WRITTEN BY NEIL PATEL & AARON AGIUS

INTRODUCTION
WHY DID WE WRITE THIS GUIDE?
We wanted to provide an exhaustive, detailed guide for blog marketing. With so
many individuals, businesses and organizations creating blogs today its become

As you know, writing and publishing a blog post wont get you much traction. You

This resource is full of actionable steps you can take to become a blog marketing superstar. Those blogs you read and love? You can become just like them if you follow
the steps in this guide!
WHO IS THIS GUIDE FOR?
guide is for you.
If youve read countless articles about how to create amazing content, but need

guide is for you.

If youve read countless articles about how to create amazing content, but need
If youve already mastered the basics of creating amazing blog content, but havent

T he A dvanced G u ide T o B log M arketing is for anyone looking to take a blog to the
next level. Writing great content is one thing, but becoming a blogging superstar
This guide provides you with the actionable steps you can take to achieve success
with blog marketing.
HOW MUCH OF THIS GUIDE SHOULD YOU READ?
If you want to become a blogging superstar youll want to read the whole thing! Any
of these tactics and strategies will work to help you with blog marketing, but as a
whole the guide provides an overview of many ways you can market your blog posts.
While you dont need to apply every strategy to your blog there is an opportunity to
grow with everything covered in this guide.

Ch

Build A Community That Gives

You Permission To Market To Them

A great blog begins with the content you create, but to be successful a blog
also needs a strong community or audience. The members of your community will follow your blog by giving you permission to send them updates.
This is a powerful step in marketing. With traditional advertising, youre interruptopt-in to receive information from you.
If you want to jump into the other chapters in this guide, we understand. But this
chapter is incredibly important. We cover ways you can build a community that subscribes to your blog updates. Building email lists, social media communities and more

TAKE ME TO CHAPTER ONE

Ch

Types Of Blog Posts That Are Easy To Market

You know that to have a great blog that you need amazing blog posts. Not all amazing blog posts are created equal, though. Some are easier to market than others.
In this chapter, we give you the tools you need to create the type of blog posts
that are easy to market. Well show you how to create interview posts, top list
posts and ego-stroking posts. By creating these posts youll be in a much better
position to grow your blog.

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Ch
t

Organic Search

your blog and blog posts for organic search.

This chapter gives you step-by-step information on how to setup your blog for
search engine optimization. It includes a list of essential blog plugins and information about how to use those plugins for success.

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Ch

Paid Search

Many have had success marketing their blogs with inbound strategies, which usually includes organic marketing, but paid marketing is a viable way to market your
blog too.
ter, we show you how to use paid search tools so you can market your blog to your
target reader. We cover everything from major advertising tools like AdWords and
Bing Ads to secondary paid search networks.

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Ch

Social Media

Promoting your blog content on social media is a cornerstone in your blog market-

not subscribed to your updates. Using hashtags, posting in groups and having others share your content are all ways to promote your blog posts with social media.
Most people struggle to get a hold on social media. There are tons of social networks
that you could potentially use to market your blog. Thats why we go over the most
important social media outlets available and give you the insight into the ones that
work best for marketing blog posts.
We also cover important social media tools and show you how to use these tools and
your blog posts.

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Ch

Paid Social Traffic

Social media isnt only about followers and shares. Most social networks now have
paid options that allow you to market to targeted individuals. Its another great way
to market your blog content.
This chapter includes information about many paid social media options available
and shows you the best way to promote your blog using tools like promoted tweets,
sponsored posts and more.

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Ch

Outreach

This chapter goes into detail about the ways you can reach out to bloggers, site own-

We also give you scripts and techniques for performing outreach to these people.
Well give you ideas for creating blog posts that people with huge audiences will
want to share.

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Ch

Content Syndication Networks

tent on other publishing platforms throughout the Web. Have you noticed those
publications?
Many of those are examples of content syndication network promotions. These networks are great for promoting your blog posts and we tell you exactly how to do it in
this chapter.

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Ch
T

Syndicating On Other Websites

Syndicating content is about more than just sharing your content. We go into detail about where you can syndicate content and the type of content that does well in
each of those locations.

in front of these people is another great way to market your blog and its not that

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10

Ch

Repurposing Content

Finally, we cover the art of repurposing content. There is no reason for one
of your best blog posts to only be a blog post. In this chapter, well show
you the steps to take to turn your great blog posts into videos, slideshows
and more.

Repurposing content is a great way to get more content out of your ideas

ha t a re y ou wa i ti ng f or?
T his g u ide will take you r blog to the nex t level by g iving you the knowledg e and

TAKE ME TO CHAPTER TEN

READY?

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WRITTEN BY NEIL PATEL & AARON AGIUS

CHAPTER ONE

Build A Community That

Gives You Permission To Market To Them
Thats an important part of online marketing today and when it comes to marketing
your blog, your audience or a community of followers is a very powerful asset.
There is a lot of good information in this guide, but this may be the most important
chapter. You can buy ads and share your blog posts on social media all you want,
but without a community youre going to struggle to gain momentum.
The time to start building a community is now.

Maybe youve already begun building your social media communities. Thats good,
but in this chapter were going to show you how to expand your communities.
And if you havent started yet thats all right too. The information in this chapter will
give you a framework to begin building your communities.
Everybody you email, tweet and chat with is a potential member of your blog marketing community, but those arent the only people you need.
Eventually, your community will include potential readers and people that know
that can share and broadcast your messages.
In this chapter, well show you the steps to build your community with all the tools
available today.

What Is A Blog Marketing Community?

