Way back in the olden days of blogging, around 2004, it wasn’t very complicated.

You wrote an article, around 500 words or so. You published the article. And, that was it.  You definitely didn’t need a checklist of 27 ways to promote your blog posts!

If you wanted people to subscribe to get automatic updates when you published new blog posts, you set up an RSS feed for an email subscription with Feedburner or Feedblitz (both are still alive and well, I’m happy to say) and asked your blog readers to subscribe. That’s it. The automation was simple and worked.

If your content was great, you got hundreds or thousands of subscribers and could monetize your content with affiliate offers, ebooks, ads, teleseminars, and other products and services. You could build an audience of fans and build a sustainable business.

In fact, that’s how I started my company, The Blog Squad, in 2005. There was a ton of demand to help people set up blogs and train them on how to use it. I started my first business blog in 2004 and never looked back.

Things are more complex now. There are millions of blog posts written every day. 

How can your blog stand out and get noticed with so much competition?

I have one word for you…

Promotion.

The trend by major bloggers is publishing less and promoting more.

And, putting more effort, research and thought into a long-form post.

The average word count of top-ranking content (in Google) is between 1,140-1,285 words. (source)

This article is not intended to be the “ultimate guide to blogging.” My focus here is on how to promote your blog posts to help you get more traffic and visibility for your work.

Download the Blog Post Promotion Checklist

In my Visibility Mastery Lab and during the periodic Visibility Challenges I host, one of the top questions I get is: how do you promote your blog posts? 

My clients and students want to know EXACTLY what I do so they have a model they can follow and adapt to their own blog posts.

My promotion tactics are constantly evolving as I learn about and experiment with new tools. What I do is probably way too extreme for most people, but you have to remember that this is my “job” – to research and test what’s new so I can share it with you. This is what I LOVE to do.  😆

Let’s go back to that one word: promotion.

What do I mean by that?

Promotion is about getting your blog post in front of as many people as possible … people being your ideal reader/client/customer/audience.

You want to share every blog post on sites where your peeps spend their time. Whether it’s LinkedIn for B2B prospects or Instagram and Pinterest for visually stunning products and services, you need to focus your time and energy where you’re going to get the best return on attention (ROA).

After all, the intention (I hope) is that your ideal person will see your content and be compelled to click the link taking them to the article on your site (traffic!). At which point it’s up to you to provide tons of value and then a call to action taking them to the next best step for getting to know you.

This takes time. In 2004, I could write and publish a 500-word blog post in less than 2 hours.

Now, it takes me at least 5-8 hours to write, prepare images, prepare promotional content for social media, and schedule social media content to drip for 45+ days, then repurpose posts into videos and pdf download. Whew!

Since not all blog posts are created equal, there are times when some posts get more promotional attention and others get less. That has to be weighed, too, as well as tracking everything so I don’t forget to implement an essential promotional tactic.

To that end, I’ve created checklists and spreadsheets to help keep me organized. After repeated requests to share my methods, I reviewed everything and compiled my methods into one checklist.

Drum roll, please…

This is the tip of the iceberg (there are 27+ items on the list).  Download the checklist and get additional blogging tips. (Updated )

Download the Blog Post Promotion Checklist

The complete checklist includes four parts:

1. pre-publication – preparing for promotion (the image above)
2. promoting the published blog post
3. amplification sites you can use for additional promotion
4. repurposing and republishing your blog post

Download the Blog Post Promotion Checklist

Tools for Promoting Your Blog Posts

I use a variety of tools to repurpose and promote my blog posts. I recommend you test various tools and then settle on the ones you like the best and will use consistently!

• Canva* – creating images for blog and social media
• CastMagic* – AI tool for transcribing and repurposing video and audio into multiple formats
• Missinglettr* – scheduling and sharing your posts on social media
• Shorby* – offer multiple links on your Instagram bio (see the example on my Instagram profile)
• PushEngage – push notifications

Amplification Sites (free and fee)

• Bloglovin
• Triberr
• Social Buzz Club
• ViralContentBee

Recommended Reading

Daily Content Profits*

How to Easily Auto-Promote Your Blog Posts [Tutorial]

How to Increase Blog Traffic: Proven Methods From 4 Successful Pros

10 Ways to Bring More Readers BACK to Your Blog

How to Get Your Blog Post Shared 1000 Times [#Infographic]

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande*

What’s Next?

