The process for writing a blog is pretty similar to the one you learned for writing essays in middle school—research, draft, edit. Spending time on each of these steps will produce interesting, polished blog posts. However, for online content, you also need to promote to get the most benefit from your work.
In this post, we'll give specific instructions and examples for how to advertise your blog posts in two main places:
Sharing your blog posts will help your audience find the content they need and help you build a stronger customer base.
How to advertise the blog on your website
Your website is the hub for all your online marketing efforts. If you are serious about promoting your products and services through blogging, you need to showcase your writing efforts on your site. Promoting your blog in these four places on your website will highlight your content.
1. Add a blog feed to your home page
If you've ever looked at the Google Analytics for your website, "Home" is probably the most visited page. Include a blog feed on your homepage to show your new visitors that you are updating your content regularly.
If they see a topic they are interested in, they'll click through to read the entire blog post, spending more time on your site.
A BLOG FEED wll the blog title, a short description, and link to read more of your latest posts.
2. Create a specific page for your blog
Every page on your site should be easy to find, including your blog. Give your blog its own page in your menu where it makes the most sense to users.
This is why hosting your blog on your own domain is more effective than using a third-party platform. People want content online quickly and easily, so if you force users to click a direct link when they want to read your latest post, they may just find the information they need elsewhere.
BLOG PAGE clearly labeled in our main menu.
3. Link to your blog on main pages
Each of your company's major products or services should have its own page on your website. But you may also want to write a blog post further explaining the product or service. If you use this method, link your blog post on the main product page so customers can learn more about your product before they contact you to purchase.
BLOG POST links on related web pages promote your content and keep users engaged on your website.
See what this looks like on the complete SEO page.
4. Promote your new content in other blog posts
At Esultants, our most popular post is How to Set-up a Twitter Business Account. We first posted this over four years ago, but since it met a need and we've regularly updated it, it continues to draw in new visitors every month.
When we wrote Using Twitter for Business in 2018, we linked to it in our popular 2013 how-to post. This boosted the page views of our new post and showed visitors to the old post that we are still talking about Twitter and the many changes over the years.
RELATED POST links give readers additional in-depth information.
You'll probably find your blog in many of the same categories. You can add several links to relevant posts within the same category at the bottom of your post. This turns your blog into a choose-your-own-adventure in which readers can explore more articles on your site that relates to their area of interest. Fortunately for your blog readers, the path they choose won’t end in fictional death.
LINK LIBRARY at the end of blog posts acts as a choose-your-own-adventure.
How to share on social media
Remember the days of RSS feeds and keeping your favorite blogs as browser bookmarks? People still use these tools to catch up on blogs, but social media is the best way for you to promote your content to new and existing clients.
We know from experience.
Case Study:
At Esultants, we increased our blogging to once or twice a month in February of 2017. However, we didn’t start sharing our posts regularly on all our social media platforms until July. When we did, our unique page views on the blog increased by 117% and social referrals for the entire site increased by 227% over the last period.
UNIQUE PAGEVIEW growth on blog pages shown on our Google Analytics dashboard.
SOCIAL REFERRALS on our website is shown on our Google Analytics dashboard.
Here's what we found works for sharing blog links on each of the major social media platforms:
Google My Business
Google My Business is more of a listing site than social media platform, but their posts feature fits into a discussion about sharing content.
You can use Google posts to share a link to your latest blog post with an image, description, and button link. Google posts are connected to your Google My Business listing if someone searches you or your industry category.
GOOGLE POSTS can be used to share news, announce events, promote products, or highlight special offers.
Related: How to Set Up & Optimize Google My Business
As the most popular platform, Facebook is a great starting place for content marketing on social media. However, in 2018, Facebook rolled out a new algorithm that makes it hard for businesses to get noticed, especially with link posts.
Facebook isn’t interested in promoting content that will take users away from their app; they prefer keeping the conversation on their own platform.