It is the collection of followers, subscribers and whatever else you want to
call people that want the information youre sharing.
It is the collection of people that will read your blog posts.
It is the collection of people that will comment on your blog posts.
It is the collection of people that will share your blog posts, sending them
to their extended community.

Defining Your Target Community Member

Before we take you through the process of building your blog marketing community on popular channels like Facebook, Twitter and Email, we need to share a strat-

Defining Your Target Community Member

Before we take you through the process of building your blog marketing community on popular channels like Facebook, Twitter and Email, we need to share a strat-

You didnt skip ahead already did you?

This is important.
e and how to
build your community.
HERES WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:

Step 1 Start A New Spreadsheet Using Google Drive

N o te: F or this g u ide we u se a spreadsheet on G oog le D rive. I t s a clou d service that allows you and you r team to work collaboratively on tasks inclu ding blog marketing . S ave
this spreadsheet throu g hou t this g u ide. W e will u se the same spreadsheet to collect information that will help you market you r blog posts.

Name the spreadsheet Blog Marketing.

We recommend saving this spreadsheet on a shared server or cloud server where

you and your entire team can access it and where there will be a single, master copy
of the information.

Step 2 Name Your Target Community Member

The goal is to have more than

Step 2 Name Your Target Community Member

The goal is to have more than
one person in your commuwill help you build your community with the exact person
that will read and share your
blog posts while also helping
you build your community.

Step 3 Describe The Person

Make this as detailed as you can. Give the person an age, job, location, etc. List their hobbies and the type of information they like
to read online. Finally, include the types of websites they use and
their preferred social networks.

Step 4 Add A Photo

T h at s i t!
an opportunity to market you blog on every channel mentioned in this chapter, but
nity than others.
Now its time to develop your plans to build your community. Your blog marketing
community will encompass everyone that gives you permission to market to them,
but each person will have a preferred channel or channels to receive those marketing messages. We cover the most important channels below.

No

F
Facebook

Facebook is the largest social network. There are over 1 billion monthly active users
on Facebook. If you want to build your community you want to go where the people

In this section, well go through the steps toward building a Facebook Business Page
and the steps you can take to build a community of followers or Facebook users that
like your page.
As you build the community, youll be able to market your blog posts to the community
and repeat customers.

Step 1 Setup Your Page

Visit Facebook For Business
Click the Create a Page button at the top.
Facebook will take you through the steps
of adding a logo, a cover photo and description information for your business.

Step 2 Reach Out To Contacts On Other Channels

you know. Chances are they are probably using Facebook. Use this script when you
email, call or talk to them in person:

H i,

H i,
I j u st lau nched a F acebook pag e and it wou ld mean a lot to me if you helped u s g row by
liking u s on F acebook. W e ll be sharing lots of cool content there inclu ding some thing s we

sage more personal depending on the relationship you have with the person, but
this script gets to the point and is easy to repeat. Most people are willing to help out
a friend and youre piquing on their interest by suggesting that youll be sharing useful content on the page.

Step 3 Like Other Brands & Comment On Their Updates

Look for brands that complement yours by searching on Facebook. You probably
have a good idea of who these brands are already so you can look directly for them.
Otherwise, search for terms relating to your industry and use hashtag searches to

Youre looking for complementary brands. These are companies that dont directly
compete with yours, but that have the same target community member.
L et s s ay y o u s el l s h o es . You could look for brands that sell
jewelry or clothing.

The next step is to like these brand pages. Leave comments on the pages as your
business page. Some businesses leave comments, but unless those comments are
valuable and insightful youre setting your brand up for failure. General comments

The next step is to like these brand pages. Leave comments on the pages as your
business page. Some businesses leave comments, but unless those comments are
valuable and insightful youre setting your brand up for failure. General comments
that are irrelevant and bland are seen as spam and will do more harm than good.
To leave comments as your brand page youll have to switch to use Facebook as your
business page.
The best way to do this is to reply to comments and questions that people have on
the brands page.
You dont want to impose on the brands page. However, if you feel you can contribto their followers if you share your knowledge.
esting to these people and theyll want to click through to your Facebook page and
follow you especially if youre sharing all your interesting blog posts on your new
Facebook page.

Step 4 Use Facebook Ads To Get Followers

Facebook ads provide an extremely targeted way to build the number of likes you
have for your business page. You can target the exact type of person you want to
follow your page by narrowing the audience by age, interests, location and more.
With Facebook ads, you get a basic title
or main heading and a short description
along with an image.

The best way we have found to create Facebook ads to build followers is to ask a

FOR EXAMPLE:
A re y o u d o i n g S E O

w ro n g?

F acebook pag e to g et free tips.

H ere is another ex ample of an ad:

When you target the right people with that ad youll get tons of clicks and tons of
new followers.

Step 5 Partnerships
Do you work with other brands or individuals in your industry?
Well talk about this more in the next chapter, but you can create joint venture or
co-branded content on Facebook that features helpful advice, insight or tips.

(ideally with a g ood following ). It might be two SEO experts creating

a list of 6 tips (3 each) for Facebook search optimization.
would be a footwear company partnering with an apparel company to create a trend
update for the upcoming season.
You could post an FAQ update on your Facebook page and provide the content with a
partner. Post the update on your page and have them post it on their page.

audience, which is already established.

Step 6 Create Unique Facebook Updates Complete With Hashtags

Facebook added hashtags after the functionality was relevant on other sites like Twitter.
But hashtags on Facebook quickly caught on with users and people do click on them
to discover new content from new sources.
The goal of blog marketing with Facebook is to share your blog posts on Facebook and
he posts you share, but
initially youll want to create unique posts for Facebook that also include hashtags.
To do this, create as many bits of useful information as you can that relate to your
company and industry. During the peak hours of the day, go to this list of updates
and share them on Facebook ever hour.
A d d th e m

o s t p o p u l ar an d rel ev an t h as h tags to th e u p d ates .

