To start a blog and make it successful, you’ll need to do more than just write good content. This isn’t Field of Dreams. Just because you build it, doesn’t necessarily mean they will come. Often times, it’s what you do after a post is published that matters most.
Here are 5 additional steps you should always take after writing and publishing a new blog post:
- Share it on social media
When you’re trying to increase your blog’s traffic, social media is the best tool you have at your disposal. It’s an easy and effective way to disseminate your content to a large audience. Facebook and Twitter are the most popular social media sites for sharing blog content, but you should utilize all the sites you are active on. LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Reddit can also serve as good sharing platforms, depending on the type of content you produce.
- Schedule future social media shares
Your post might not get that many views the first time you share it on social media. Good content can easily be overlooked because social media sites have such a high volume of content circulating at such a fast pace. To maximize your visibility, schedule a few more social media shares for that blog post throughout the week. I personally use CoSchedule for scheduling out my social media posts, but there are plenty of other great tools, like HootSuite.
- Look for linkbuilding opportunities
Linkbuilding is getting other websites to link to your blog posts. This increases your visibility and improves your SEO. One method of linkbuilding is submitting your content to weekly article round-ups that relate to your industry. You can also find other articles which may benefit from including your post as a resource and ask the authors if they would be willing to link to your content.
- Add internal links to your other blog posts
In every new blog post you write, try to include a link to at least one other blog post you have written in the past. Just be sure the link placement makes sense. Linking to your own posts improves your SEO and increases the likelihood that readers will click on more of your content. Internal linking also makes your website more usable, allowing readers to easily access more information on a particular topic.
- Check performance using Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools, including Google Analytics, can give you vital information about how your blog post is performing and where your readers are coming from. You can see how many people clicked on your article via social media, and how many people arrived at it through a Google search. You can even see the phrases that people searched in order to get to your article. You can use all of this information to get even more views. You might alter the keywords to increase your SEO, or share the article again on a particular social media site.
If a blog post doesn’t get much traffic, revisit step five and think about what you can do better next time. Remember: When it comes to blogging, producing your content is only half the work. These five post-writing steps are vital for building the audience that your posts deserve.
