How to Promote Your Blog Posts?

Being relatively new to the "blogosphere", I am no expert on the best methods of blog post promotion. Firstly, I do not believe that quantity is necessary strongly correlated to quality blog posts.

I think that promoting your blog post can almost take too much time away from the actual writing. So it is a personal choice on how much time you devote to writing and promotion your blog.

Nevertheless I have read plenty of articles and hope the below can help you promote your blog posts.

Ways to Promote your blog posts:

Create Great Content:

More than anything else, are you producing quality content? If you’re selling something, do you go beyond being a simple brochure with the same information that can be found on hundreds of other sites? 

Do you provide a reason for people to spend more than a few seconds reading your pages?

Get your content right, and you’ve created a solid foundation to bring traffic on your blog posts. If your posts are really good, most likely people will link to, read, comment, and share it.

Be Active in Social Media: 

The vast majority of experienced bloggers will say use Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc to share your posts. However this takes time and effort to build up a significant or valuable following. It takes time to maintain your presence across these sites. Read More about, How to Manage Your Social Media Efforts.

Submit to Blog Directories: 

Add your blog to directory sites like Best of the Web Blog Search, EatonWeb Blog Directory, and OnToplist.com. Here is a list of 23 Blog Directories To Submit Your Blog To.

Use Feeds: 

Utilise RSS feeds. RSS readers remaining a popular method of readers keeping track of news from various sources. There are some great directory lists like this one from TopRank Blog that you can submit your blog or RSS feed to.

Participate in Forums/Communities: 

Participate in online communities relevant to your blog is an highly effective strategy. Forums/Communities that are close to your market/niche and have an active community can be a great way to build traffic to your blog.

Being an active and useful member of niche related forums is a fantastic way to find targeted traffic for your site.

Use Tools: 

Use tools to Publish posts automatically to social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. For example, whenever you post a blog on Wordpress, Everypost can spread the word through all your other social channels automatically! Read More about Content Creation and Marketing Tools.

SEO: 

Use your blog content to appear in search engine organic results, and avid Pay Per Click Service. This can be achieved by simply being smart about your existing content and new content. Writing a well structured and informative blog post can achieve higher search engine organic rank.

Use Analytics: 

Use analytics to work out where your most of the traffic is coming from and Know your conversion rates. You are trying to make the most of those visitors who actually visit and stay on your site for more than 2 seconds.

Use Mailing lists: 

Good old fashioned email is still massively powerful in pulling in traffic. Email marketing is a very effective method in getting your blog articles seen and clicked on. Sending a email to your list as soon as you publish a new post is the best way to get a fury of traffic to it.

Branding: 

Be sure to include your blog URL in all your messaging (email, social media, business cards).

Guest Blogging:

Guest blogging has long been an effective tactic for building a community, a way of growing visibility for both your website and your byline, a means of driving traffic, increasing the exchange of ideas and a method of building inbound links to your website.

Follow these steps to ensure your guest blogging efforts are well-received by the search engines and new audience:

1. Only Post on High Quality and Relevant Websites
2. Contribute Original, Quality Content
3. Link with Value in Mind
4. Build Engaging, Long-Term Relationships

Deliver The Right Mix of Content: 

On your blog, you need to deliver the right mix of content Regularly. Include Images, Infographics, Audio and Video in your blog posts. It helps engage your visitors to your post and encourage them to share your posts.

Bend the Rules: 

Leveraged paid advertising, mass marketing (spam) and/or guerilla marketing to build early traffic.

Offline Activity: 

Get out the building. Attend conferences, meet people face-to-face. Often people read a blog because they discovered them in the flesh.

Good Writing: 

Writing and sharing personal and real experiences is always popular.

Ignore Frequency: 

I don't believe posting regularly is important. Many of the good blogs I find are from discovering brilliant articles published years ago.

Knowing how to promote your blog posts is essential if you want to get more blog traffic and build your audience. In summary you need to spend an extensive amount of time across many methods to successfully promote your blog.

You can't simply publish and hope for the best and only sharing with your email list and social media profiles is NOT enough as they are limited in numbers.

You have to reach out to authorities in your niche, syndicate your content, share with others and put in some work to get links, shares and new readers.

When you spend more time promoting you get rewarded with a more engaged community who in turn tell others about your site causing a snowball effect.

Following steps above is a good start but if you're looking for more advanced methods that can bring more visitors to your blog.

How to Optimize your Facebook posts to Maximize Engagement?

Whether you are a small business, a large agency, or even a top retailer like Walmart and Target, Maximizing engagement on Facebook is all about content.