What youre doing is creating unique, useful content that people will discover when
they click on the hashtag from other updates.

No

Twitter
Beyond sharing new pieces of content on Twitter, there are a
few strategies to implement to ensure that your blog marketing
strategy is taking full advantage of Twitter.

Step 1 Signup For Twitter

Visit Twitter and Signup For A Twitter Account
The debate is still out there if you should create
a personal Twitter account or a business account. The answer depends on the goals of your
content marketing and blogging strategy. If you
want to build your business that one day will
grow beyond your own capabilities you should
start a Twitter account for your brand.
But if you want to develop your personal brand then its best to start a personal
Twitter account.
And you can of course do both, but youll be spreading yourself thin across both accounts. People have struggled to maintain multiple accounts even with automation.
When creating your Twitter account there are a few important choices to make to

Keep your username simple. Use your exact business

name or personal name if possible. Two variables determine if that is possible. The
already. The second variable is the fact that Twitter limits usernames to 15 characters.
If you cant use your full name opt for a shorter version of the name without charyou in a tweet.
For example, if your business name is W o rl d B u s i n es s C o m p an y see if W o rl d
B u s i n es s is available. Go shorter if possible. From there, use abbreviations to
shorten the name of the business and for a last resort use characters such as _ to
create your username.

Set this as your brand name or as your personal name. Use the name people will

Set this as your brand name or as your personal name. Use the name people will
and how you type it is very important. Make sure to leave spaces between the words
because if someone searches for W orl d B us i nes s C om p a ny and you list your
name as W orl dB us i nes s C om p a ny
Y o u r b i o c o m es n ex t. You get 160 characters to describe
your brand. You can use hashtags and mentions (more on those
nex t) in your bio. For example, if you create two Twitter accounts, one for you and one for your business, you can mention
your business Twitter account in your personal bio.
With your bio, describe what you do and use terms you think people would use to
search for interesting people to follow. People like to follow business leaders, CEOs,
CMOs, founders and other similar titles.
N ex t u p i s y o u r l o c ati o n an d U R L . Add the location of your business and obviousTwitter either when someone else mentions you or if youre found via Twitter search.

The header image could be a photo that represents your business like a shot of your
does and includes some logos of companies youve worked with.
The background is another area where you can add branding information like your
logo and some text or illustrations that explain the problem your business solves or
the type of interesting content you share from your blog.
Many users now use the Twitter app, which doesnt use all the images.

Step 2 Reach Out To Everyone You Know In Every Channel

people that prefer to use Twitter, but like Facebook and
other social networks, its a good step to build your following with people that follow you on other channels.
This includes anyone that follows or visitors your blog.
Place the Twitter Follow Button on your blog next to your
email signup, RSS feed and other select social media follow buttons.
A good place for the follow button is right by the author
area on every one of your blog posts. People often look to
see who wrote a post. If they like what they read theyll
want to follow you. Make it easy for them by adding the
Twitter follow button in this location.

Step 3 Reply To Medium & High Profile Twitter Users

Use Twitter Search or a tool like Followerwonk to build a list of medium to high
counts of people. Those followers are the people that you want to follow your new
Twitter account.
Search for terms relating to your industry. With Twitter search, select the option
that allows you to search for people. On Followerwonk youll be able to search for
people as well and the default listing is by the number of followers each person has
on Twitter.
You have two options once you develop a list of people. You can follow them or you
can add them to a Twitter list and segment based on sub-categories of industries
that are important to your business.
Following can work well especially if you follow only people that are similar to you
more on this nex t), but the
and reply to as a way to get attention.
W

e rec o m

en d c reati n g T w i tter l i s ts .

To create a list, click on the gear icon at the top right of your
Twitter page. Select Lists from the dropdown. Click on the Create
List button. Create lists and sub lists based on the people you found
during your search.

reply to as you build your Twitter following.

Now that you have your lists built you can follow and reply to these key people. If
ter them. People can rarely look away from a good compliment.
If they ask a question be sure to reply with an answer.
The goal of this strategy is to get on the radar of these people so they will potentially
follow you and share your blog posts when you share those on Twitter. By getting on
their radar they might also reply to you or retweet the things you say.
Retweets show up for all their followers and even replies will be seen by some of
their followers. Thats exposure to your target audience and a good way to build
your Twitter community.

Step 4 Strategically Follow Your Target Community Members

You can follow up to 2,000 accounts on Twitter. Once you reach this number youll
have to wait for people to follow you before you can follow more people.
So it doesnt make sense to follow just anybody on Twitter, but it does make sense to
strategically follow your target community members.
The reason this can work in your favor is that some people will follow you back after
you follow them. Not everyone will, though, so there a few indicators that let you
know if someone is likely to follow you.
FIRST, LOOK AT THE PEOPLE THEY FOLLOW.
Are they already following people like you?
Look for the people on the lists you created. You can even look at those people and
look at their followers. Follow those people.
For each person that you potentially follow also look at the number of people they
are following. If theyre only following a handful of accounts the chances are low
that they will follow your account.
If they follow several hundred accounts the odds are better that they will follow you back.

Step 5 Updates, Sharing Posts & Using Hashtags

Youll want to share every one of your blog posts on Twitter just
like with all social media accounts. As with Facebook, hashtags are
your friend when it comes to sharing your content.
Using relevant hashtags that your target community members are
likely to follow or be interested in. People might follow the #business
hashtag. Use this tag with your tweets and youre likely to pick up a
few followers as long as youre sharing useful information.