As you can see this is a checklist and not a how-to article. If you’re looking for how-to guidance with your business blogging and social media marketing, I can help. Let’s talk and see how you can get the support you want so you can move your business forward. Click here to book a complimentary chat or join the Marketing Trailblazers Community for support, accountability, and connecting with your peers.

*Affiliate

Updated 12/21/23

The post Want More Traffic? Here are 27 Steps to Promote Your Blog Posts Better [Checklist] appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

Bringing in new readers is an integral part of blog marketing: It’s not enough to create awesome content – You need to spread the word for more people to discover your site.

However attracting new readers is not enough: You need to bring your current readers back too. In our era of information overload, no matter how awesome you are, your readers are most likely to forget about your blog unless you keep reminding them that you exist.

Your existing readership is what powers up your blog: Repeat users are more likely to interact (because they already know you) by sharing your articles and leaving comments. Therefore, you must never let your readers forget about you!

Here are 10 ways I am keeping with my readers in touch:

Always Look for More Ways to Build up Your Email List

Building up your list is the most efficient way to keep in touch with your readers: For example, you can auto-distribute your articles to that list driving them back to your site again and again.

We’ve talked about generating leads a lot but it’s never enough. The thing is, there’s no single recipe for how to generate more subscribers: It all comes down to lots of experimenting, tweaking, and creative brainstorming.

Here are few ingenious ways to experiment with to gain more subscribers:

1. Build up your list using your email signature.

People who are emailing back and forth with you are very much used to hearing from you. They become perfect subscribers who’ll feel more like interacting with your emails.

Besides, emailing is the least monetized effort: For example, I send replies to about 50 emails a day (responding to pitches, giving free advice, helping people connect, etc). None of that effort is in any way marketed (The only benefit is building my connections). So why not try to get more out of that since I am already spending my time emailing daily. I use WiseStamp to create those calls-to-action in my signature.

2. Set up a giveaway

A giveaway is another absolutely awesome way to generate some new subscribers: Who doesn’t love free staff?

If you don’t have a product of your own to give away, partner with some brand (There’s a monetization opportunity out there too!)

Tomoson is one of the most legit and valuable sites when it comes to finding brands to partner with on giveaways and list building. Just search it for [giveaway] and then filter by category:

3. Host free webinars.

This is one of the most efficient ways to build up leads. Apart from building great content, developing informative webinars is an excellent way to keep your audience coming back. You can deliver value by sharing your expertise through live and recorded webinars with ClickWebinar, which provides a venue for online video conferences and webinars across any platform.

Webinars let people register (so they can opt in to hearing more from you when registering). Plus people who come to your webinar get to know you well, so they are more likely to recognize your emails and react positively to all of them. Hosting a webinar is one of the most effective site monetization methods too. So you can build up your list and make money as well once you get a bit comfortable with the process.

4. Use Leadshare.

The free service by Slideshare lets you overlay your slides with a lead generation form. I love the fact that it’s so well integrated: The forms are preserved when the Slideshare content is embedded (so you can basically bring those forms whenever you cover the topic again), when you add that Slideshare to your Linkedin account, when you add that Slideshare presentation to your long-form Linkedin article…

Bringing your form into Slideshare is a great way to cater for more marketing channels and generate leads from outside of your blog.

This article offers a few more tips: 5 Little Lead Generation Experiments You Can Run Right Now

Optimize Your Blog Comments (WordPress)

With all the different comment management options out there, I still prefer WordPress built-in functionality. The reasons are plenty… To name just a couple of more important ones:

• I like owning and hosting that content (For example, Disqus works great for notifying people of new replies, but with the new dashboard, you don’t really need to go to the actual article as you can like and reply to comments from any page where Disqus is running comments. It looks a bit like traffic stealing to me).
• I love the flexibility the multitude of WordPress plugins are offering me.