Here are 7 Best Types of Content for Facebook Marketing:

1. Create useful content 
2. Visuals visuals, and more visuals 
3. Infographics 
4. Current events 
5. Humor 
6. Statistics 
7. Quotes

1. Create useful content. 

Lend a hand to your audience. Share articles that your customers will find helpful and relevant to their business. Make most of your content about the customers as opposed to promoting your products. Useful content should predominantly be shared on blogs such as WordPress or your website. Valuable content includes (but is not limited to) tricks of the trade, tips, how-to guides, ebooks, webinars, etc. Save short, helpful blurbs for Twitter. You can also tweet useful links to your followers. Rely mainly on images for Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. Why you ask? Take a look at the next point.

2. Visuals visuals, and more visuals. 

According to Facebook, photos and videos posted to Facebook create anywhere from 100% – 180% more engagement than the average post. That’s a whole lot! On ecommerce sites, 67% of consumers say that quality of a product image is “very important” in selecting and purchasing a product. It’s an easy way to quickly grab the attention of current customers and possible leads. Photos entertain with minimal effort. Visual content is very effective in grabbing the attention of your viewers.

3. Infographics. 

Are a different type of visual. Infographics are visually appealing, while containing information, data or humor They provide complex information that can be easily interpreted in a short period of time. A diverse assortment of infographics are a great asset to your blog, Pinterest or Facebook. Also try adding links to your infographics on Twitter to see how your audience engages with that type of tweet. 

4. Current events. 

Topics that are freshly surfacing the web are prime because people are currently thinking about them. Contributing to holiday buzz is also great content. Get your Facebook fans to send in pictures of their Halloween costumes or their carved pumpkins. Make sure you find a way to comfortably relate it to your business. You can keep on track with newsworthy topics by subscribing to your industry’s emails, RSS feeds, Facebook Page, put them in your circles on Google+ and following them on Twitter. 

5. Humor. 

Laughter is a great way to connect people to your business. People are more likely to share your content if they find it comical because they become emotionally attached to a certain extent. Sharing humor that relates to your target market is a priority on Facebook. It’s refreshing for both yourself and your audience to see some hilarity once or twice a day. The trick is to relate to your audience without offending or disrespecting anyone. Take a look at The Worst Types of Content to Post on Social Networks for guidelines. 

6. Statistics. 

Statistics are perfect for Twitter. Short, informative pieces of data are useful and easy to process. Those facts may entice readers to think and perhaps research more into the data. In turn, your fans are learning from you and they will appreciate it. It’s a great idea to credit the association or person that was responsible for the statistic (internet etiquette).

7. Quotes. 

Are perfect for Twitter, just like statistics. They’re also a quick go-to if you’re short on time. They can provide inspiration, sentiment or knowledge in a matter of seconds. Provoking emotion is a huge part of marketing. Having the reader feel something about your content causes them to associate a positive feeling with your brand or business. Quotes are also great content for Pinterest, especially atop a photo or in the caption of a pin.

Internal links and It's importance in SEO?

What are internal links?

Internal links are links between pages on the same site. For example, a link from the home page to a category page or links from a product page to similar product pages.

In short, internal links are links within the site and not pointing outside of the domain.

Why are internal links important?

Internal links are important for three main reasons.

• Crawl
• Relevance
• Priority

Here's a brief explanation of each.

Crawl 

Internal links provide navigation for users and search engines. A solid internal link structure ensures a site is maximizing crawl efficiency, which is the building block of SEO.

Relevance 

Proper internal linking provides relevance though linking related pages together and doing so with descriptive anchor text. A good internal linking structure creates 'neighborhoods' of content on the same subject or theme.

Priority 

Internal links provide a signal about what pages are most important on a site, generally measured by how many times you're linking to that page. Essentially, if you think a page is important, you link to it more often.

Internal links are links within your own website and are important in creating proper navigation and crawl paths, enforcing relevance and signaling priority.

2015 Social Media Marketing Challenge: Infographic

In recent years, social media has become a powerful digital marketing tool used across various industries.

As it is still relatively new, there are many obstacles which marketer and social media professionals are facing every day. So, What are the biggest challenges for social media marketers in 2015?

Tips to Manage Your Social Media Efforts in 2015

2015, A Exciting Year for Social Media, As you may have already heard that Twitter and Facebook have both started testing in-stream buy buttons. It's a good chance that Facebook and Twitter users will see more buy buttons in the near future.

To help you face 2015's Social Media Marketing Challenges, I'll share tips for social media success in the new year.

