Getting in the habit of writing a consistent blog is tough enough, but the biggest trap most entrepreneurs fall into once they’re nailed that part is what I call The Cornfield Paradox. Succinctly put, The Cornfield Paradox is the long-held marketing belief that ‘if you build it, they will come’.
This is utter bullshit.
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Why You Need Marketing Strategies For Your Blog
Blogging alone isn’t enough, you need to actually market your blog to ensure people find it.
Now, you might be sat there thinking, “Hang about, I thought the whole point of Content Marketing was that you didn’t have to bother with all the other marketing nonsense!”
Don’t worry.
To some extent that is true. Using complementary forms of marketing, like paid advertising, is always a good idea if you can afford them. But content marketing affords you a complete marketing strategy that can be done without expending any money at all if you’re DIYing it, rather than outsourcing it to an expert.
What you will need to put in, is time.
Time to write, but also time to market. Here are five really simple blog marketing strategies that you need in your life (which don’t require paid advertising!):
Vlogging
Video is an insanely powerful marketing tool. The best way to ensure people not only find but engage with your content is to record it. You can do this in audio and release it as a Podcast, but you will get a lot more mileage out of video blogs, or vlogging.
Starting a vlog for your business isn’t as complicated as it might sound. And while there are some technical requirements you can keep these very basic.
SEO
When you’re writing your blog posts it’s hugely important to make them as SEO-friendly as possible. This means researching and including keywords, including metadata and other formatting tricks, and learning more advanced tactics like topic clusters.
You’re going to notice video is a recurring theme here, because having a video version of your blog embedded in your post, along with the written version, does wonders for your SEO.
The Search Engine Gods like to show people multiple formats. If you have a post on the same topic as someone else, and yours is in video while they only have a written version, you have an edge.
The gods are far more likely to favour you.
Social Media Marketing
Sharing your blog posts on social media is a no-brainer. But there are ways of doing it to ensure it’s as effective as possible. Experiment with scheduling things in advance (just be aware that some sites, like Facebook, will penalise you for using any scheduling too other than their own…Facebook really sucks), repurpose the content in your blog post to create social media content, and don’t be afraid to share your social posts more than once.
Live Video
Social Media Marketing is extremely powerful but engagement can be an absolute bitch. Vlogging helps with this, but if you really want to rock your engagement on social media (and particularly Facebook) you need to experiment with Live Video (like I said, video is a recurring theme).
On days when you’re publishing a new post, hop on your favourite platform, go Live, and chat about something related to the topic. Tell a story, relate the subject of your blog to yourself and your audience. Don’t simply regurgitate what’s in the post. People can already read or watch that for themselves.
Give them something more.
I find it helpful to write a prompt for Live videos when I’m writing posts, and often hold little nuggets back from the main post so I have something relevant to say beyond the scope of the post.
Live is all about juicy little extras and conversation starters, so don’t be afraid to ask direct questions and be a little controversial.
Networking
All the fancy marketing tricks in the world can’t beat good old-fashioned networking. Find some key groups on social media where your ideal clients like to hang out, and share your posts in them whenever you have a chance. You will often find such groups have a designated ‘share your posts’ thread once a week or so. If the group rules state you only post on that thread, make sure you abide by it.
Visit the posts of other members of these groups and, if you find them genuinely interesting, post a thoughtful comment. It doesn’t have to be long, but it does need to be genuine. You will often find people return the favour. Some of my best leads have come from nothing but sharing a blog post in a social group, so it’s well worth doing!
If you’re really looking to nail your blogging efforts and transform your blog in the complete marketing solution your business needs, download the first chapter of my book, Divine Blogging now – IT’S FREE!
Some great tips here and im fascinated by video and live video something we do a fair bit of but certainly a great way of also re using your blog post content. SEO is another fascination of mine and i have seen examples latley of people OVER optimising, as free seo plugins are getting better and better people become wrongly obessed with the ‘green light’ or the ‘100%’ which can have a negative effect.
Ah yes, the joys of the green Yoast SEO light. So many people sacrifice quality writing the Yoast Gods thinking it makes their post great, when actually all it does it make it a terrible read. They days of keyword stuffing are well and truly over, until the plugins catch up and learn to assess for both short and longtail keywords, and LSI, they are of limited use. I find them helpful as a reminder to do things like add alt text to images (easily forgotten), and ensuring you’ve put your metadata in and optimised the URL before you publish. So they are helpful, they’re just worryingly harmful at the same time :)
Some great tips here and im fascinated by video and live video something we do a fair bit of but certainly a great way of also re using your blog post content. SEO is another fascination of mine and i have seen examples latley of people OVER optimising, as free seo plugins are getting better and better people become wrongly obessed with the ‘green light’ or the ‘100%’ which can have a negative effect.
Ah yes, the joys of the green Yoast SEO light. So many people sacrifice quality writing the Yoast Gods thinking it makes their post great, when actually all it does it make it a terrible read. They days of keyword stuffing are well and truly over, until the plugins catch up and learn to assess for both short and longtail keywords, and LSI, they are of limited use. I find them helpful as a reminder to do things like add alt text to images (easily forgotten), and ensuring you’ve put your metadata in and optimised the URL before you publish. So they are helpful, they’re just worryingly harmful at the same time :)
I actually made my first vlog for The Write Copy Girl about the problems with perfectionism when it comes to making videos, so YES! Totally agree with you on this one.
I actually made my first vlog for The Write Copy Girl about the problems with perfectionism when it comes to making videos, so YES! Totally agree with you on this one.
wow, I hadn’t realised the multiple formats thing was such a good idea. I have got lots of blog posts that would make great lives, and a free 2×20 minute BeLive.tv account to play with -ooh, fun times ahead for me!
Some amazing ideas here Hazel, thank you for sharing them, and love the conversation above with you and Kevin about Yoast, it makes me feel much better about having so few green lights but some great writing on my blog!
Yes, freedom from the green light! Glad you found it helpful, I’d love to watch any videos you do post me some links when you have them :)
wow, I hadn’t realised the multiple formats thing was such a good idea. I have got lots of blog posts that would make great lives, and a free 2×20 minute BeLive.tv account to play with -ooh, fun times ahead for me!
Some amazing ideas here Hazel, thank you for sharing them, and love the conversation above with you and Kevin about Yoast, it makes me feel much better about having so few green lights but some great writing on my blog!
Yes, freedom from the green light! Glad you found it helpful, I’d love to watch any videos you do post me some links when you have them :)
I’ve certainly found some good Facebook groups online (including the 30 Day Blogging Challenge!) which encourage sharing & commenting.
One stylistic point about your blog: the font is a little hard to read as body text, though it’s fine for headings.
Thanks Claire – and yes, I know, it’s a NIGHTMARE. I’m in the middle of having the site totally redesigned it should be live soon. Nice easy-to-read fonts!! :)
I’ve certainly found some good Facebook groups online (including the 30 Day Blogging Challenge!) which encourage sharing & commenting.
One stylistic point about your blog: the font is a little hard to read as body text, though it’s fine for headings.
Thanks Claire – and yes, I know, it’s a NIGHTMARE. I’m in the middle of having the site totally redesigned it should be live soon. Nice easy-to-read fonts!! :)
Really interesting content. Thanks
Really interesting content. Thanks