Last Updated on 4 months by Christopher Jan Benitez
Monetizing your blog and finding the customers that would convert isn’t as easy as it once was. No matter the niche, it’s not enough to regularly post high-quality content anymore. Today, the most successful blogs use the combination of a good digital marketing strategy — or a few — and a carefully curated structure of a blog post with a powerful Call-to-Action (CTA).
Even if you follow this formula to a T, it would be naive to expect results straight away. You should give it time and — if you notice that one or more ingredients aren’t benefiting your blog any longer — be willing to experiment with new ways to deliver and promote the message to your audience.
With a whopping 43% of blog readers admitting that they tend to skim blog posts, it should be every blogger’s top priority to find a way to engage their followers so that they would stick around. Keep on reading to find out how you can ensure that your readership grows and prospects turn into customers without much extra effort.
1. Favor long-tail keywords over short-tail keywords
Apart from incorporating tools like Semrush or Moz, you should also prioritize featuring long-tail keywords in your content. These phrases that are 3-4 words long are proved to have lower competition and, as a result, higher conversion rates. Besides, they’re the go-to tool for helping new and low-authority web pages thrive in any search engine.
Granted, they might not have a high search volume, but if you pick them strategically, there’s a good chance that they’ll already include some of the short-tail keywords.
2. Gain authority by focusing on link building
Search engines will view your content as first-page-worthy if many people link to it. This makes sense — the more people it helps, the more credible this information becomes. Your goal here is to publish informative and entertaining posts promoting themselves.
The psychology behind social sharing shows that 49% of people share information to inform others about products or ideas they deem to be valuable. Another 68% do it for the sole reason that that information helps them define themselves. To resonate with your audience — and make them want to share your content — make sure it educates and captivates simultaneously.
3. Find out what headlines to use to get better traffic
To promote your blogs organically, choosing headlines with a high search volume and featuring a keyword or two you’re trying to target is critical. Typically, it’s the ones that include a number, a ‘how to’ question, address the reader, or focus on providing helpful tips and tricks.
Some recommend coming up with 25 headlines for every post you write. It might sound excessive initially, but you’ll learn that every next headline you generate is better than the last one. This increases the odds of you ending up with a bomb headline that is guaranteed to get the desired traffic and inspire dialogue in the comment section and shares.
4. Use an editorial calendar to post content at the best time and date
But before you decide on a posting schedule, evaluate your existing content and work out when your audience tends to interact with it the most. Even though statistically, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays are the days when people view and share content the most, it can be that the weekends do the trick the best for you.
The same applies to the time of the day you should publish your blog posts for the highest number of clicks. Depending on your audience’s demographic, location, and the time your competitors are the most likely to post, mornings and late afternoons can trigger the best engagement, while evenings and weekends can prove to be too crammed to cut through the noise in the media.
5. Encourage social media shares by strategically placing relevant buttons throughout the post
How can you promote your blog and expect it to grow if you don’t allow your audience to help you out? When 4.48 billion people — or over half of the population — use social media, it’s only natural that they are constantly sharing content they find interesting with others. If you add social share buttons to your blog posts, you increase your chances of getting more shares and reaching a wider audience.
Place these buttons on the side, on the top, or on the bottom of your content for the structure of your web page to look orderly. You can choose to use all of the options too if you feel like this will help you get more social media shares (and you can make it look harmonious).
6. Send out newsletters 1-2 times per week and track their performance
A sure way to stay on your readers’ minds is to send them regular newsletters featuring your latest blog posts. You can also sprinkle in a few relevant links and infographics that would resonate with your audience and play around with Canva to make the newsletter look polished. Aside from helping you promote your blogs, this strategy also works great for building your email list.
Note that to stay on top of your newsletter game, you have to be consistent and track the performance of your campaigns, too. If they underperform, consider changing a few components and either add an old post to the mix, redesign the newsletter, or experiment with a different email schedule.
7. Follow up with those who haven’t interacted with your emails
Did you know that as many as 50% of email subscribers don’t open the carefully curated emails you send? One out of two people you’re counting on to interact with your newsletters doesn’t even bother clicking on them. You don’t want your efforts to go in vain, so the smartest move here would be to tweak the subject line and send a follow-up email.
Create a new newsletter campaign and target those not engaged with your original email. It’s not guaranteed that 100% of them will open it this time, but there’s a reasonable probability that some will.
8. Take advantage of Google AdWords
There’s nothing wrong with resorting to paid advertising when trying to promote your blogs. Combining organic and paid marketing is best to get the best results possible. If you play it right, Google AdWords is one of those tools that can help you reach 90% of internet users globally.
Learn how to use the platform, allocate a budget, and get started with marketing campaigns to help you spread the word about your blog. Don’t expect immediate results, but continue to reap the platform’s benefits to maximize ROI.
9. Repurpose your content for social media posts
Some call it recycling content; others call it repurposing content — the point is to use the existing content when promoting your content on social media. It shouldn’t be just any content but the one that’s either doing tremendous or you’ve just posted on your website. If it didn’t perform well in the past, it’s better to leave it there.
To take it further, use the old content and edit it to fit Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter format. This way, you’re reusing your old ideas that might not be 100% relevant anymore but can still be rewritten to reflect current trends and demands.
10. Boost your credibility by posting on LinkedIn
Perhaps the easiest way to connect with other professionals in your field and promote your blogs simultaneously is to post on LinkedIn. This social network designed for networking can do wonders for your blog, whether big or small. If you share content regularly, stay active in LinkedIn groups, and find a way to help others level up, you’re bound to become a credible source of knowledge for your prospects.
Just like sending emails and posting on social media, there are right and wrong times to post on LinkedIn. Check out the image above to get a general idea of the best time to post, and keep it in mind the next time you decide to impart some wisdom to your followers.
11. Optimize your website for mobile users
This should be a no-brainer, but having a website easily accessible on a smartphone is a must-have, not a nice-to-have. It increases the traffic to your website and helps you promote your blogs to an audience that wouldn’t otherwise have access to it. Still not convinced? Take it from the 6.4 billion people using smartphones in 2021, who often find it easier to read from their small and compact devices that fit in their hands.
Google also encourages businesses to have mobile-friendly websites. If it’s not, you can easily get lost in search results and lose revenue. This wake-up call alone should prompt you to make your website as mobile-responsive as possible.
12. Dabble into guest posting
Guest blogging isn’t dead — it remains one of the best inbound marketing strategies. It allows you to get the exposure needed to attract new customers without spending a penny. To ensure that your guest blogs bring you the results you’re counting on, do your research first and write posts for blogs with an engaged community and a high percentage of social shares.
You can also encourage other blogs in your niche to guest post for you. The key here is to have them write high-quality content that would resonate with your target audience. You don’t want to lose your readers over a single blog post perceived as sales-y or plain boring.
To sum up
As you can tell, there isn’t a shortage of ways to promote your blogs, no matter how competitive blogging has become lately. With social media taking off and SEO proving to be a viable tool to drive traffic, you can count on at least a few of the strategies above to work for you.
Start small and incorporate a few of them into your marketing plan before you can test out more. Once you master a few, you can think about creating your formula for attracting new leads to your blog.
Mikkel is passionate about customer experience in every color of the beautiful customer engagement spectrum. He loves building great connections with his customers, which often leads to meaningful friendships that last a lifetime and inspire his work. Driven by the genuine belief that CX is the pivotal force that drives a successful business, he is currently at the helm of Dixa’s customer experience strategy.