Step 6 Partnerships
As with Facebook, create partnership updates on Twitter. Create tweets that you can
create and that others can duplicate or retweet.

to create a series of tweets that you can publish that will mention your partners.
Have the partner do the same by having tweets and updates that mention you.

Step 7 Twitter For Business

Finally, Twitter For Business is a way for you to gain followers. Twitter Ads
ways to promote your tweets including the ones that have your best blog content.

with promoted tweets, but most people could only pay to get a W
ad on the side of the feeds of other users.

ho T o F ol l ow

Twitter has a reputation for having expensive ads aimed at big brands, but there is
sored tweets.

No

Google+

G o o gl e+ is not your average social network like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The
site has many of the same features as other social networks including updates, timelines
and more. But Google is also using Google+ throughout many of its other properties.
Content creators, including bloggers, are some of the biggest benefactors of the
Google+ integration. Using Google+ is not only a great way to help build your blogyou get to your posts through organic and paid search.
HERE IS HOW YOU CAN SETUP YOUR GOOGLE+ ACCOUNT IN A
FEW STEPS.

Step 1 Signup For A Personal Google+ Account

Go to the Google+ homepage.
Youll be asked for your email
address and password. If you
already have a Google account
such as Gmail or Google Apps
for Business you should use
one of those to create your
business account.

Google places high importance on using your real information for your Google+
component of Google Authorship, which well discuss shortly.

image of you. This is again important because Google will use the
the search results pages.

Youll also see an area to add any other email addresses you have. This is where you
would add the email address that matches your blog or that matches your business
website where the blog is hosted.

your full name or a variation depending on how common your name is.

Step 2 Google Authorship

images of authors in the search results. This is Google Authorship in action.

more likely that someone will choose your result over the others on
the result trustworthy.
Google Authorship is one advantage of using Google+ because it can increase search
pages (S E R P s

C T R ).

Go to the Google+ homepage. Youll be asked for your email address and password.
If you already have a Google account such as Gmail or Google Apps for Business you
should use one of those to create your business account.

Google places high importance on using your real information for your
account. Its a key component of Google Authorship, which well discuss
shortly.

you. This is again important because Google will use the image for your
pages.

Youll also see an area to add any other email addresses you have. This
is where you would add the email address that matches your blog or that
matches your business website where the blog is hosted.

is usually your full name or a variation depending on how common your

name is.

Step 2 Google Authorship

Contributor To section.
After completing either of those steps you can check to see if
Google Authorship is working by checking on the Structured
Data Testing Tool from Google.

Step 3 Setup A Business Page On Google+

Step 3 Setup A Business Page On Google+

Go to Google+ Business

simply select Other.

Step 4 Promoting Your Content On Google+ Profiles

For each of your blog posts, share them as a link on your

which is what your target audience will be looking for when theyre considering put-

With each of your updates and shares on Google+ youll be able to add hashtags like
vant to the content and your blog, but you also want to use hashtags that people are
likely to follow.
So you might have to get a little more generic with the hashtags to reach
a wider audience. Instead of using # L i v i n gR o o m D I Y for your DIY
design blog post you can use just # D I Y . Or you could use both to reach
both the ultra-targeted audience and a broader audience.

But dont use more than two or three hashtags per post. Nobody likes to see a post
with hashtags everywhere. Its confusing and youll be seen as a spammer.

Step 5 Share, Leave Comments & Give +1s

The best way to build your community on Google+ is to start introducing yourself
to your target audience on Google+. The way to do this is to search for your target

Search for relevant search terms in your industry. Search for hashtags
relative to your industry. Youll see posts and people that are interested in your content.
On the posts you see, leave comments and give +1s. The people will appreciate this
interaction with their content and as you build the relationship some of those people will add you and your business page to their circles.
As another part of your daily Google+ activities, share content that your target auon Google+. Share the links on Google+ and use the mention function to make sure

On Google+, you mention someone by using the + symbol in front of their username.

Step 6 Participate In Hangouts & Communities

One of the interesting features of Google+ is Hangouts. Its a way for people to have
but people seem to be more willing to use the feature on Google+.

You can participate in Hangouts of all shapes and sizes. You can suggest hanging
out with people in your circles as you build your community.
You can also join scheduled hangouts. There are many taking place
ability to add something to the discussions. The more you participate
the more likely youll be to add people to your community on Google+.
There is also a thriving community of discussion on Google+ Communities. Search
for communities in your industry that your target audience members will be participate in or create your own and invite people to join.

Step 7 Strategically Add People To Your Circles

Google+ community. These are people that you will follow on
your timeline on Google+.
Like Twitter, youll want to be selective with the people you follow
on Google+. You want them to either be part of your target audience

circles. You can add them if you think theyll have interesting information to share,
but for growing your community youll want to know that theyre likely to add you to
their circles.
Look for people that have more than just a few people in their circles. Look for people that have more than the default number of circles, which is usually a handful
including circles for Family, Friends and Co-Workers.

No

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the social network for professionals.

nities and gives users the opportunity to share business-related content.

No

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the social network for professionals.

nities and gives users the opportunity to share business-related content.

LinkedIn also serves as a great networking tool for professionals to meet other professionals. And its a great sales tool for salespeople that sell to professionals at businesses and organizations.
For blog owners, its possible to build a strong community on LinkedIn. You can
post and that will share your blog posts with their own community on LinkedIn.
HERE IS HOW YOU CAN BUILD YOUR LINKEDIN COMMUNITY.

