator and a captive audience.

Step 3: Post on your social media channels

Probably the easiest way to promote a blog post is via your social media channels.

When writing a post, ensure you’re thinking about what accompanying creatives you might share to signpost your article on your socials. For example, if you’ve written a blog post that includes a quote, you could lift that quote and make it into an attractive graphic to share on Instagram.

You then reference and tease the new post, hopefully piquing your followers’ interest and resulting in a click-through to your site.

Similarly, look at what different formats you might need for different channels. For example, if you’ve written a blog post about dating tips, could you also film a short video interview with a dating expert for YouTube, and link back to the blog post in your video description?

As much as you can, have a multi-channel, multi-purpose mindset when it comes to content.

Don’t just stick to the channels you’re most familiar with, either – there’s a whole load out there and you should be exploring them all.

Here are the biggies, though:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• Tumblr
• TikTok

Also, don’t forget LinkedIn!

Lots of businesses keep to the above for sharing blog posts, but you should also be sharing this with your professional connections – not just your customers.

Step 4: Signpost your new post on your website

A really simple tip to steer your website visitors in the right direction, is to signpost the new blog on your homepage!

Whether it’s a banner that sits at the top of the page, a clickable thumbnail image, or a pop-up – where you can, just make sure you’re directing your visitors to your new post.

Step 5: Don’t forget email!

Email marketing lets you connect with your customers on a regular basis, so if it’s not currently part of your marketing strategy, then it should be!

Along with company updates, offers and news, you can easily use your emails to signpost your latest blog post.

To improve your chances of a click-through to your post, do your research – read up on the best times to send for a better chance of an open, and make sure your subject line copy is as compelling as the body of the email.

New to the world of email marketing? Check out websites like Mailchimp and Dot Digital – they’re easy to get started with and really popular with businesses that are wanting to try out email marketing for the first time.

Step 6: Try link building via guest blog posts

Link building refers to the practice of getting links to your blog or website from another website. This could be from a news site, or a partner site, for example.

Not only does this drive traffic to your site, but it’s good for SEO, as the search engines see these links (often called hyperlinks or backlinks) as votes of confidence for your content. Win-win.

Make outreach link building part of your blog content strategy. By this, we mean contacting owners of quality, high-ranking websites and pitching them content ideas. If they say yes, you then write a blog post, but it appears on their site instead, with a link back to yours.

They’ll then usually promote via their own social channels. This is a brilliant way of building up a solid following for your blog if you’re a new business.

Step 7: Nurture relationships with your followers

If you’re lucky enough to have an already loyal group of followers, do NOT neglect them.

They should be the first to hear about a new blog post via an email or newsletter, and encouraged to share your new content with their own network.

Think about personalising this experience as much as possible, with ‘you may also like’ suggestions, and links to similar content that they might find enjoyable and useful.

Ultimately, the more effort you put into growing and nurturing your following, the more chances you have for your blog posts to be viewed and shared, so this should be a strategy all in itself.

Step 8: Use push notifications

If you’re set up for push notifications, you’ve got a massive opportunity area here.

Regardless of the time or day you post, your mobile audience can get an alert to check out your new content. That is, if they’ve got these push notifications switched on!

Step 9: Make it timely

As we explored briefly when talking about email marketing, ensuring you promote your blog post at the right time is really important.

For example, Sprout Social maintains that Wednesday is the best day to post on Facebook, while Sunday is the worst.

There are countless studies out there – lots contradicting others – but do your research when it comes to sharing a new post.

Read information from reliable sources, think about what you think would work for your business, and go from there.
 

Step 10: Stop promoting!

No, hear us out.

It sounds odd, but if you’ve been doing all of the above and you’re just not seeing the traffic you’d expected, now’s the time for a rethink.

Stop all the promotion and take a step back.

It might be that the content isn’t hitting the mark, after all. Is it as good as your competitors’ similar posts, or posts on the same subject? Is it lacking in keywords? Is it not landing well with your target audience? Perhaps not connecting in the right way? Or hitting the spot emotionally?

Review, review, review, and decide what needs to be done differently for your next post.

Finally, if you can spare 5 seconds to share my post with your colleagues, friends and family, I would be very grateful.

About the author

Elle Hammond (Featured Writer)

Elle Hammond is the content manager for Bubbl Digital, Miigle Mag, and other publications. She’s been a part of the content world for more than 12 years now and has worked in-house for big-name brands like TUI Travel, Costa Coffee and Bourne Leisure.