10 Ways to Maximize Your Blog Posts and Increase Your Traffic
How many times have you heard that you need to blog regularly? All the time, right?
And whether you are a natural or reluctant blogger, you need to ensure that you are optimizing your blog to maximize the visibility of each post, your blog, and business.
Does this scenario sound familiar?
⏳ You finally write an awesome blog post that you are so so pleased with.
💻 You lovingly publish it on your website.
📲 Then you share on your social media profiles once…and then you stop.
🚫 You wonder why no one is reading it, no one is leaving comments, and you’re not getting traffic to your site. Zero…zilch…nada.
“Why?” We hear you cry, “What am I doing wrong? Is it the content? Is no one interested? Do I need to change what I am writing about?”
Well, maybe.
But no, what you really need is a social sharing strategy. Ok, we know it’s another thing to worry about but trust us, this works. Basically, you need to have a systematic approach to sharing all your new content multiple times and re-sharing your old content again, too.
Again, imagine if the one time you shared your blog post someone missed it or they were too busy to take a look. And let's face it, not all of us have necessarily got the type of blog (yet) that someone will just log into every day on the off chance that you have written some awesome words (besides, this kind of blog reading behavior is soooooo 2007).
Or, you shared it to Facebook and only 1% of your audience saw it anyway.
What you need is your own sharing strategy, as well as a method to get others to share your content more easily.
So let's get started on a social sharing strategy. Follow these simple suggestions and you’ll be doubling your blog traffic in no time:
1. THINK ABOUT SHARING YOUR NEW CONTENT MULTIPLE TIMES ON ALL OF YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS.
Set up a schedule that makes sense for you. For instance, you can share more frequently on Twitter than on Facebook and your audience won’t switch off. Think about what works best on each platform. We personally use Post Planner, and love their feature of recycling old posts to repeat forever.
2. CONTINUE TO SHARE OLD CONTENT.
You should continue to share old content – some of our most popular posts were written over a year ago. There’s no reason we can’t shout that from the rooftops from time to time. You’re constantly gaining new readers and growing your audience and you need to remember that they haven’t seen everything you’ve ever put out so it’s okay to remind them.
3. ENSURE THAT YOU HAVE INTERNAL LINKS IN BLOG POSTS THAT LINK TO OTHER CONTENT YOU HAVE DEVELOPED – IT SPARKS THE INTEREST OF READERS TO GO CHECK THAT OUT TOO.
Remember that you’re adding value and creating an experience for every reader. If there’s another post you’ve written, a post someone else has written, a great news article or resource that might add value, be sure to link it up. If your readers know that you are a source for valuable content, they’ll keep coming back for more.
4. MAKE SURE YOU POST COMPELLING HEADLINES.
When you post to social media channels, mix your headlines up across platforms. As you begin to share multiple times, you'll begin to figure out what works best.
5. REPURPOSE YOUR CONTENT IN VARIOUS WAYS.
This could be as an infographic or a podcast, an intense course or a quick email series. Different things work for different places, so remember that when you are repurposing.
6. BE CONSISTENT WITH YOUR BRANDING AND MAKE IT LOOK VISUALLY APPEALING AND INTERESTING.
We know how enticing it is to want to change up your blog layout, the header, the graphic or even your logo. But every time you do this, you’re potentially taking a reader who recognizes you and confusing them. Create consistency across the board by trying not to change anything for 6 months (at least).
7. MAKE IT EASY FOR OTHERS TO SHARE YOUR CONTENT WITH TOOLS SUCH AS:
Clicktotweet: Clicktotweet is the easiest and simplest way to promote and advertise your blog, website, and business on Twitter. Highlight a message you want to promote, generate a Clicktotweet, and you have an instant way for others to easily share your content.
Sumome: Sumome share toolbar is a tool that makes it easier for your readers to share your blog posts on their own social profiles. Sumome also has an email capture tool, so you can build your email list at the same time. Bonus!
8. ADD GRAPHICS TO ALL YOUR SOCIAL UPDATES.
Tweets with images are, on average, shared 180% more than those without.
9. USE A SCHEDULING TOOL TO SET UP YOUR POSTS SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT.
Again, we use Post Planner to share out content across Twitter and Facebook. We utilize Later to schedule our content on Instagram.
10. DEVELOP YOUR OWN CHECKLIST OF THE MULTIPLE TYPES OF CONTENT AND PLACES TO SHARE (SO YOU DON’T FORGET ANYTHING).
Something like this might work initially (it's in Trello, of course!) and once you get going you can add more steps.
Try implementing these simple steps and sharing your content multiple times and see what effect it has on your blog traffic. Spoiler alert: it’s going to help it a ton.