Step 1 Signup For Your Personal Profile

for LinkedIn. Once your account is created LinkedIn will take you through the steps

ate for yourself. It has an area for your current title and business
name. You can enter past work experience.

and title and then move right to your summary to learn about you and what you do.
Write about 3-5 paragraphs about what you do right now at your job. You can mention your business and your business blog encouraging people to follow it for updates. As with any summary, youll want to hint at whats in it for your followers. In
this case, your blog updates provide useful information to your target audience.

Step 2 Setup Your LinkedIn Company Page

youll select Companies. At the top right there is a text link to Add a Company.
Youll enter in your company name and the email address you have at the company.

Your company page is setup similar to other social media business pages. You enter
in the basic information describing your company. You can enter the contact information. You can also add your company logo and a header image like the ones on
Facebook and Twitter.

Step 3 Connect With People In Your Networks

previous work history and your current and previous locations.
You can also add your education history and any groups youve
been a part of over the years. These all establish the networks
youve had in the past and present. Those networks allow you to
begin making connections with people.
Start by clicking on the networks (bu sinesses, g rou ps, u niversities, etc.) in your pro-

The default settings on LinkedIn make it so that you can request to connect with
anybody by saying that youre a friend or by indicating that you know them from
one of your networks.
Dont just connect with anyone. You want to connect with people that have a relatively large number of connections. This will open up your 2nd degree connection
options, which well talk about in the next section. Find individuals in your networks that have at least 100 connections. More is better.
Also connect with people that are likely to connect. LinkedIn will take notice if you
have a lot of connection requests outstanding. If you have too many requests that
are ignored you wont be able to make connections. So focus on the people that you
know well and that use LinkedIn on a regular basis.

Step 4 Connect With 2nd Degree Connections That Fit Your Target Audience
As you build your connections youll open up 2nd degree connections. These are the
connections of your connections. By default, youre able to connect with 2nd degree
connections on LinkedIn.
Some users will change the settings on their accounts and youll need more information such as their email address in order to connect, but for the most part youre
able to connect with nearly all your 2nd degree connections.
This is where you start targeting your target audience members.
When youre signed in to your account and go to the LinkedIn
homepage youll see a timeline of content. On the top right youll
see a section title People You May Know. A similar section

This is LinkedIn helping you make connections. Many are 2nd degree connections
and people in your various networks.
Scroll through these suggestions and quickly assess if a person is a member of your
target audience. Youll only be able to see the persons name, title and location.

Step 5 Participate In Group Discussions

Step 5 Participate In Group Discussions

Groups are a large area of opportunity on LinkedIn. There are
groups for all kinds of professions
and industries. For some, youll
need to request an invite to join. A
moderator or owner of the group

you to join.
SOME GROUPS, HOWEVER, GIVE YOU INSTANT ACCESS.
Many groups on LinkedIn are overrun with people simply sharing their blog content. You can use these groups if you would like access to information, but the more
worthwhile discussions are happening in groups where discussion and promotion
are separated.
ing questions or posing insight into certain topics. This is where you can join the
discussion. Provide valuable insight.
Write your comments right in the groups. Dont link to your content especially if the
group has a designated area for sharing content. You dont want to get kicked out of
the group.
Leave your comments and like other comments that are useful. This will expose you
to your target audience and youll be seen as an authority and someone that should
be followed.
pany page. If your comments are helpful, people will request to connect and theyll
follow your company page.

Step 6 Like, Comment & Share Content

As you build your community on LinkedIn youll want to start sharing content on
groups that have designated areas for promoting content.
Share your own content and share the content that your target audience and their
When you login to LinkedIn youll see the timeline with content that

When you login to LinkedIn youll see the timeline with content that
est and also leave comments. Your connections will appreciate that

can get their attention by commenting and sharing their content they may do the
same for you.

Step 7 LinkedIn Premium Accounts & Ads

With a LinkedIn Premium
Account you get a variety
regular users.

For bloggers, you can connect with anyone on LinkedIn. This means you can search
for your exact target audience and connect with them even if youre not a 2nd or 3rd
degree connection.
LinkedIn also has an advertising solution. You can signup for LinkedIn Advertising
where youll be able to promote your company, but you can also promote your company page and content you create.
You can target your exact target audience by honing in on the information they

use a headline in your LinkedIn ad that addresses the target audience member.
Then pose a question that relates to the type of content youll create on your blog
and share on LinkedIn with your connections.

No

Pinterest
F acebook, T witter,
L inkedI n and G oog le+ ).

With over 100 million users its another social network that can be a place for you to
build an audience of people that will allow you to promote your blog content to them.
The concept of Pinterest is that its a place where people can bookmark or pin things
sive style.
Here is how you can tap into the Pinterest community to build your Pinterest audience.

Step 1 Signup & Create Boards

Signup for a Pinterest personal account; its a simple process.
As with the other social media sites, youll want to create
both a personal and business account on Pinterest, but a
personal would be the most important especially if youre
the only author on the blog.

resembles your full name. Youll also enter a description describing you and what
you do. You can also enter in your location and your website. Youll have to veri-

Once youve created boards you can start pinning items. These will be images, posts

Once youve created boards you can start pinning items. These will be images, posts
and pages from around the web. The image will appear on your Pinterest feed for
you and your followers to see. You put each pin in one of your boards to create collections that can inspire you and your followers.

Step 2 Create A Business Account

Pinterest For Business allows you to create a
business account, which you can use to build
a community around your brand and blog.

The form includes the type of business, contact name and the information that
to your business name as possible. If the exact username is not available, look to
shorten the name if possible.

