Last week I wrote 10 SEO Blog Post Publishing Steps that Most Bloggers Forget.
The post did well: 100+ Tweets, 50+ comments (half mine), and Michael even told me, “when I saw it, I was like, this is what I like.”
One reason that post did well was because I followed the advice in the post (with the exception of #5).
Another reason it did well is because I followed up with many of the 10 blog post marketing steps that I want to tell you about today.
1. Schedule Instead of Publish
I always schedule rather than publish because scheduling gives me one last chance to look over the post.
I also schedule my posts to be published at midnight for three reasons:
- So the published on time is 00:00. I’m a little OCD about it.
- So it has the maximum number of hours with the current date.
- So it has a few “live-hours” before Feedburner/Aweber emails out between 7am-9am. This gives it a chance to have a few Tweets, Likes and comments before it gets emailed out.
2. Read it Again
Immediately after your post is published, read it again. You should’ve already looked it over for grammar. Now is the time to look for ways to improve the final post.
If you don’t enjoy spending a few minutes reading your post one last time, then you probably didn’t do a very good job of writing it.
It’s like fixing up an old car. Once it’s complete, if you don’t spend at least a few minutes admiring it, then you know you could’ve done better.
3. Tweet it Out
Simple enough, eh?
I don’t use any auto-tweeting tools because I like to adjust the tweet and I like to be able to say, “hey world… I just now finished this post. Come be one of the first to see it.”
4. Share on Facebook
Facebook, on the other hand, is a bit more strategic.
When you publish your blog posts on your personal profile, understand that those people are primarily your friends and family. They probably don’t care too much about the content of the post but they will be interested in the fact that you wrote it. So when you add the comment to the link, include something a bit more personal.
When you post your link on your Facebook page, know that these are people who have “Liked” your blog/brand/company. So here, add a comment mentioning the benefit of taking a few minutes to read the post.
It’s important to share the article on both your personal profile and Facebook page at the same time because people who follow both are more likely to see it. It’s the same reason you’re starting to see the links that multiple friends recommend.
5. Set Up Automatic Pinging
If you’re unfamiliar with pinging, there are a number of sites and platforms (including Google, Yahoo!, and Technorati) that allow you to automatically notify, or “ping,” them when your site is updated with new content.
If you’re using WordPress, it’s easy to set up.
From your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings > Writing and scroll down to Update Services.
In that box, copy and paste these URLs:
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.twingly.com/
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.bloglines.com/ping
http://ping.feedburner.com/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://www.octora.com/add_rss.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://www.wasalive.com/ping/
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://bblog.com/ping.php
I’ve gathered this collection of pinging services over the last three years. Let me know if I’m missing any.
6. Email Broadcast
Assuming you’ve started to build your email list, email out your blog post to people who have signed up for your blog updates.
You can simply write up and send out an email with a short introduction and link to the post.
Or, depending on your email marketing service, you can automate this step.
I use Aweber’s Blog Broadcast function and integrate it with Feedburner. This way, every time I update my blog, my list automatically gets an email with the blog post between the hours of 7am-9am. I chose that time so it’s sitting at the top of their inbox when they start their computer in the morning.
If you’d like to know how to set up the Aweber Blog Broadcast function, let me know in the comments.
7. Link from Old Posts
Last week I talked about interlinking by adding links to old posts before you publish a new post. You can also do the opposite.
If you’re doing a good job of optimizing and writing evergreen content, then your old posts will continue to get traffic. An easy way to get traffic to a brand new post is to dig into your archives and link from a few relevant posts to the new post with the keyword as the anchor text.
It counts as a link and a trackback. If you’re struggling to get that first comment, consider doing this because the default settings in WordPress count trackbacks as comments. I’ve found that people are more likely to comment if they see other comments.
8. Link from Other Sites
About a year ago I was considering starting a new blog by taking an existing blog and putting it on a new domain. I asked Michael for his opinion and he told me that it’s nice to have two high-traffic sites (his being and Retireat21.com).
One reason that it’s nice to have multiple sites is that you can link between them.
Whenever I publish a post on my new blog, I search the archives of my old blog for relevant articles until I find at least one chance to link to the new blog post.
This adds a trackback, adds a link, increases traffic, and strengthens the structure of my mini network of sites.
9. Submit it to Article Directories
If you’re serious about blogging and would like to boost your SEO, consider submitting your posts to article directories.
Here’s the process:
- Rewrite your post so it’s new content.
- Submit it to a few article directories (ArticlesBase, GoArticles, and ArticleDashboard).
- Include a link back to the original article or one of your article directory articles.
This process takes awhile so it doesn’t make sense to do it for every post. Once a post starts getting a fair amount of search traffic, consider going through this process to boost it even higher.
10. Reply to First Comment
The first comment is the hardest to get, unless you have a site like IncomeDiary. So you want to reward that commenter by replying to their comment as soon as you can. This does two things:
- Rewards the first commenter.
- Shows other commenters that you listen which encourages them to leave comments as well.
For me, I choose to reply to almost every comment simply because I like answering questions and interacting with smart people. It takes a fair amount of time, but I enjoy your comments.
If this post helped you at all or taught you something new, I’d like to know. Leave a comment below and you’ll likely see my reply within a day.