Feb 13
20
How to Create & Promote The Perfect Post
How to Create & Promote
The Perfect Post
1. Conceive a topic that solves the problem of your ideal customer.
You know the challenges your customers face. So come up with an idea of what the blog post is going to cover. When you solve a problem or answer a question, people will come back for more and eventually get to know, like and trust you.
2. Uncover a keyword phrase your ideal customer is using at Google.
I recommend Google’s Keyword Tool. It’s free. It’s the best place to start. Become familiar with this tool.
Drop a couple of variations on a theme into the search box, deselect “broad” and select “exact” and “phrase” under match types in the left column. Hit search.
This will generate keyword ideas. Look for phrases with lots of search volume. The competition is based on the pay-per-click bidding, but it will give you some insight into whether this phrase will be relatively easy or difficult to rank well for.
3. Start with an engaging, keyword rich headline.
Your headline is critical. It must grab the reader’s attention and get them to want to read more, or even share it.
Lead with your best keywords, as the search engines put the most weight on the first few words of the title. If your keyword phrase was “low priced anniversary gifts,” you might have a title: “Low Priced Anniversary Gifts: Saying I Love You on a Budget.”
4. Write an opening sentence with your keyword phrase.
Now help your headline. Search engines don’t just look for your keywords, but also where you place them. Make sure you use your phrase in the opening sentence.
This is a guideline, not a rule. Don’t force it – just be conscious of it.
5. Explain the benefit to the reader in the next paragraph.
There’s a number of ways to go about this. If you start off by asking a question, your reader’s mind will search for the answer automatically.. and will engage with the post. If you jump right into the problems that your post will help the reader solve, their eyes will be glued to the page… awaiting the answers.
6. Keep your post focused.
Both your readers and the search engines appreciate focused content. This can help with search engine visibility and the likelihood readers will share it.
7. Make it easy on the eyes.
Big blocks of text on the screen are difficult to read. Break up your content with sub-headers and sometimes bullet lists.
8. Wrap it up.
Don’t leave the visitor hanging. Give them a recap, or some takeaways, or draw some conclusions. Or better yet, have a strong call to action! People like to feel like they got closure on the subject.
9. Ask for comments.
Comments are VERY important because they can help with social proof.
There are several ways to get people to leave comments, including the outright ask, or posing a question they can answer, or asking for people to provide examples of when something similar happened in their life or business.
10. Find a great image to use at the top of the page.
People are visual. A good image can pull them in. With the rise of Pinterest, an eye-catching visual can increase your chances of even getting pinned and driving more traffic to your blog.
11. Use an appropriate alt-tag for that (and every) image in your post.
Google’s image search can drive more traffic to your site. Alt-tags are just the right thing to do. Start by saving the image file with a keyword rich name, like “potato-peeling-tips.jpg,” and then add an appropriate Alt Tag like “Potato Peeling Tips.”
12. Find appropriate places to link to other blog posts or pages on your website.
Creating links to other posts and pages can provide additional help and resources to your readers, and can help promote older posts.
13. Find appropriate places to link to other sites.
Share the love! Linking to authoritative sites provides value to your readers.
14. Proofread it.
Nobody’s perfect, but too many typos can damage your credibility and hurt your message.
15. Use a Dictionary to make sure you are spelling correctly and using the correct words. http://www.merriam-webster.
Publish it:
16. Use your share buttons.
You know how bartenders put a dollar or a five in their tip jar at the beginning of their shift? Yeah, do that. People often do not want to be the first to like something! When they see others liked it, they feel comfortable adding to it.
So, start the process! Click on the Facebook like button, re-tweet button, Google+ button, and anything else you might have. This primes the pump for the next visitor to your post.
17. Send it to your email list.
These days I recommend sending out a teaser email rather than the full blog post to your subscribers. It brings them back to the post where they can more easily share it or comment on it.
18. Schedule some tweets (only if you use Twitter, of course)
I’m not a big fan of automation, but scheduling out some tweets isn’t a bad idea.
Since your tweets don’t have a very long shelf life, it’s a good idea to post 3 or 4 times during the day. Try to phrase things differently. Feature different elements of the post.
19. Publish to your Facebook profile.
I know you just “liked” it through the Facebook share button, but you’ll get more visibility if you head back into Facebook and post the link into your timeline.
20. Publish it to your Facebook business page. (Fan page)
If you’ve got a lot of overlap between Facebook friends and your business fans you might want to stagger this update by a couple of hours or so. I also recommend taking a screen capture of the top of the post and making that part of your update so that it shows up more prominently in the newsfeed. Keep the link in the update.
21. Be consistent.
The trick to blogging, or social media, or life for that matter, is to be consistent. Whether that means daily posts, weekly, or even every other week. Create consistently valuable posts and publish them consistently.
… ’til next time…
Happy Marketing!
…
Loretta Helson
Skype: lorettahelson
Meet Me On Facebook
