One way to get more eyes on your content marketing is to optimize your blog for search. SEO (search engine optimization) may take a few extra steps to get your blog noticed, but the result is that your blog will appear among the top results for someone doing a related search. There are several tactics you can take to improve the SEO for your blog and most are easier than you might think.
1. Publish or Perish – This might be a phrase in the academic world but now it relates very much to the online realm. Search Engine Watch recommends that you publish multiple posts and update your blog often as new content “incites more crawling.” Crawling can ensure you have a better chance of having your blog show up in online searches.
2. Vary the Title and the Tag and Use Keywords – Many bloggers understand the importance of keywords and know how to make sure these keywords or keyword phrases are included in the blog copy. The reason for making your blog title and blog tag different is that the more keywords and phrases you use in your blog – including the titles and tags which are both very important to optimize– the more opportunity your blog will come up in searches.
3. Join Social Networks to Promote Your Blog – Joining social networks and interacting with your followers or friends can be a valuable forum to promote your blog. There is more to social media than Facebook or Twitter – there are so many other niche sites that can help you target your blog promotional efforts to attract your ideal customer or client. The key is to be a true participant and resource on these sites. “The idea is to go through a list of social networking sites, identify the ones that would be relevant to your industry and then systematically add value. As you build up relationships with users you will attract followers of your own.
4. Offer Share Buttons – One way to ensure your blog is getting shared in the social media sphere is to allow your readers to share certain of your blog posts on their favorite social media site. You can do this by making sure Share Buttons for various social media sites are a click away for the reader. This means offering your readers a chance to share your blog posts on Facebook and Twitter as well as some of the smaller niche social media sites. The more people share your blog posts – the better chance it has of getting read by new readers.
5. Add Categories, But Not Too Many – Making sure there are blog categories at the side of the page is good blog practice as this organizes your blog and helps readers find related content. The trick is not to have too many categories as that can confuse the reader. Search Engine Watch says that this practice makes “…archived content easier to find …and categories help classify and silo your content into topically themed pages, which creates additional opportunities to rank in search results.”
6. Add Related Articles – Getting your blog found by readers might be tricky so one “tricks” of the trade is to include related article content at the end of your blog. This helps create more opportunities for readers to find other subjects and can possibly elicit more page views with readers…but most importantly, “…helps flow link equity to deeper content and improves the circulation of PageRank across your blog,” according to Search Engine Watch.
7. Become a Resource – One of the best ways to get your blog noticed is to become a resource on a topic and share your blog link with others. If you specialize in a certain industry or subject matter, it will behoove you to offer your thought leadership on various social media sites. Many social media sites have subject-matter or industry-specific groups you can join and once you are on those forums there you can view the conversation and offer your expertise while at the same time, promoting your blog.
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