It’s a simple question. What do you do to promote a piece of content you’ve written once you’ve published it? Do you leave it alone and hope for the best? Do you send out a tweet or two talking about the latest addition to your blog? Or do you go overboard with promotion, using every social network known to man to its full extent and sending an email or two to your list? The sad truth is, many bloggers looking to make money online pick choice “A”. (hoping for the best) Most pick choice “B”. Only a few go with “C”, which is a shame. Before I even go on, let me tell you why. Bloggers that don’t go crazy with content marketing do it for one simple reason: the laziness factor.
What I’m saying is that if you’re one of those “A” or “B” people, maybe you aren’t cut out for being a blogger after all. If you’re still with me, (and you are since you’re reading this text) great! Here’s the reason why content marketing is so important. The phrase “build it and they will come” is a lie. If you think blogging is all about writing, “they” won’t come, whoever they are. So if you want your content to succeed on the internet, you’re going to need to make real effort for it. And I’m not talking about the standard “spend a lot of time writing and it will pay off”. I’m talking about spending time getting readers making your content promotable. Here’s my take on how to do just that. Note: To work with this guide, you don’t have to be the best copywriter in the world. Just know the basics, and you’re good to go.
Step 1 – Give Your Child A Name
The first step in attracting traffic to any piece of content is giving it a nice compelling title. In our fast-paced world, the average internet user attention span is about 2 seconds. There’s no patience, only a rushed need for information. All I have to say about it is that if your headline can’t turn a casual visitor into a reader from the start, you aren’t even giving your baby (your content) the chance to survive. You wouldn’t want that, would you? Luckily, writing good headlines isn’t so hard. The trick is suspense. Trust me, just leave visitors hanging and they’re bound to click through. Asking a question (like the title of this post) works well, too.
Step 2 – Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is a marketing approach where the goal is to get found, not find visitors yourself. When it comes to marketing content, you can describe inbound marketing using only three letters: SEO. Writing search engine friendly articles isn’t as hard as you think. Just cater for the user, answer their every question, and not only will your copy end up keyword rich, but if you’re lucky, it might even attract a link or two from leaders in your niche, which can’t be bad. 🙂
Step 3 – Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing is- you guessed it, the opposite of inbound marketing. It means finding readers yourself and getting them (using a little bit of compelling persuasion magic) to check out your blog. Some people regard outbound marketing as aggressive, and it is in many cases, but it doesn’t have to be if you do it right, so don’t be afraid to reach out. With content, the outbound technique you use is email marketing. Build a list if you don’t have one. It isn’t as hard as you think. Just get some great content to go free with a subscription, and opt-ins will just pour in. But if you do have one, just send one friendly email every time you publish a blog post. Make sure your list wants these notifications, or you might find your user confidence scarred badly. OK, content marketing becomes repetitive easily. So what? Who told you that blogging was going to be easy? Now it’s your turn! I’m not going to be the only one sharing here! What are your thoughts about promoting your content? Any special methods that you’d like us to know about? Just drop us a comment below. Unlike blogging, it’s easy, I promise! 🙂
Excellent post Gary!
I do try and use all the methods you mentioned with all my articles. Sometimes it can be a bit tedious but the results are generally worth the effort.
I’m not a big believer in the “build it and they will come” theory. If you want them to come, you need to give them a good reason to make the trip. 😉
I don’t think I overdo it with my promos and I only focus on the most popular social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and a couple of smaller networks. I do have a list but I don’t want to annoy them with an email every time I publish an article. I save those for what I feel are the best.
Thanks again for providing another thought provoking post.
Thanks for your input Robert Build it and they will come is not the answer as bloggers we need to make the effort to get the visitors as you mentioned give them a reason to make the trip it is more like promote it and you will see the results.
Interesting post Gary, I use all the tips you mentioned here. I like a lot out bound Marketing, because despite is most aggressive like method, it give me quick results.
Thanks for your kind words Nicola i always believe that it is best to choose the marketing stradegy that works bes tfor our blog inbound marketing is a very good tactics.
Another awesome post 🙂 the above mentioned first 2 points are really great and works fine with me.
I believe in writing good contents with catchy headlines and some SEO.
Some how i don’t like the outbound method 🙁
Thanks for your kind words Shabnam Marketing our blog is something we all need to do what method we choose should be the one that works best for us
Brilliant Post….I will give it A++++ So, well written and everything makes sense. How well I am with content marketing? I think I am doing fine with it. I believe content marketing is much more important for the niche bloggers not for the semi-professional bloggers like us. Niche blogging is all about professional blogging and professional blogging is all about making money online. So, I feel you have put it in your best the best will come to you surely. You won’t have to work like anything for the marketing of the same. Still, I believe as per you post, inbound marketing i.e; SEO has a much bigger role to play in the overall popularity. As ultimately search engines bring in the quality traffic and if people are searching for anything related to your niche and if they reach to your blog through search engines then what better can you expect. For me, organic lisitings is one of the most vital forms of content marketing. Everything then comes rest. Social Media Marketing also pays but I don’t find it as useful as the organic listings.
Well said Aswani the information you provide sounds like some one with great experience Thanks for your input brother
Very great post! I used the two first tips and it works very good!
When i write a new post, i always tweet it and sometimes do a trackback in social bookmarking website like Digg.
Hi lucy Thanks for your input glad that you found the post useful and i do hope you continue to participate in the conversation here
Hey thanks, these are good tips. The depth of the internet is so vast that there are many ways to get noticed. I keep learning about more and more of these ways.
Thanks for your input here and i am happy that you found the tips useful hope to have you around more regularly thanks for your support.
Thanks for sharing the effective tips for making money online through blogging.Well content marketing is the best method for writing the content unique and then promote it through different link building ways.
Such blogs are very important and no doubt quite beneficial. There are some other people also who are providing the better information that helps in making the content which is rich and even worth for marketing and I believe content optimization is what very essential.
Thanks
as new comer as blogger, i dont know how is content stucture as good on seo serp. maybe you can advice me.. thanks…
I still think the best way of building quick links is by leaving quality comments