You can still post your latest links on Facebook—just be authentic and creative in your strategy for generating comments on Facebook. Maybe ask a question with your link. Or you could post an excerpt of the blog post in a graphic and simply post the link to the rest of the post in the first comment.
Or turn the new algorithm to your advantage by focusing on video. Use Facebook Live to give an overview of your post or answer questions from your readers about the topic.
Whichever strategy you use, keep in mind, while the algorithm is new, you may need to try a few different tactics and see which works best to reach your specific audience.
Related: Facebook for Business: Why Your Company Needs It
Twitter is popular for information sharing, making it a good place to promote your blog posts. Just don't forget your Twitter etiquette when sharing links! Use two relevant hashtags and tweet the same article a few times throughout the week to make sure your audience sees it among the sea of 500 million daily tweets.
Related: Using Twitter for Business in 2018
Do people really use LinkedIn as social media? If you are a B2C business, you likely won’t find people on LinkedIn looking for what you're selling. However, if you are a B2B company selling your expertise (like Esultants!) LinkedIn is a perfect place to share your latest content.
Unlike Instagram or Pinterest, people are often on LinkedIn at work, where they're also interacting with B2B products and services and researching business topics. Post a link to your blog post on LinkedIn and be the answer to these searches.
LinkedIn wants to keep users on their platform, so write a long caption with your link and ask a question to generate conversation in the comments.
Instagram doesn't allow hyperlinks in your captions, which means you need to get creative with promoting your blog links. You have three main places to showcase your latest work:
1. Bio
Your Instagram bio is the only place you can add a hyperlink (unless you have over 10K followers—then you can add the "Swipe Up" feature to Stories). With the free version of Linktree, you are able to add a link in your bio that redirects visitors to multiple links of your choosing.
LINKTREE ON INSTAGRAM lets businesses promote multiple links in their bio.
2. Feed
Here's where you can use your beautifully designed graphics! Share a quote or stat from the blog post in a well-designed image. Write a caption summarizing your blog post and direct them to your bio for the link.
3. Stories
Take a video of yourself scrolling through the article with a text overlay announcing "New Blog Post!" Or take a short video of yourself recapping what's in the post. Since stories only last 24 hours, post a new one to promote the link again or add the video to your archive stories. Include a question or poll to boost engagement even further!
Related: Instagram for Business: Why Your Company Needs It
Pinterest is an image-based online bulletin board. This is where users "pin" something to read, cook, or create later. If you are writing how-to articles or visual content, you may consider creating pinnable (vertical, with text) images to share with a keyword-rich caption and link to your blog post.
Repeat
Sharing the same blog post more than once on each platform will improve your page views.
Why?
- Most of your audience won't see your post the first time. You know those algorithms we've been talking about this whole post? Their existence means only a percentage of your audience is seeing what you share. That's why we study the algorithm and give you tips for giving the beast what it wants.
- Even if they see your post, they may not be able to read it. People are on social media all the time. Which means it's a great place to promote content! But it also means people may be scrolling through their feeds at times when they don't have time to read an article, no matter how interesting it sounds. Posting the same link again on a different day and different time will increase the chances that it will reach ready eyes.
What are your next steps?
There is A LOT to do to promote each blog post. This one is loaded up with lots of options so you can pick and choose what will work for you. You may feel like you’re spending more time advertising your blog posts than writing them, and at first, this might be true. However, once you know which promotional techniques work well for you, you can cut out any promotions that aren’t generating results.
But don't feel like you have to do everything we do at Esultants. We've experimented with all of the examples in this post—and more! Every month, we share our blog on each platform multiple times.
We've learned the ins and outs of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, and we can share the best practices with you here and in our monthly newsletter.
We're only successful when you are, which is why we suggest only our best-tested tactics.
If you're not interested in testing out all the promotion techniques in this post but you want the results we've seen in our blog and in those of our clients', check out how our flexible online marketing and maintenance programs can supplement or take over your blog writing and promotion.
Want to know more about starting a successful blog for small business? Read on!
Or download our free goal planner to start setting (and achieving) your blogging goals.