Do you have a plan to dominate your niche?

Here is your 5 step stress-free strategy to promote your blog

 

A great deal of your effort, as a business owner, goes into making sure that your site gets visitors. Promoting your blog can be stressful. And it is! If… you don’t have a plan. It is important to get your ducks in a row!

In this post, you will learn about 5 key steps you can focus on to promote your blog and not stress about it.

I don’t’ know about you but my head is spinning from so many on-line tools available to promote your brand. Opportunities are litterally endless. But the end result is you don’t know what to do (especially if you are just starting out). Feels stressful at times, right?

I found it is very helpful to prioritize things and try to focus on specific steps, rather than hopping from one thing to another.

Here are 5 proven steps to focus your efforts while promoting your brand (and not to lose your sanity).

• be selective, focused and consistent with your social media strategy
• do on-page SEO (search engine optimization)
• reuse and promote consistently content you already have
• work with other bloggers
• always have something to give.

1. Choose your social media platforms

If you are a one-person business and if you don’t have a team of social media professionals working for you (most bloggers don’t) – you probably don’t have time to create your consistent presence on every single existing social media platform (and you probably stressing out about it too!). You need to choose.

To get traffic to your blog from the social media, you need to be consistent. Chose platforms you are most comfortable with. Choose the ones that resonate with your personality and your business. What is consistent in this case? It means posting regularly SEO friendly visually ‘yummy’ content. Also, it means to be helpful to your readers and engage with them by asking and answering their questions. Start with creating an editorial calendar (what you are going to post and when). Your free template is here.

Using automated platforms, like Hootsuite, can save you a lot of time. Other alternatives are TweetDeck, ShortStack or Sharebetter.

You can use SNAP (Social Next Auto Poster). It is a free plugin. It allows you to publish messages to your Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn, Pinterest and several other platforms accounts. This plugin works with profiles, business pages, community pages, groups, etc.

2. Do on-page Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Why is on-page optimization so important for your blog promotion strategy?

By making your content SEO friendly you make it easier for search engines to find it. There are certain adjustments you have to do to optimize your content (called on-page SEO) before you hit publish. It is very simple. It all starts with installing your Yoast SEO plugin. All you have to do is just do what the plugin tells you until the plugin gives you a green light. Literally. If it tells you to include more keywords, include them, optimize images etc. Always use your common sense though :))

I have a blog post  How to Write SEO Optimized Content to Get to the Top of Google Search Results [All-in-One Practical 2018 Guide] that will help you to do your SEO optimization.

Just to remind you what are the key steps for your SEO on-page optimization:

• Choose your keyword/keyword phrase
• Choose your categories and tags
• Come up with a catchy headline that includes your keywords
• Make sure your headers and sub headers are in H1 and H2 etc.
• Optimize your images
• Make sure your text is readable and has keywords.

Here is a visual step by step on-page SEO checklist.

Keywords optimization

One little tip for your keywords optimization.

Keyword obsession and stuffing is a thing in the past. Google algorithm will penalize you for overusing keywords. In fact, now Google recognizes synonyms to your keywords as well.

One thing to remember: You write for your audience, not for the search engines. Your content should be helpful and sound natural. Meaning that your keywords should fit the narrative of your content. To make sure you are not overusing keywords  you can use this free tool  Anchor text over optimization

Before you sit down to write your next post, check what is trending in your niche. See what people are looking for and choose the best keywords to describe it. Google Trends is a good tool for that. My favorite keywords search tools are Keyword Tool or Google Keyword Planner. The more specific and longer phrase you optimize your post for, the more likely you get the kind of visitors interested in your content and your services.

Related: A simple long tail keyword trick your blog will not survive without.

3. Reuse and promote the content you have

Writing new high-quality content helpful to your readers is important.  What is also very important to promote and reuse content you already have. You have put a lot of effort into creating it. Why not reusing again, after all?

By reusing, I don’t mean cut and paste word for word again. No. Give your existing content a new life by tweaking it a bit, adding new visuals, repurposing it. Just a few ideas of reusing content are:

• make checklists out of your blog post
• make blog posts out of your videos
• create a wrap-up post out of several of your content pieces
• make a slide show, infographics or other visual with your posts.

 

 

4. Connect with other with other bloggers

The blogosphere is like an ecosystem. Your blog cannot exist in alone. You need to connect with other online entrepreneurs. Most of them are pretty nice:)

Where and how do you find bloggers you want to connect with?

• You probably know and have in mind at least a couple of bloggers/ online entrepreneurs in your niche you like. You can reach out and connect.
• You can interact with other bloggers in the social media
• Guest blogging is a great way to establish your brand. It is also great for link building/SEO. Use this links to find guest blogging opportunities MangiaMarketing or MyBlogGuest.
• Find inspiration and support from other bloggers. Here is a good source for that MyBlogU
• Work with already established names (influencers) in your niche. Here some handy tools you can use Kred, Klout, and of cause Buzzsumo.

 

 

5. Share something for FREE

 

People like free stuff. Come up with a  digital product (an e-book, printable template, white paper, checklist, webinar etc.) to share with your readers. Creating a free offer in exchange for email from your subscribers is called a lead magnet. It will help you to build your e-list, establish yourself as an expert in your niche and will be helpful to your followers.

 

The bottom line: By developing a plan and narrowing down your promotional efforts to several specific steps you will stay focused and consistent. If your social media branding is smart, your keywords choices are great, your content is SEO friendly and you get the most out of it,  you interact with other bloggers, and have free giveaways for your email list building, then things will definitely work out and you should see your traffic grow in time.

Share your success with me and tell me what worked the best for you in your stress-free blog promotional strategy. Best of luck!

Connect with me on Facebook for more blog promotion tips.

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