Step 3 Connect Your Account With Facebook & Twitter

As with Instagram, you can connect your Pinterest account with
Facebook and Twitter. In the settings, youll be able to automatically
share your new pins on Twitter and Facebook. This will bring your audiences on those two networks to your boards to see the type of pines
youre sharing, which will build your Pinterest audience.

Step 4 Follow, Comment & Like Pins & Boards

Youre probably noticing a trend in these guides for each social network.
Following, commenting and liking pins and boards will get you notarget audience. Interact with their items on Pinterest and theyll pay
attention to what youre doing.

and updates with the goal of building a community that will click on your content.

Step 5 Create Group Boards & Invite Target Audience Members & Influencers
The group board is a unique feature on Pinterest. You
can invite people to be part of boards giving them an
opportunity to contribute pins to a collection. You can
create a board related to your niche and begin adding
pins. You can then invite your followers to join the
board as contributors.
When people start adding items to the board make sure you leave comments and
like the items they add. This will reinforce their participation.
The more people you can have on group boards and the more excited they are about
being a part of it the more likely they are to promote the content to their followers,
which expands your reach on Pinterest.

Step 6 Promoted Pins & Rich Pins

P ro m

o ted P i n s is an opportunity for people to get more attention for

in certain category and search results on Pinterest. Youll be visible to

more people than just your followers making it more likely that people
will click on your pins and clickthrough to your blog posts.
R i c h P i n s allows businesses to add more information to certain pins.
Products can add pricing. You can add recipes to images of foods and drinks.
For your blog youll want to take advantage of A rti c l e P i n s , which allows users to pin your articles and save them to read later on Pinterest.
To get Rich Pins, youll need to add information to your website and verify your
website so that everything functions perfectly for users.

No

Building An Email List Of Engaged Subscribers

Email is the cream of the crop when it comes to building a community for your blog. An email list is something you own and
something you control.

No

Building An Email List Of Engaged Subscribers

Email is the cream of the crop when it comes to building a community for your blog. An email list is something you own and
something you control.

Social media sites can change the rules for how you can promote to your followers,
but with email you are the one in control. You can test to determine how often you
to determine what gets the best response.

Step 1 Select An Email Provider

There are several email providers to choose from including:
M ailC himp
C ampaig n M onitor
C onstant C ontact
Another one that is very popular among bloggers is Aweber. Youre able to setup
custom templates for your blog newsletter. You can automate your blog updates.
ent segments of your list.
And the great thing about Aweber is that the more subscribers you have the more
you pay. You actually wont mind paying more because youll be excited about having more subscribers.
Pricing starts at $19.99/mo for up to 500 subscribers and the price goes up from there.

Step 2 Setup Your Email Lists

To promote your blog youll want to

y o u r s u b s c ri b ers . This is the list that youll promote on your blog and
in other places. Youll want to focus the most on this list because it will
bring people into the early stages of your sales funnel. Youll win them
over with your blog content and get their email information when they
want more content from you.
But other than your subscriber list youll want to c reate a l i s t f o r y o u r
c l i en ts . You can create a unique email for these clients. Since theyre already clients youll want to send them a mixture of content that includes
company updates, blog updates and any other type of content that might
help them. You can also market to them with new service and product

A third list you can c reate i s a l i s t o f y o u r em p l o y ees . You can share

new blog posts with your employees along with other company updates.
Send the latest posts to your employees. Ask them to share it with their

Finally, c reate a l i s t f o r y o u r c o l l eagu es an d c o n tac ts . You dont

want to spam any of these lists with too much content and you especially
dont want to overdo it with this list. These are the people that can really
help you when you want to promote your content. After youve created
a really special piece of content send an update to your colleague list.
Tell them you would really appreciate it if they provided you with their
thoughts on the content. And ask them to share it with their networks if

Step 3 Develop Your Opt-In Offer

From here, most people will create their
opt-in forms. Thats a good next step, but
before you create your opt-in forms you need

Step 3 Develop Your Opt-In Offer

From here, most people will create their
opt-in forms. Thats a good next step, but
before you create your opt-in forms you need

your email list.

Think about it these people are giving you
permission to send them messages directly to
their inbox. Thats a big commitment and they
certainly dont have to do it for no reason. You
have to give them reason to subscribe.
In time, as your blog becomes amazing, youll be
able to attract people with only the promise of
more amazing blog content, but until then youll

W hite P aper
G u ide
T raining C ou rse
These are the type of content that people want and things that theyll gladly take in
cost you about $100 to have a designer create a professional .pdf document that you
can immediately send to new subscribers through Aweber.

Step 4 Create Your Opt-In Forms

N o w

y o u c an c reate y o u r o p t- i n f o rm

.
-

ing opt-in forms, but with each youll want to create three essential opt-in forms.
This is the opt-in that goes at
the top right hand side of your blog. This area is known as the sidebar and
youll want to put your opt-in at the very top. This area is recognized by
blog readers as a common location to quickly subscribe to blogs they like.

they like.
The second location is at the bottom of every post. Once readers
have completed a post theyll be looking for something to do next. They
can easily leave your blog and go to something else, but the better result
for you is to capture their future attention by getting them to subscribe.
Use a call to action that will make it worth their while. Use something
like, If you found this post useful then you wont want to miss
the free guide available to exclusive subscribers.
The third opt-in form is the pop-up or lightbox form. When a
new visitor comes to your blog theyll see the pop-up hover over the con-

other opt-ins, but nobody will miss the pop-up and with it youll get.

Step 5 Automate Some Of Your Newsletters

Creating new email newsletters is hard work and doing it on a regular basis will wear you out. You can do that, but to ensure that you
are at least doing something with your email list, automate some of
your newsletters.
Grab your blogs feed, which is usually http://www.yoursite.com/blog/feed/ and
create the automated blog newsletter on your email provider admin. Youll be able
to create a custom template that includes your logo and other brand information.
Have this email send the same day that each of your blog posts publish.

Step 6 Build On Your Newsletters With Unique Content

Automation is a great tool for email newsletters, but as you build
your list youll want to create unique email messages that provide
unique content only for your email subscribers. You dont have to
do this as often as your automated list, but doing it every month will
provide value to your subscribers without wearing you out.
For these messages, create helpful content. You could create entire posts that
youll only share with subscribers. Take one of your best tips or opinions and
share it with your subscribers. Have a designer create a unique image to complement your content and it will have even more impact.
At the end of these unique messages include a call to action asking your subscribwill encourage your subscribers to help you build your email list, which expands
the people in your blog marketing community.

Step 7 Promote Your Email List On Social Media

Once each week share the link to your signup page where your followers can signup
to get the exclusive information that you only share with your email subscribers.
Remember, social media followers are great, but on social media sites you dont
control the platform. You have some control, but the sites can change the rules at
anytime without notice.
By getting those followers to subscribe to your email list youre getting
them to opt-in to a channel that you own and control.

L ook i ng f or m ore g rea t c ontent? S i g nup f or the em

y our f ree g ui de i m m edi a tel y .

a i l l i s t a nd rec ei v e

Final Thoughts On The Importance Of Email For Blog Marketing

Your email list is a platform you control. With social media, you
have subscribers when people follow you or like your page, but
you dont have total control over the platform.
This control makes having an email list crucial for promoting your blog posts. Each
time you publish a new post you can email your list to promote the post and engaging with your subscribers.
With valuable and insightful blog content youll add subscribers through opt-in boxes.

Putting It All Together

You now have a plan to:
I dentify you r targ et commu nity member
B u ild a commu nity that g ives you permission to market you r blog posts to repeatedly
G row you r social media presence on the rig ht social networks
The steps youve taken so far are the beginnings of your blog marketing strategy.
CONGRATULATIONS!
This is a strong foundation and in the next chapter were going to give you the steps
you can take to create the type of content your community will love.

TA KE M E TO
THE INTRO

PDF

DOWNLOAD

TA KE M E TO
CH AP TE R TW O

WRITTEN BY NEIL PATEL & AARON AGIUS

CHAPTER TWO

Types Of Blog Posts That Are Easy To Market

target audience member.
From there, you determined the best social networks and other online areas where you
can build a community. Combined, these mini-communities will build the foundation of
a group of people that will let you market to them over and over again. Its a major stepping point to building a blog that is successful through blog marketing.
But now that you have the foundation of building a blog marketing community its
time to discuss the type of blog posts that are easy to market. There are a number of
readers, but being valuable doesnt make a post marketable on its own.
The types of posts that are easy to market are ones that others have a vested interest in
helping you market. To make sure youre creating content that will make blog marketing
easier, this chapter has instructions for creating a system to create these types of posts.

No

Create A Spreadsheet Of
InIndustry Bloggers, Brands & Influencers

Your community and connections are huge when it comes to marketing you blog. You
need people on your side that will help you promote your blog posts. In the last chapter we discussed how to build a community of your audience members, but we also
discussed creating a list of blogs, forums and communities that currently hold members of your target audience.

Step 1 Open The Spreadsheet You Built In Chapter 1 Called Blog Marketing
Keep your blog marketing items together in the same Google Drive
spreadsheet to make it easier to reference every time you publish a new
blog post.

Step 2 Create a Second Tab And Name It Influencers

The term
will include the bloggers,
brands and other people and organizations you will
potentially write about in your blog posts.

Step 3 In Cell A1, Type The Pages Title, Influencers

T hat' s the whole step.

Step 4 Create Your Column Headings Starting in Cell B:2

C o lu
C o lu
C o lu
C o lu
C o lu
C o lu
C o lu

m
m
m
m
m
m
m

n B :
n C : About
n D : Website
n E : Blog
n F : Email Address
n G : Twitter Handle
n H : LinkedIn URL

Step 5 Freeze Rows

Freeze the panes below Row 3 so that as
you scroll youll be able to see the page
title and row titles.

Step 6 Sort The Range From A To Z Using

Column A Or Your Influencers Column
That's the whole step.

Step 7 Begin Adding Influencers To Your List

You can use your list of blogs, forums and other communities from the last chapter
to star the list. Those communities, blogs and websites are places where your target
audience is spending time.

You will probably think of some as you go through this guide. Youll
blogging research.

Any blogger, brand or organization that shares your target audience is a potential
make it easy to reference with each post you create.
The topic of this chapter is to create posts that are easy to market. The key point of
may share the content you create with their communities.
You have to make it worth the while of the person, brand or organization to share
your content. The next sections in this chapter provide a few of the best ways to

Whenever you need to conduct an interview, create a top list or do a feature story
ensure that youre writing about and including people that are likely to share your
blog posts with your target audience members.

No

Interviews

To repeat, the types of posts that are easy to market are ones that others have a vested interesting in helping you market.

Interviews often make for interesting, engaging and useful blog posts, but they also
serve the purpose of getting others vested in the success of the post.

terviewing because youre exposing them to your audience and giving them a platform to share their story, knowledge and experience.
The interviewee will want the post to do well so theyll do what they can to promote
the post in their communities and networks.
Here is the process for conducting an interview on your blog and promoting it to it
is exposed to as many people as possible.