Speaking of WordPress plugins… Here are those two that help me build my blog community:

5. Give your commenters the option to opt in: I am using GetResponse because they have a great WordPress integration but I guess other email platforms have their solutions as well

6. Notify your commenters of newer comments: I use this simple plugin to send an email to every previous participant in the discussion notifying of newer comments. It’s an old one, but it’s still working for me! There seems to be a newer version, but I haven’t tried it.

Further reading: 9 Ways to Encourage People to Comment on your Blog

Use Social Media Hashtags, Content & Tagging

It takes just a few minutes of your time to make your article more shareable and let your readers bring other people (back) in (through the use of hashtags and social media tagging). Here are the 4 tips that worked well for me:

7. Let your readers tweet quotes from your page.

This works especially well when you do an expert group interview: Let your readers tweet any participating expert’s quote and tag that expert in the tweet: That will bring that person back!

Here’s a good example of what I am talking about: Notice if you click any “Tweet this” box, the resulting tweet will have a person who said that already tagged in the tweet:

Here are some tools and plugins to help you create those tweetable quotes within your content.

8. Use embedded content.

Embedded content is highly engaging: It adds social media proof to your content and lets more readers spread the word. You can’t overdo with it (not to slow your page down) but it may often be a good idea to engage more readers. For example, you may embed a Google Plus update and ask your readers to tag their friends if they think they might be interested in contributing.

I also find that Sitegeek.com does an awesome job engaging users into tweeting their opinions on the listed hosting company and then using those tweets as reviews:

9. Tag most important people when adding a project in Viral Content Buzz

Viral Content Buzz is the free platform allowing you to bring your content in front of social media influencers.

Sometimes, when I post an interview with an influencer for example, I’ll add their Twitter handle in the title or “retweet me” box and thus this person will be tagged in every Tweet VCB users create. This will prompt that influencer come back to my article again and again (to participate in the discussion or promote it again!)

Here’s the project:

Here are the resulting tweets tagging the interviewee:

10. Add the most relevant hashtag in the title of the article.

The thing is, in most cases, the page title is what gets tweeted, so if I use my hashtag there, the hashtag will make it to the tweet as well. I am using this trick for our Twitter chats for example: I use the official hashtag in the title of the article promoting the Twitter chat, so each tweet gets into the room where it has more chances to get retweeted. This results in more engagement and more repeat visits!

How do you bring your readers back to your site? Please share your tips in the comments!

The post 10 Ways to Bring More Readers BACK to Your Blog appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

Guest post by Sandra De Freitas

Are you using WordPress to power your blogsite? Most entrepreneurs are and for good reason. WordPress has been around since 2003 and has almost 30,000 free plugins available to customize your site and user experience.

WordPress has become so popular because of it’s flexibility, and huge community of developers who offer brilliant themes and plugins, to make your WordPress blogsite express your brand and brilliance.

This makes our jobs as entrepreneurs easier as we tend to get really creative and we think big. We need a platform that allows us to be creative and put our big plans into action.

Unfortunately I have met many entrepreneurs who thought if they built it people will come. They are skipping the key thing that will get the results (newsletter subscribers, followers, revenue etc) they desire, that is traffic. If a blogsite exists and no one is around to visit it, does it truly exist? If it fell, would it make a sound?

[Tweet “If a blogsite exists and no one is around to visit it, does it truly exist? ~ @TechCoach @DeniseWakeman”]

3 WordPress Tips to Boost Your Traffic

There are three keys to boosting your traffic:

1. Attracting traffic
2. Asking your visitors to spread the word
3. Keeping your visitors around longer

Attracting Traffic

Attracting traffic means letting people know you exist and where they can find you. If you had a dinner party you would invite people and give them directions to your house, the same ideas apply to attracting traffic. To attract traffic you will want to have fresh and valuable content on your site.

The easiest way to do this is to blog often. You want to give your visitors and potential visitors reasons to come to your site and come back to your site. Then use strategies such as SEO, Social Media Marketing, Google Hangouts and Newsletter Marketing to tell people you have new content on your site. WordPress makes it easy for you to do this by making many SEO plugins available to you such as the popular “All in one SEO Pack” .