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How to Run a Successful Social Media Contest

Step 1: Create a Social Media Marketing Plan

Similarly to the way you do in Website Design and SEO, you must make a plan before executing. Same goes for social media. Creating a social media marketing plan will set you up for success, and will allow you to avoid any social media mistakes.

Step 2: Do a Social Media Audit

Before You Start Creating New Social Media Account, run a Social Media Audit of your current Social Media Presence Like SEO Audit involved in Search Engine Optimization Campaign. Social media audits are useful to keep all your social media channels in a row, such as social profiles and passwords.

Step 3: Deliver The Right Mix of Content

On social media, you need to deliver the right mix of content Regularly. Promotions on social media should always be balanced, whether it's for the Black Friday, Holidays or Every Day. Exception discounts are meant to be shared, and social media can multiply the reach of your promotions. At the same time, it's crucial to keep standards high for images and copy, and to vary your mix of content. People appreciate great deals, but a non-stop stream of "xx percent off" posts can come off as routine or lacking personality.

Step 4: Pay Attention to Social Media Engagement

Skimping out on social media engagement in your social media strategy can pose a huge threat to your company’s social media presence. The Easy 3 steps to doing social media engagement right are being proactive, always listening, and being engaging.

Step 5: Build Relationships

It's All about human relationships. Every brand in the world does holiday and special event campaigns, but the ones that succeed don't do so accidentally – most of them are warm, original, and authentic. Focus on making real connections. Instead of pushing your product, consider giving your customers a platform to discuss their memories, share your company photo, or just send a genuine message wishing people all the best.

Step 6: Monitor Your Social Media

When it comes to social media, people have all the power to say whatever they want about your company and brand. What they are saying can be positive or negative. Regardless of how or why they give you feedback, not monitoring your social media audience is a missed opportunity.

Social media monitoring allows you to gain powerful insight into your customers, competitors, and industry influencers. To take full advantage of social media listening, you need to spread your monitoring across several social media channels, and keep a constant watch for new opportunities. However, acquiring these insights takes time, and the use of the right tools.

Here are Top 15 Social Media Management Tools To Save You Time.

Google+ Insights: Google+ Insights gives you an overview of your Google+ Page Insights for the last 30 days. Your Insights show numbers for Google+ post views, post actions and new followers. You can also see how each of those numbers has changed in the past 30 days.

Facebook Insights: With the Facebook Insights Page API you can access metrics about your Facebook Page. For example you can get the total number of people who have liked your Page or the number of people sharing stories about your page.

Twitter Analytics: Twitter Analytics Measure and boost your impact on Twitter. The new and improved Twitter analytics shows tons of awesome data about follower demographics and tweet engagement.

Pinterest Analytics: With Pinterest Analytics, You can see what people like from your profile and what they save from your website. Get new data about your audience, too, so you can learn what your customers really want.

Hootsuite: Hootsuite is a social media management system for brand management. The system’s user interface takes the form of a dashboard, and supports social network integrations for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, MySpace, WordPress, TrendSpottr and Mixi.

SocialOomph: Social Oomph started out as a service that just focused on helping Twitter users become more productive and they soon expanded to include other social platforms such as; Facebook and Linkedin.

Tweepi: Tweepi Twitter Follow Management Utility is a set of Twitter tools to add, follow and unfollow tweeps in bulk.

Spredfast: Spredfast is an social media marketing platform that helps marketers manage audience experiences and monitor brand engagement.

Sprout Social: Sprout Social is a social media management and engagement platform for businesses. Sprout enables social communication for business through three main functions: publishing, engagement and analytics. Sprout provides solutions for social media marketing, social media management, social customer service and social media analytics. Sprout’s platform offers users the ability to integrate with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+, Zendesk and UserVoice.

Everypost: Everypost is a social media publishing tool, enabling content publishers to post multimedia content across multiple platforms.

Bitly: Bitly is a URL shortening service. The company Bitly, Inc. was established in 2008. It is privately held and based in New York City. Bitly shortens 600 million links per month, for use in social networking, SMS, and email. Bitly makes money by charging for access to aggregate data created as a result of many people using the shortened URLs.

SocialFlow: SocialFlow uses real-time data and business rules to determine what and when to publish to your social media properties for both owned and paid social posts.

Crowdbooster: Crowdbooster measures and optimizes your social media marketing, providing powerful, easy-to-use analytics and recommendations on Twitter and Facebook.

Mention: Monitor millions of different sources and don't miss anything mentioning your keywords.

