So you have written a new piece for your website. Now what? How do you get the most amount of people to read this new page? Hoping that people will just stumble upon your content is not a sound marketing strategy. Utilizing Search Engine Optimization, Email Marketing and Social Media Marketing can ensure that you give your content every chance possible to be seen. Below are 5 tips to get the most mileage with your content.
Pretend it’s for Print
It all starts with the quality of your content. Treat the piece that your writing as if it’s not easily changed after you’ve put it out there. Publishing content on the web has made us all a bit lazy with this. Knowing that we can just go back to fix or tidy up after the fact puts a little less pressure on us to produce perfect content. Remember that people are taking time out of their lives to focus their attention on you. Make it worthwhile.
A Dash of SEO with that Please
After you’re happy with the content take a once over for the search engines. Don’t bastardize it. But if you want to get the most long term exposure for your content try to align your web page’s message with your website’s search engine optimization strategy.
You could adjust:
- Your page title and meta description. Remember that these are the only two elements that search engine users see on search results pages. Try to have it read like a newspaper headline.
- The name of your post. If you can have good keywords here by all means do so.
- The permalink. Adjust your URL to be relevant to your content, keep it void of unnecessary words like “and, the, or” and include keywords.
- Your on-page headlines and actual copy. Skim through all of this for keyword opportunities that will ADD to the quality of your piece.
Just make sure that you are covering your bases seo-wise. If you set up your page properly you will give your writing every chance possible to be picked up by search engines down the road.
Remember Email Marketing?
If you’ve built an email list over the years then send out a quick campaign about the article. I wouldn’t suggest that you copy all of your post content into the email. I would use the email as a teaser. Give the email recipients reason to visit your website and read it there. My reasoning for this is that there are many more viral opportunities if the content is digested on your website vs in the email itself. Be sure to give enough useful information in the email itself though. This way if they don’t click through they wont feel their time has been wasted.
Feed the Birds
After you’ve done this go share your post on your favorite Social Media Channels like Facebook and Twitter. Be careful not to sound too sales-like here. People can get easily turned off by this. Offer the link back to your post in a way that is enticing yet not pushy. Saying things like “The most brilliant post on widgets EVER!” will get you no-where fast. If anyone comments on it try your best to respond and get a conversation going.
Make it Easy to Share
Be sure that you give your readers every chance possible to share your content with their tribe. This is where the real potential of Social Media Marketing begins to shine. Someone sharing your post with all of their community has just exponentially increased your articles reach. It’s free marketing! Most content management systems have ways to add this functionality to your posts and if you aren’t using a CMS it’s not hard to hand code. Take a look at the bottom of this post for an example and feel free to try it out 
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There are many more venues for reaching out than what I’ve described above including Pay Per Click Advertising, Article Distribution Marketing and Direct Mail to name a few. Following the steps above is a sound strategy and a good starting point for giving your work the help it needs to be seen.
If you would like to talk about marketing your content feel free to contact me.