[pullquote position=”right”]You have your choice of over 600 plugins to help you promote your blog posts via social media.[/pullquote] One of my favorites is “Sociable”. Even though it has not been updated in a while it still works fabulously on my site. Once you have it set up you can click on one of the icons to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and other social networks.

If you are into Google Hangouts like Denise is, you can find a couple of plugins to help you create and promote your Hangouts, like the “Yakadanda Google+ Hangout Events” plugin.

Spread the Word

Next you will want to ask your existing traffic to spread the word about your blog posts by sharing them with their social networks. If they found your article, video or audio useful, chances are they know others who will also benefit from it.

This is where the above mentioned social media plugins will come in handy. Most plugins allow you to place the social media icons at the end of your post, the beginning or on the left side of your blog post. Be sure to ask readers at the end of your article to share your article with their networks or individuals they think will enjoy it. If you want something you have to ask for it right? Right!

Help Your Visitors Stick Around

You worked really hard to get traffic to your site. How long do you want them to stay on your site? Chances are you answered “I want them to stay on my site for as long as possible”, and that is the correct answer! Most people assume that their visitors are sticking around for hours but when they look at their stats they see that they are spending less than two minutes poking around.

We can keep your visitors on your site for longer periods of time if we give them reasons to stay on your site. Do you currently point out to your visitors that you have other blog posts they may be interested in reading? When a visitor is reading a blog post, you can suggest a list of blog posts that are related to the post they are currently reading.

There is a great plugin called “Efficient Related Posts”, that will pull in the most popular posts that are related to the blog post they are currently reading. You may have seen this on other sites, where you are reading a blog post on let’s say time management, and at the end of the blog post they suggest you read a few more blog posts on the topic of time management.

I love this strategy because you already know what the reader is interested in, why not give them more of what they want? The longer they spend on your site reading great content the more eager they will be to spread the word about you and your blogsite.

So now you know how to boost your traffic by attracting traffic, ask your visitors to help you spread the word and keep your existing visitors around longer. With these simple tips you will be sure to see a difference in your statistics.

Which one tip will you implement today?

Join me and Sandra De Freitas on Friday, February 28 at 10:00 am Pacific Time on a new episode of Adventures in Visibility. 

But wait, there’s more! Sandra is giving away a copy of her book to one lucky reader of this post. Enter the contest below!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

The post Boost your Traffic with These WordPress Tips appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

In this 4:57 minute video I show you eight ways you can use LinkedIn to showcase your blog and send your connections back to your site so you can share more of your expertise and (hopefully) entice them to take some action that will provide a deeper connection with you. (Don't forget, once you get people to your blog, you need to have a call to action so they don't disappear forever!)

How do you use LinkedIn for visibility and traffic generation? Please post your tips below!

I invite you to join my LinkedIn Group: Online Visibility Boost for Entrepreneurs. It's an active groups with the purpose of providing you with opportunities to share your content so you can reach more people and … build more visibility for you, your business and the services you provide.

The post LinkedIn Tips – 8 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog [video] appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

Usually I'm the one doing the blog reviews for clients and confess I was a bit nervous about what he would say. Sometimes I feel like my blog suffers from the "cobbler's children have no shoes" syndrome.

No need to worry. Derek spent 45 minutes with me and pointed out several areas where I can optimize my site to get better results, the most important of which is attracting more email subscribers. This is not about driving traffic, but how to convert your traffic to your list once they land on your site. Remember: it's your email list that sells, not your your blog.

The video is 45 minutes and worth every minute. Derek shares great marketing tips and explains the reason why behind every lead generation optimization suggestion.  So carve out some time, grab a pen and paper, take notes and then go implement! [If you can't see the video, click here.]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYnZRlfUCOc[/youtube]

As Derek points out at the beginning of the video, the tips he shares can be implemented on any blog in any niche. His advice is universal.

I'm in the process of working with my tech team to make the changes and additions Derek suggested. I'm also having the video transcribed and will post some of the nuggets in future posts.

If you have questions, comments or feedback about Derek's suggestions, please post them below. And do yourself a favor, click on over to Social Triggers and subscribe to get Derek's tips for turning traffic into subscribers.

The post How to Optimize Your Blog for More Subscribers [Blog Review] appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.