Blogging success does not come by chance. And it is not reserved for a handful of overly-gifted writers.
Successful bloggers are successful because they „help“ their posts to spread and get seen. They know the rules you need to follow to bring blog posts on the path to success and give them the initial push they need to have any chance of picking up speed.
This post is not about setting up a blog – I assume you already have a blog in place, or you should go take a look at this post about setting up a blog.
But even if you are blogging for a while and have already published a couple of posts there are some things you need to consider to take the next step towards more traffic, leads and making money from your blog.
Before you read on - we have various resources that show you exactly how to use social networks to gain massive traffic and leads. For instance, check out the following:
FREE Step-by-Step Twitter Marketing GuideFREE Pinterest Marketing Ebook
When you have written a great post, your job is not done. „Writing“ is only a limited part of „blogging“. And here are the 7 things you absolutely need to make sure to give your awesome blog post a chance to spread and reach success.
1. Add Structure
Longer text without any breaks, subheads, and bullets is hard to read. You will lose some of your hard-earned website visitors halfway through your article if your text is presented as ongoing lines of text without any structure that makes it easier to focus.
79% of your audience will not read all of your posts but scan it.
Adding structure to your text helps your readers to do that and only read the passages that are of special interest to them.
There are more structural elements that can kill your success:
- Too small fonts.
- Combination of unmatching fonts
Apart from that, a structure in your post can even help you with your content creation. The structure usually helps to create better content faster. Simply think about some subheads or chapters before you start creating your post. And after writing, make sure that your reader can SEE the intended structure in the layout. They will have a much easier and more enjoyable time reading it!
2. Check Grammar And Spelling
While blogging should not be about polishing and smoothing out your texts until they are perfect – but don’t show your personality – blog posts that contain too many mistakes will annoy at least some of your website visitors. Bad grammar also makes your blog posts harder to read.
It is not about being perfect. It is about making your posts enjoyable to read and showing your audience that you care. So you should try to have as few mistakes in your posts as possible and check for hard to read sentences before you publish.
Many of the larger blogs and content marketing departments use editors for each of their content pieces. For smaller or one-person blogs that is often not possible.
Hey, before you read on - we have in various FREE in-depth guides on similar topics that you can download. For this post, check out:
FREE workbook: CREATE AWESOME BLOG POSTSFREE Beginner's Guide: START A BLOG
But you can still get help to avoid having a ton of spelling and grammar mistakes in your posts. There are some tools you can use to find and eliminate most of the mistakes and give you tips for better writing. We here at The Social Ms use Grammarly for spell-checking and grammar.
3. Link From Related Older Posts To The New Post
The internal link structure of your website is an important factor for SEO. Many people think of adding links to related older content.
But have you ever considered to link from an older post to your awesome new content? That works extremely well if you have some well-running older posts that still get a ton of traffic and that are related to your new content.
Adding a link to the old post that points to the new post can help boost your Google ranking for the new post. Plus, this link might even send a little traffic from the old post to the new.
4. Write A Better Headline
The headline of your post has the power to decide over success or failure. A great headline will make people click on social media. If you are active in various social networks it may even pay off to use different headlines in different networks.
Some headline types have proven to often work well. In the end, you will have to test what resonates with your audience. There is nothing wrong with changing the headline of a post if your first attempt does not work well enough. And in social media, you can even use more than one headline for different posts.
Image Source: Quicksprout
5. Add Images
There are various reasons why images are important. You will need images for your content distribution – posts with images tend to get a lot more clicks. Shares and likes. Make sure that you provide an image in the right size for each social network that you are active in
But images also help to add structure to your posts. Some of the most successful bloggers add an image every couple of hundred words. Because it makes your post easier to read and will help to keep the attention of your audience.
Posts with image content compared to posts without. Source: Quicksprout
Image Source Quicksprout
6. Have Share Buttons On Your Blog – Make Sure they Offer A ready-made post
Share buttons make the sharing life of your audience so much easier. Make sure you don’t just install the share buttons. Also, add a ready-made post for the most important network. It is no help to have share buttons if they will not provide a ready-made post.
Whether you want people to tweet, pin or post to Facebook, you should provide the easiest possible way for your audience to do just that. If you don’t do your homework, don’t expect your audience to do it for you.
Just imagine how much more effort one of your readers has to put into sharing your post if you don’t provide a share button with a ready-made post… and then think: Would you do the effort for someone you barely know?
When you are starting out and new to the blogging game it is hard to know everything and remember all the tasks you need to do to give your blog the best start. That is why we created the workbook “Start, Run, And Make Money With Your Blog.”
We ask you the questions that you need to answer.
We take you through the necessary steps to get all set up and ready for success.
We help you to develop a blogging routine.
And more…
7. Actively Distribute Your Post
If you want an audience for your post, you need distribution. And if you want distribution, you need to start it yourself. If you want traffic from Twitter: Start using Twitter, grow an audience, share your posts.
If you want traffic from Pinterest: Create a pinnable image, and start pinning.
If you don’t distribute your content, why should others do it? Traffic does not magically appear if you wait patiently enough. Traffic grows because you start growing it!
Write a newsletter and tell your subscribers about your new post.
After hitting publish on a piece of content, your work actually starts. Share your post everywhere where you might find some people from your target group. Learn the specialties of the various outlets and learn to conquer them.
Then, and only then is your blog post ready for a journey to a larger audience!
Far too many bloggers don’t think enough about the tasks of blogging besides writing posts. Blogging is far less about creating content than optimizing and spreading the word.
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