In my last blog, “10 Tips For Writing Great Blogs That Get You Noticed,” I wrote about how to create compelling blogs that will propel your company and your solutions to rise to the top of search engines.

I suggested that you should address just one topic per blog, blog consistently and frequently to reap maximum benefits, optimize your content with keywords to get found via search, and add a relevant CTA (Call to Action) at the end of each post to promote lead generation.

Now that you have a great blog, how do you promote it?

In this post I’d like to focus on how to get your blogs read by the widest possible audience of qualified prospects — leads who are most likely to turn into customers. How do you do this? For starters, check out our list of how-to’s that have proven to be successful for our clients as well as ourselves at Simon Associates Management Consultants (SAMC). 

1. Write blogs that appeal to your buyer personas

In the best of all worlds, you want the people who are most likely to become leads, and ultimately, happy customers, to read your blogs. So who are these “right” people? Your ideal customers — also known as your buyer personas — who encompass the goals, challenges and demographic information around which your whole business is built. In order to get found by them, you must create educational, relevant content that really speaks to them and answers their questions.

2. Leverage your website

Your website is the ideal vehicle for showcasing your blogs. Remember, blogs keep your website content fresh without your having to constantly add pages. Plus, every blog you put on your site gets published as its own individual, indexed page. The more indexed pages you have, the more opportunities you have to get found online.

Every blog should contain a link back to your main website. Since you never know in what context someone might be reading it, it should always bring the reader to your main site where your full story is presented. Also, what works very well for us and our clients is to have an area on the home page showcasing (and linking to) the two or three most recent blogs.

3. Make liberal use of social media

A robust social media or social marketing effort is crucial to promoting your blogs and getting them read by the right audience. Every time you publish a blog, you need to follow up with a social media strategy. Where do those blogs need to go to get to the right audiences? How do you leverage the different social media channels: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Tumblr and whatever other options you choose to utilize. Of course, the more frequently you can “push out” your blogs, the higher your search engine ranking.

In fact, to prove the power of social media, we conducted a study recently with one of our Simon Associates clients. For three months after they launched their website, we focused on fine tuning the site and blogging, spending a minimal amount of time on social media. During the next three months, we posted on social media much more frequently. The net result? The number of visits to the site doubled and the quantity and quality of comments significantly impacted the business.

As a benchmark for you to maybe follow, every time we publish a new blog, we Facebook it, post it on LinkedIn, and tweet it 2-3 times a week for the next 3-4 weeks. The result? We’re seeing huge gains in Likes and followers across all platforms.

4. Promote your blogs through email

Email is a powerful way to get your blogs read by people other than visitors to your website. Use your email lists (which hopefully are full of targeted personas) to connect with your prospects and let them know that you’ve just published a great new blog that they might find interesting and useful. Include a short synopsis where you hit the high points, enticing them to click on the link to read more.

Here are several things you might try to promote your blogs:

• Publish a press release announcing that you’ve just published a highly-informative blog on an important topic. (Can you cite recent research findings? A new trend you’re seeing in your industry? New legislation that impacts your market segment?)
• Bundle together related blogs on a similar subject and sent out an email promoting them as a group or series
• Encourage people to subscribe to your blogs

Are people reading your blogs? Analytics will tell you.

As you delve deeper into blog writing and distribution, you’ll want to measure and analyze how often they’re getting read and by whom, so you can do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. At SAMC, we use HubSpot as our Inbound Marketing platform which enables us to quickly obtain and measure results.

What should you want to know? Important indicators include:

• the number of views a blog is getting
• what keywords are getting the most traction
• which blogs are your most popular (by author, content and/or channel)
• the number of inbound clicks back to your website are being used.

If the data all comes back positive, you’re doing a great job. If not, pause, reassess, and review the “blogging basics.”

To learn more about writing great blogs, download our white paper

In our white paper “How Do You Write Great Blogs And Why Should You?” we take you step-by-step through 10 best practices for writing compelling blogs, ones that will propel your company and your solutions to rise to the top of search engines so that potential customers choose you. Download by clicking the link below.

Could inbound marketing help your business grow?

At SAMC, we help organizations grow and thrive amidst today’s changing times. Without a doubt, blogging is very important component of this. If learning new strategies for robust, results-driven blogging might be of interest to you, we would like to offer you a free consultation. Please contact us!