Almost every author I know has a blog. They are incredible writers, and what they have to say is always amazing. Each one I read has a component that I am learning for the first time. The problem is often that those blogs are often hidden or not promoted to get the visibility deserved.
So how can the blog owner do more to gain that coveted visibility?
The answer is quite simple, and the process is easy to put into action. All it takes is a little bit of time every day with great consistency.
First, I want to mention, that scrambling around and placing your articles on article directories is a lot of work, although it will pay off in the long run. This is perhaps something that you can do a piece at a time. Don't overload on trying to do everything with each article you put on your blog. Only pick your best work and get it out there. That work will drive readers back to your blog and then they can read the other articles you have placed there.
Now, what can you do to make this process really simple and take little time?
1. Include a featured image with your blog article and put it through the SEO process. For a starter, add alternate text for your image that is directed at your website. When someone hovers over the image, the alt text that pops up should be your blog URL. There are other things you can do here as well but you would have to know a graphics program to get into it. That is another topic altogether.
2. Decide on your feature article for the week. This does not have to be a daily chore, you need a minimum of one feature article that will be exposed to the various marketing tactics. This feature article needs to be entertaining, educational, and push the audience into action. Entertaining could simply be the way your express your opinion or tell the story, educational is to give your readers something they do not already know. The call to action, is to get them to do something that will be of benefit to them and eventually a benefit to you. The audience is always first.
3. Post your feature article to targeted directory sites. The shotgun approach may be OK for a generalist but most often the more targeted you are with the exposure you are attempting to obtain, the better your results.
4. Have social sharing in place when you publish your articles. This means once you hit the publish button, the article is posted simultaneously in other locations such as Facebook. LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, etc.
5. Use your feature image as a posting to Pinterest. If you are able, place your blog URL at the bottom of the image and add a quote from your blog on top. You have seen quotes and thought provoking ideas on images before, why not brand it as your own.
6. As you likely know, Twitter posts live as long as 8 minutes. So posting there may not seem so appealing unless you add this little trick. A post to Twitter that uses an image gets a far wider reach, therefore, you want to post your feature image separately from the auto post to your blog article.
7. If you want to increase exposure even further, turn your article into an audio program and use it as a podcast item as well. Post it to audible, iTunes, or other podcasting locations. If you are working on a weekly feature article program as I suggested, then this is a no-brainer. You get far more exposure for the same article.
8. If you are truly ambitious, create a presentation using PowerPoint or other presentation software and add the audio track. Save the presentation into YouTube as a video on your own channel. In return it will be shared automatically with Google+.
9. Take that same slide deck you created and upload it to SlideShare (which is owned by LinkedIn) for even more exposure.
10. If you have more social media platforms in play, you can add your quote images to Instagram, Tumblr, and more.
As you can see the list is absolutely endless! The time it takes is small, especially when you put it into a schedule each day. All the steps do not have to be done at the same sitting, spend 15 to 20 minutes a day working on the process. The first few will take more time and as you get going on a regular basis, the time allotment will be reduced substantially.
Bette Daoust, Ph.D. is a speaker, author (over 170 books, articles, and publications), and consultant. She has provided marketing, sales, business development and training expertise for companies such as Peet's Coffee & Tea, Varian Medical Systems, Accenture, Avaya, Cisco Systems to name a few. Dr. Daoust has also done extensive work with authors in developing their recognition and marketing strategies.
You may contact Dr. Daoust at http://AuthorsSuccessGuild.com. Her passion is in helping others succeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment