Blog Traffic: How to Get the Most From Each Post

21 Ways to Maximize Blog Post Audience

Having spent time writing your blog post, are you maximizing its reach?  Here are twenty-one tips to help you expand the audience and life of each of your blog posts.

Before you publish, take these five actions to maximize blog post reach.

  1. Check post is optimized for specific keyword(s). To this end, check that the words you used are the same ones your target audience uses with search tools. (For help, here’s seven search optimization tips for bloggers.)
  2. Edit post for good English. Have someone check your blog post to ensure it makes sense to an outsider and that its language is correct. Poor usage and bad spelling can translate to lower pageviews.
  3. Reassess your blog post title. Is your title consistent with your post content? If not, you’ll lose readers. Does the title grab readers and pull them in? If not, your post may not have a fighting chance since 80% of readers don’t get beyond the title. (Here are some tips for writing killer blog titles.)
  4. Optimize images and other media for keywords. Ensure photographs have filenames and titles associated with them that are relevant to your post’s keywords. IMAGE_042 won’t add to your Google-juice.
  5. Use links correctly within your post. Attach the link to the appropriate keywords, not “click here”.

After your blog post is published, extend its reach with these sixteen tactics. Bear in mind that not all of them will work for every post.

  1. Distribute your blog posts via RSS and email. To broaden your blog audience, allow readers to choose how they want to receive your content.
  2. Deliver posts automatically to your blog’s Facebook page, LinkedIn and other relevant social media sites. By syndicating feeds to these social networks, you don’t have to remember to post them every time you publish.
  3. Create a handcrafted tweet to promote your post. The objective is to attract a wider readership. Add “please retweet” to your tweet. You can’t ask this for every post and you must pay it forward for other people’s posts. You can and should schedule tweets two or three times to get the word out. (These shouldn’t just be your own tweets; you should tweet other people’s materials too.)
  4. Use hashtags to expand your tweet’s reach. Hashtags expand your Twitter reach and allow you to share your content beyond your immediate followers.
  5. Have social sharing buttons at the top and bottom of the post. This allows readers to share your content with their readers and followers without thinking about taking action. Also have a send-to-friend email button although it’s more of a reminder than a call to action.
  6. Allow for printing. Program the footer to include a link back to your blog. If readers print the posts out, they can find your blog again.
  7. Post your blog articles to social bookmarking sites. (for example, Reddit and StumbleUpon.) Understand that participation requires you also share other people’s content so you don’t look like you’re spamming.
  8. Incorporate widgets with tweets and streams on your blog, intranet and website. This way your information can be dispersed. Also promote this twitter slurp to bloggers and other companies on your website. Remember the goal is to build your reputation and following.
  9. Offer your blog posts on Kindle and/or iTunes where appropriate. Many bloggers overlook this option.
  10. Allow comments. Realize readers want to see how others view your content. Respond to comments so readers know that you’re involved and accessible. Also, it increases the number of comments.
  11. Include post titles and blurb in company emailings and round ups. Additionally, email your internal audience.
  12. Participate in groups and forums. Use LinkedIn and other boards relevant to your business to share your blog posts. Consider other groups like Meetups and Yahoo Groups.
  13. Find relevant questions to answer where you can share your blog posts. LinkedIn questions and Twitter search are good for this. Also, use other Q&A sites like Quora, Yahoo Answers and AnswerWiki.
  14. Include links and blurbs about your blogs posts in regular emailings and newsletters. These readers may not visit your blog but are interested in your content.
  15. Add links to your blog posts on customer service and purchase emailings. Since this probably needs to be programmed into these systems, make sure that the link picks up the most recent post.
  16. Program employee email signature files to include link to latest blog post. This also helps get the word out about your blog in an understated way.

For each blog post, use as many of these tips as you can to increase your blog reach over time. By optimizing every post, you’ll be able to attract new readers who may stick around and spread the word to others.

Do you have any suggestions that you’d add to this list?

Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen


To help your blog, here are some useful articles:

Photo credit: Rutger de Moddertukker via Flickr

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