Success in blogging depends on loads of factors.
Writing quality content is one of them.
What comes after publishing quality content?
Searching for another hot topic? Compiling another epic blog post? I don’t think so.
Take a deep breath and think what your reader will do with your recently published blog post.
Let me ask you a question. Can you leave your newborn blog post on search engines?
No doubt you’ve done keyword research and SEO for getting high SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) but is it enough?
A search engine takes 4 to 6 weeks to rank one blog post if it worth ranking. Even to get a high SERP for a newly published blog post, you need to do something like social media promotion or backlinking.
Here I’ll explain 13 actions which you should do after publishing, to get the maximum response for your newly published blog post.
These actions will increase traffic, engagement, on-page, off page SEO and your brand awareness.
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Revise your newly published blog post
Revision is essential. Before taking any further steps, revise your published content to rectify any unseen errors. Revise your whole content from proofreading to publishing. There is a chance you forgot something to add.
The best time to revise your newly published blog post is the day after publishing. The reason behind this is to revise with a fresh mind. On the day of publishing, you may overlook some aspects, but the next day, you may get a better idea to make your content more appealing.
Tip: Take short breaks during writing. Short breaks will give you new energy, stamina, and new thinking.
Here is the quick overview of your revision:
- Proofread your content:
- Make sure your piece of writing is free from spelling or grammatical mistakes.
- Check sentence formation. Use short and easy to understand sentences.
- Check the paragraph formation. Make short paragraphs. Lengthy paragraphs lose readers’ attention.
- Check title, headings, references, and citations.
- If you are not good at proofreading, hire someone or ask your friend or co-authors to proofread for you.
- Use some online service for proofreading. I use Grammarly for this.
- Check Images
- Make sure all the relevant images, screenshots and info-graphs are properly added.
- You must check the dimensions of images. If you first added a horizontal image, make sure all images are of same dimensions.
- To reduce the page load time, compress all images but keep the image quality high. I use Kraken.io. It’s free and the best part of it is no change in image quality.
- Check images to see whether they are optimized well or not (use your keywords).
- On-Page SEO
- Check keyword density. Keep keyword density 1% to 1.5%.
- Check headings and subheadings. It’s good for on-page SEO.
- Recheck the Meta description for the blog post. If you missed it before, add it now. Make sure you’ve put your keywords in it.
- Check categories. Add the most relevant categories.
- Check internal linking. Make sure no link within a blog post is broken.
- Make sure you’ve done complete on-page SEO. Here is the best On-Page-SEO Guide.
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Interlink with old posts
Interlinking is best for reducing bounce rate and increasing readers’ trust. When readers read the blog post and find another useful link from the same blog, they believe the blog post is useful for them. Interlinking is also helpful in SEO. We are not here to talk about the benefits of interlinking but linking new posts to the old posts.
You’ve surely some posts that bring a maximum portion of whole traffic to you. Those posts are actually cash-cows for your blog. Take advantage of them and include new blog post link to the relevant old posts. Think technically. Old posts are already getting enough traffic from search engines. If old posts contain new blog posts’ URL, readers will definitely visit the new posts too. So you’ve converted traffic from your old posts to your new posts.
Similar to this, when you add your new blog post’s link to the old one, you are actually telling search engine bots that there is a new blog post as well, please crawl on it also.
[bctt tweet=”Linking with old posts helps search engines to rank new blog posts” username=”MrsPaznanski”]
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Email subscriber list
I always wanted to be a blogger with hundreds of thousands of loyal readers. I believe my loyal readers should have the first right to my content, so they should get the very latest blog posts first.
Your subscribers are your most loyal readers. They want your content directly in their inbox.
Before sharing with the general public, send the email with the latest blog post description to your subscribers.
Building a subscriber list is essential for a blogger to know who is actually reading his blog. If you are not building an email list, then start today. I use GetSiteControl for building my email list. It has easy to install services and different options to display the subscriber box. I use MailChimp for emailing my subscribers. This is free service with customizing features. You can add subscribers and send them emails with your own descriptions. MailChimp also has an analytics feature.
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Reach out to people who have been mentioned in the blog post
You mention many links from other blogs and websites in your blog post just like I did in this post. Those links are a valuable resource for your readers. Adding external links to your blog post is actually a win-win situation for all.
You added external links because you need to authenticate your blog post. You need to add value to your content.
Readers take external links as validity and honesty of writer. They believe that writer wants to give the best knowledge to them. This effort develops trust and relation between writer and reader.
When search engine bots crawl a blog post and find the external link, this increases the domain authority of a blog. Linking to external linking is one of the signals in Google search ranking. Check Google Penguin 4.0 update for it.
Outreaching to those who have been mentioned in your blog post is essential to maintaining relation with industry colleagues. I am not telling you to ask them to link you back just because you linked them. What I want you to say is thanks to them. Just write them that thanks for creating such a useful content which helped me create my blog post. Here is a sample email:
Hey [Name of Publisher]
I hope everything is fine with you,
I just want to say thank you because you have created such an awesome piece of content [title of the post you linked]. Your created post help me completed my blog post [Post title + URL]
Regards,
Your Name
This email will work magic for you. If your email gets read, most probably the receiver will open your new blog post, and if they liked it, they can share with their audience and the matter is solved. Your new published blog post reached the maximum audience.
Do you need immediate traffic to a new blog post? Right? Social media sites are the best source of quick traffic. There are many social media sites available on the internet. All you have to do is select the relevant platform for your blog.
Let me share with you the popular social media platforms and how to use them.
Facebook is the most popular social media site on the internet with 1712 million active users in September 2016. This highest active user base means Facebook is one of the quickest sources of blog traffic.
