We all want to create the next big thing, but let’s face it: not everything we make is a masterpiece. Even when we strive for perfection, we can often fall short, and the average blog will be filled with posts of varying quality. That is just a part of life and the creative process as a whole, no matter what the genre.
But just because your content doesn’t go viral doesn’t mean you can’t work for it to get shared. Every bit of content you create, even if you feel it isn’t the best, is an opportunity for expanding your reach. It just takes a little bit of work to make sure you have generated something that appeals to your target audience on a wide scale.
There are many things you could technically do to make sure your content is shared. But I believe the bulk of it comes down to these main rules of thumb.
Create a Promotion Plan Before Writing an Article
Promoting an article isn’t easy, and unless you’re the CEO of a huge business with a ton of marketing power behind you, you’ll probably find that you have a lot working against you. Post to social media sites or Reddit, and you’ll find your link quickly gets buried by a slew of other posts. Send a press release or a link request to a high-profile blog, and chances are that it won’t get any love. What’s a blogger to do?
As with many problems, the answer is simple: devise a plan. Rather than writing content and hoping someone will share and link to it, think of each of your articles as part of a larger plan. Know who they’re for before you write them, and identify your route to market before you upload them. If you do all this, then you can rest assured that you won’t just be spinning your wheels and that there will always be someone interested in reading your articles.
Use tools to identify your influencers
Who linked to similar content in the past? Who were your future competitors’ biggest sharers? Knowing answers to these questions when writing content will help you with both:
- Create a list of people who you will reach out to when your article is live
- Identify how to create a better resource than those that have attracted those links in shares.
In other words, you will know how to create content that is likely to be amplified.
Buzzsumo will help you find answers to both of those questions. For every URL you put in there, Buzzsumo will show you who shared it and who linked to it. Just go from article to article, make notes of your potential promoters and plan how your resource will be share- and link-worthier:
Find “Doable” Keywords
Being found on Google is the best way to build links: Bloggers and journalists are using Google to find resources to link to.
The web is bursting with content but there are still quite a few questions that don’t have good answers. These are keywords with lower competition but decent search volume.
WebCEO is one of the handiest tools to get keyword suggestions with higher ranking potential. The tool uses the so-called KEI (keyword effectiveness index) that identifies queries with a solid search volume but not too many URLs in the index. By sorting your keyword lists using this metric, you will find relevant keywords to write content around:
Give Away Content
Likewise, you can also find markets by providing answers to questions or giving away free content. For instance, if you wanted to get coverage in a well-known blog, you could offer an exclusive to their readers, such as a free ebook or even a free course. Combine this with a short article explaining your giveaway and you can bring a lot of high-quality traffic.
In short, then, you shouldn’t think of your articles and pages as being just another in a long sequence but rather as part of a specific plan to appeal to a particular market and bring those people to your site.
For example, you can put together a course using these WordPress plugins, or you can take a series of your how-to articles on a specific topic and turn them into an eBook. If you use Google Docs, you can create an eBook for free.
Take Your Branding Seriously
Branding is not just for businesses. Today every voice is a brand if it needs to be heard.
Branding brings recognizability, and with it comes higher click-throughs and more shares and links.
Make sure your branding is consistent throughout all your channels, like your own site, social media, and emails for potential content amplifiers and peers to start recognizing you. This involves adding your name, logo, and identified color palette everywhere, including your images, videos, social media updates, emails, etc.
Namify is a free tool that can help you with branding if you don’t have it defined yet:
Establish An Engaging Tone
Sure, there are one or two people out there that prefer everything they read to be entirely academic and free of all tone. Those people are usually less than acquainted with the social nature of a blog versus an official publication, which is why it is easy to ignore them and move on to the larger audience of people who aren’t complete freaks.
When writing content for a blog, you are engaging the reader one on one. It isn’t meant to be a place for you to punch them in the eyes with facts, but rather sit down and have a conversation.
Everything you write should have that friendly and accessible tone and just sound like you, which means putting in those little elements of your personality that are immediately recognizable as unique.
Be Informative
People are coming to you for a reason, and it is probably to learn or see something that they haven’t before. Or just to experience the niche you are working in from an authority, whatever the topic might be.
That means it is your job to be as informative as is possible, giving them what they are looking for without question.
Avoid speaking in a way that takes away from the image of expertise you are expected to have.
Text Optimizer is a great tool that will encourage you to create more in-depth content by providing you with the list of underlying concepts that will improve your content relevancy:
Keyword clustering is another effective technique helping you to discover more keywords and expand your content to cover more of those.
Make It Easy To Share
Most people aren’t going to go out of their way to share your content, especially when so many of the web’s users are habitual skimmers and want to move on to the next one as quickly as possible. This is why you have to remind them to share the post and make it simple for them to do so.
Thankfully, this is easier than ever with the rise of social media syncing all over the web. All you need are sharing buttons installed in each post and to provide a good mix of sites to which they can be shared. Don’t just have the trinity (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) available. Give them access to Pinterest, Reddit, LinkedIn… any social network you think would be most relevant to your blog. Then put it in a place that is easy to see, such as in a sidebar beside the post itself.
Conclusion
Getting people to share your content is up to you, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. Don’t feel like only your best work will get attention; a few tweaks and you will be sure to see shares for all of your posts, which can only mean good things for your blog.
How do you get the word out about your blog posts? Share your go-to content-sharing tools in the comments!
Recommended Reading
Seven Tools to Use Immediately After You Hit “Publish”
How to Create a Social Media Schedule That Is Truly Effective
Blog header: Photo by Rami Al-zayat on Unsplash
An article by Adam Singer showed up in my email this morning and lo and behold, his topic is another take on how to get your content shared. He looks at the psychology side as well as who actually shares content and what motivates them.
For your reading pleasure:
https://adamsinger.substack.com/p/two-concepts-central-to-behavioral
Thanks for sharing, Denise! It is a great read!
I really like the first one: get your promotion plan together – first. Thanks for sharing these great tips!
Planning always makes a difference!
Thanks a lot for reading and commenting, Jan!