BuzzSumo: BuzzSumo is an extremely useful content-research tool. It has some incredibly powerful functionality and you should certainly test it out. There is a free version you can use to get started.

Step 7: Schedule Your Social Media Posting

Social media tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sprout Social take the stress out of managing multiple Twitter accounts by providing you the ability to schedule Tweets ahead of time.

Step 8: Target your audience better with the use of Social Media Statistics

Social media statistics allow marketers who use social media for business to guide their Social Media Strategies. With so many studies being done on social media, it would be a shame not to take advantage of these very informative numbers. This blog post puts together a healthy selection of social media statistics that every social media manager should know.

Step 9: Use Content Management Tools to manage and share your content

Even with a social media content calendar in place, content management can be tricky—especially if you’re juggling several social channels. Picking out the right piece of content to share out to your social media audience can be a daunting task for any social media manager.

Step 10: Use URL Shorteners to Track and Measure Engagements on your URLs

Tracking retweets and likes is no longer enough to give you sufficient data about social engagement. Remember that link you included in your post to drive people back to your website? Well, when you use URL shorteners, you’re provided with a trackable URL, so you can measure the success of that social media post in driving traffic to your website.

Step 11: Learn about Hashtags

You’ve probably seen people use a hashtag with every word in their Tweet, or dedicate a separate Instagram comment to include hashtags. But that doesn’t mean that’s the right way to use hashtags. Educate yourself on the do’s and don’ts of how to use hashtags in this blog post that goes over the fundamentals of hashtags.

Step 12: Blog Regularly

Your regular blog is a good place to write longer-form posts when needed. To get the most out of your efforts, make sure your blog is mobile-friendly. You can test it with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Learn More about How to Fix Common Mobile Content and Usability Issues.

Step 13: Update website old content and reshare them

Old content is your friend. Find your most popular posts and those that rank highly and update them as needed. Then reshare them across your social channels to draw new attention to those articles. A good way to ensure you have the most up-to-date news is finding reliable sources of information in your industry.

Step 14: Ask Feedback

If you’d like to have more customer feedback on your product or service, give your customers a reason to help you out. Incentives can run the gamut here, and most are simple and straightforward.

Step 15: Use Infographics

People have come to love and rely on infographics for explaining information clearly and concisely. Whether you create one yourself or hire a graphic designer, be sure to include your company’s name and URL. That way your work is attributed to your business as it moves across the socialsphere.

Ask those who share your infographic to link the image back to your site so you’ll enjoy more traffic as well. When you share your infographic on your own site, make sure to include some explanatory text that deep links to previous relevant articles you’ve published.

Step 16: Install the Pin It Button

If you want people to share your images, it’s essential to make it easy for them. By installing the Pin It button, users who like images in your post can share them on Pinterest and spread your visual content in a matter of seconds.

Step 17: Nurture Content Sharing

Whether your social media marketing department is comprised of a single person or a staff of 10, you don’t have to figure out meaningful company content on your own—ask for help from other departments. Who knows the current projects and goals better than the people who work with them daily?

For example, customer service can share success stories or ways they meet customers’ needs. Sales can tell you what was particularly hot this season. Product development can give you updates on new releases.

Tap into those resources as much as possible. Not only will you make your job easier, you’ll be sure to share the most important information.

Step 18: Participate in Conversations

If you want to connect with potential prospects, you have to engage with them. And to do that effectively, you need to know where they’re engaging most frequently on social media.

When you know where your prospects hang out, start connecting with them. If they’re on Twitter, add them to a Twitter list. Add Google+ users to a circle. Reach out to leads on LinkedIn. Read and listen to their content, and comment when you have something to add.

Step 19: Use YouTube and Vine

Creating brand awareness with quality videos posted on YouTube and Vine has been a go-to social marketing tactic.

Marketers should keep in mind, though, that YouTube is more than a platform for sharing video footage. It’s just as important to develop a channel that is in keeping with your brand identity (e.g., using consistent imagery, thumbnails, colors and graphics within your video and your channel page design).

Vine’s short looping videos have won the attention of businesses and fit the bill for a cost-effective and innovative way to promote products and services. To get your own creative juices flowing, check out how other businesses have been using Vine.

Step 20: Revisit Your Social Media Strategy

No matter how long your business has been on social media, it’s recommended to review your goals, assess your success and make any needed changes. Pulling back from one platform and switching it up on another may be just the thing you need to freshen up your presence and become more effective.

When it comes to Social Media Marketing Efforts, what tools are your current favorites? Are there new ones mentioned here that you might want to try or I missed important ones? Let me know by your comment below.