To get maximum traffic, you need to develop a sharing strategy.
Share blog post links with an image on Facebook. Bufferapp researched that photo posts get 39% more interaction.
Write short and informative descriptions which quickly explains to readers what this post all about is.
Create a Facebook page for your blog and manage it effectively. Attach that page with your blog. Share your post on the page.
Join relevant groups on Facebook and share your new blog post in those groups.
Learn your Facebook audience’s mind and schedule your sharing according to them. BuddyMedia found that sharing on Thursday and Friday gets 18% higher interaction.
Twitter is the second most popular social media site on the web. Twitter has the unique feature of 140 characters status. The user can only share 140 characters. But for me to be honest with you, Twitter is the best source of immediate traffic.
The Twitter hashtags feature helps users to make their status prominent. Tweets with hashtags get 2X more engagement. Tweets with one or two hashtags get 21% more engagement.
Twitter management itself claims that tweets with an image get a higher engagement rate that tweets without an image.
A tweet has a very short life so make it sure you tweet very frequently. Read your twitter audience’s mind and share according.
Tap into all networks
Like Facebook and Twitter, there are many social media networks you can use to get immediate traffic.
Whether it’s Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram or Reddit, ensure your presence is on all the networks.
Other than social media platforms, there are lots of communities, news aggregators, and forums to promote your new content. All you have to set your promotion strategy and stick with it. Share new posts like a madman but keep in mind you should not annoy anyone. Keep it simple and consistent.
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Build backlinks
Did you notice why some blog posts get huge traffic and why some don’t? Backlinking is one of the major factors for consistent traffic. The more backlinks a blog post has, the more traffic will come to blog post.
Just after publishing a blog post, immediately try to build backlinks for that post. The most important thing to note here– do not try to build spam backlinks or backlinks from low quality or irrelevant sites.
How to build backlinks? I have a solution for you.
Find some broken links on the web relevant to your blog post and write those publishers that your link is broken. Then give them a solution with your latest blog post. If they found your content worthy, they will surely add in their content.
The second method is search for your blog post competitors’ link and then find who added those links as a backlink. Then write to them with appreciation and tell them that you’ve also compiled the same blog post. If they found your content worthy, surely they will add your link into their content.
The third method is writing a guest post for quality blogs and add your new post link into it. Make sure you are writing relevant content.
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Mention your expert sources when sharing
Sharing is caring. Every time you share, your content gets traffic to your blog post. One easy way to boost your traffic through social sharing is mentioning industry experts and those who you linked to your content.
How does it work? Let me explain. The people you mention will see that you’ve mentioned them. This will show on their wall and their followers will also see this. They will open your content, read, and if your content is found worthy, they will re-share.
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Ask an influencer for a killer quote
I’ve personally experienced this and got a huge response. I created a blog post and asked 3 experts with large numbers of followers to read and share my content on Twitter. Luckily, one of them wrote and tweeted my blog post to his followers. I got two quick results.
I got two quick results. One is my content had been seen by many people since the sharer has a large number of followers; I received a quick boost in traffic. Second, the tweet shared by my expert also got many re-tweets. In simple words, one share multiplied into many shares.
Be humble with this effort and make sure you are not annoying anyone with your requests again and again.
Tip: Create a list of industry experts and pick some of them for every blog post.
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Comment on blogs in your niche
Commenting on other blogs has many benefits. First, you know that what’s going on in your niche. Second, who is your competitor and what is he doing? Get noticed by others with your suggestions and questions in other blogs’ comments.
Commenting on other relevant blogs brings real traffic to your post as well as the attention of the bloggers. Have a look at the image. How I came to the realization of one pro blogger by my commenting on his blog post.
Now many blogs have an option of adding a website in the comment section. Take advantage of it.
There is also a new comment plugin used by many bloggers called Comment Luv. This plugin has unique features of adding the do follow the link to the recently published blog post. Take advantage of it and comment on those blogs which have this plugin. But make sure you are commenting on relevant blogs. Commenting on irrelevant will be considered as spam commenting and will decrease your domain authority.
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Monitor AND analyze data
All of the above tips are helpful to get traffic to the newly published blog post. By applying the above, you can quickly boost your traffic.
The next thing you need to do is monitor the data. Which method of receiving more traffic is actually the best for you? In which method are you good and in what area do you need to learn more?
If your Twitter account is bringing more traffic to your blog post than Facebook, then next time focus on Twitter first and rethink your Facebook strategy. Learn which social media site is bringing more traffic.
Not only for a current blog post, monitoring all your blog post traffic will help you every time. Even after publishing your next blog post, you will not need to worry about what to do. You already know which method is best for you. Go, apply and get immediate results.
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Extend your ideas
Readers want something unique and interesting. Not every blog post goes viral but only a few. Keep your eyes on the content that brings the most traffic to your blog. Create relevant stuff to that most-liked blog post and leverage your one blog post traffic to many others.
Go with the flow. Write and deliver what your readers want. Study your readers’ minds hard and respond according to them.
Conclusion
Writing quality and consistent content is difficult but crucial for blogging success. After writing quality content, make sure you’ve done all the above-discussed methods to make your content more appealing. Proofread so no can find any mistakes (human errors always neglected), email your most loyal readers, share on all social networks, and monitor results.
Blogging is a consistent activity, so keep doing all these activities after publishing every blog post.
Now it’s your turn.  Do let me know if I missed something. Which thing do you think is the most critical just after publishing a blog post? Do let me know through your comments.
Host blogger’s commentary: Readers, please share so bloggers of all experience levels know what steps to take after publishing a blog post and about these important tips for increasing blog traffic.
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