Going Beyond the Blog: 5 Things You Should Do With Every Piece of Blog Content
In today’s digital landscape, simply posting an article isn’t enough to drive traffic and achieve your marketing goals. We’ll guide you through essential strategies to optimize, promote, and leverage your blog content effectively, ensuring it reaches a wider audience, boosts engagement, and enhances your brand presence.
Optimize for SEO
No matter how amazing your blog post is, it won’t be effective if it doesn’t rank high on search engines. To ensure your content gets the attention it deserves, you need to optimize it for search engine optimization (SEO). Start by identifying the main themes or key topics covered in your blog post. Once you have these themes, use tools like the Google AdWords keyword planner or Neil Patel’s paid tools to find relevant keywords with decent search volume but moderate competition.
For example, if your blog post discusses “Social Media Campaign,” you could use keywords like “social media strategy,” “online marketing for social media,” and “social media engagement tips.”
Next, strategically incorporate at least three of these identified keywords or keyword phrases into various elements of your blog post. Make sure they appear in the following places:
- Title: Include one of your targeted keywords in the title, preferably as an H1 header.
- Introduction: Integrate another keyword naturally in the opening paragraph to set the context for your post.
- Content Body: Spread the remaining keywords throughout the content to ensure relevance and avoid overstuffing.
- URL: If possible, customize your blog’s URL to include one of the primary keywords.
- Meta Tags and Title Tags: Write compelling meta descriptions and title tags with the chosen keywords to improve click-through rates in search results.
If you’re using WordPress, you can use plugins like Yoast SEO to help optimize your content efficiently. Yoast SEO provides a visual indicator, such as a “Green light” for “very good,” an orange light for “Good,” and a red light for “poor,” to show how well your blog is optimized for the target keyword(s).
Additionally, don’t forget to include relevant images in your blog post and optimize their alt text with your target keywords. This can enhance your blog’s overall SEO performance and also make it more appealing to readers.
Promote on Social Media
Once you’ve published your blog post, don’t stop there—use tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social to efficiently share your content across multiple social media channels. These tools not only help you schedule posts in advance but also provide valuable insights on peak posting times for each platform based on user engagement data.
When sharing your blog content on social media, make your posts engaging and attention-grabbing. Incorporate visually appealing images or eye-catching graphics to accompany your blog link, as visual content tends to perform better on social platforms.
Furthermore, utilize relevant and effective hashtags to increase your post’s discoverability. However, avoid overloading your posts with hashtags; stick to a maximum of three to keep them focused and impactful. Research popular hashtags related to your blog’s topic, or create branded hashtags to build a stronger online presence and foster community engagement.
Additionally, consider tagging individuals or brands that are relevant to your blog post’s content. If your article features insights from an industry expert, mention them in your social media post. By doing so, you increase the chances of getting their attention, potential shares, and meaningful interactions.
Have Employees Push It
Employees can be wonderful brand advocates. When a blog post is live, send a link out to the entire team, and ask people to post it to their LinkedIn profiles and any professional social media pages they may keep for their own branding purposes. This can be a great way to expose your content to audiences outside your core follower base. Similarly, having your own employees promote the content is a good way to show an integrated company culture.
Send It to Sales
Salespeople are always in need of relevant content they can use to send to clients and prospects. They use content as a way to educate their contacts, establish and strengthen relationships, and it often helps them open a door to discussion when a lead is turning cold. When a post goes live, craft an email to sales that includes a link to the post and a few bullet points they can use in their own emails.
Include it in customer newsletters and other emails
Include links to your content in your company newsletter with the latest updates of your company. We’ve mentioned in a blog entitled “How to create a sales nurture stream” just how important it is to create a nurture stream for prospects and existing customers in order to remain relevant to them and strengthen brand awareness. Blogs that can show more insight into your product, helpful resources, etc. are good pieces of content to link to these emails.
By optimizing for SEO, harnessing the power of social media, leveraging your employees’ advocacy, and integrating content into your communication channels, you can unlock new opportunities for growth and engagement. Remember, it’s not just about the blog post itself, but how you amplify its impact and make it an integral part of your overall marketing strategy.
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