Step 1 Choose An Influencer To Approach

s tab. Scroll through

didate for an interview.

increasing your odds of hearing back. If you hear back from more than one you can

Step 2 Contact The Influencer

EMAIL
ail, but as you might

But if you do have an email address feel free to reach out with an initial email message and
one follow up message if you dont hear back from the person within seven days.
Here is the message template to write:
Hi [

My name is [Your Name].

I have a blog, [Blog Name], where we interview industry experts. These interviews are
some of the most popular posts on the blog.
Would you be interested in participating in an interview?
If you are up for it I will send you a list of questions.
Some questions will give you the chance to share information about your business
or organization.
After getting your responses well get the post ready to publish, but before publishing well

Would you be interested in doing an interview?

Take care,
[Your Name]
[Your Business]

exposure to your audience. Theyll have a chance to discuss themselves and their busi-

It also helps to stroke their ego by telling them that you feel they are an industry leader.
LINKEDIN

In the last chapter we talked about how you can build your blog marketing community using
LinkedIn. Its a great tool for building a community of your target audience, but its also a
rget audience members.

] LinkedIn.
If there are multiple people with the same name use the business or organization name
to narrow results.

theyre a third degree connection you wont be able to connect without a premium account
in some cases depending on how the person has setup their privacy settings.
Once connected, send a message to the person using the message template that you

If you have a premium account you can ask to connect with the person or you can send a
message without connecting.
TWITTER

connecting via Twitter whether its through mention conversations or through direct message.

follow you back. If they do then you can send them a direct message.
With either a direct message or with a message via mention, youll have to make your pitch
short and to the point. There is not a lot of time for ego stroking on Twitter.
U s e th i s tem

p l ate:

W ou ld you be interested in an interview to be pu blished on [ B l og N a m

e]?

Thats it. Make it easy for the person to say Yes to your initial question. They might respond asking
how they can contact you or they might follow you and send you a direct message.

rolling toward a full interview.

WEBSITE CONTACT FORM

og. Many people today

have personal websites where they might even have their own blog. Others will usually have business websites, which usually have contact forms or contact information.
When using a contact form, use the format of the message above in the email secprovide an initial sentence that states:
T hi s m

es s a g e i s f or [

] .

OTHER WAYS TO CONTACT INFLUENCERS WITH INTERVIEW REQUESTS

The above contact methods are some of the best and most common ways for reaching

The above contact methods are some of the best and most common ways for reaching
You can reach out to people via phone. You can reach them on other social networks
and you could even try leaving a comment on their blog as a way to get their attention.
Be courteous. You want the person to respond, but you dont want to make them

Step 3 Develop Your Questionnaire

As you conduct interviews youll come up with certain questions that
to create customized questions. You want to make each interviewee
feel like they are special and not receiving a canned list of questions.
The goal of your questions is three-pronged:
1. The questions should lead your interviewee to provide interesting and insightful
answers for your readers. Great content is easier to market than boring content.
2. The questions should lead to answers that your interviewee will be proud of.
When the interviewee is proud theyll be more likely to share the interview with
their community of followers.
3. The questions should make you look good. You want to grow your blogs brand
and when others perceive you to be a source of good questions theyll want more
content from you.

Questions should provide more than just a Yes or No response from

the interview. To do that, use questions that lead to stories, explanations
and similar responses:
Could you explain what your business provides its customers?
What has been your businesss biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?
What is the biggest reason for your businesss success and why?

guidelines for interviews.

Step 4 Send The Questionnaire Complete With A Timeline

Step 4 Send The Questionnaire Complete With A Timeline

them to feel like you took time to customize the questions, which you
will to an extent.
Send the questionnaire in a document.

document back to you via email.

Include a timeline in your message with the questionnaire
attached. Include the following dates:

Questionnaire Follow Up Date 1 week from questionnaire send date

Response Due Date 1 week from questionnaire send date or follow up date
Review Date 10 days from questionnaire send date or follow up date
Publish Date 17+ days from questionnaire send date or follow up date

a reasonable amount of time. They are likely busy and may not have time to respond
immediately so give them a few days to a week unless they say they have other
pressing engagements upcoming.
view. And the publish date will give them an idea of when they can expect to see
their interview go live.
If you do not hear back from the person youll need to email them again to get them
to respond to your questionnaire.
Here is an email script to use:
Hi,
I wanted to follow up to make sure you received the questionnaire.
We would really like to get your interview up so you can join the list of industry
expert interviews on our blog. We know our readers will love seeing your responses to the questions.
If you have any questions let me know.
Thanks,
[Your Name]

can send this follow up email:

Hi,
I wanted to follow up to make sure you received the questionnaire.
We would like to have the interview up soon and weve already heard back from
[insert number] others including [name #1] and [name #2].
Are you still interested in being involved?
If there is anything I can do let me know.
Thanks,
[Your Name]

Format The Final Interview &

Step 5 Send To Interviewee For Final Approval
their answers.

about changing industry terms or language that may have been intentional. Keep the interview conversational. Its a style readers enjoy.

Attached is the formatted version of the interview. Ill plan to publish it on [publish date] as is unless you see anything you would like changed.

This allows you to publish the interview even if you dont hear back from the busy

Step 6 Publish The Interview And Promote

Once the article is published, promote it to the communities you built
per the instructions in the previous chapters. Well also cover even

Step 6 Publish The Interview And Promote

Once the article is published, promote it to the communities you built
per the instructions in the previous chapters. Well also cover even
more methods for promoting your interview in the following chapters.

Step 7 Email The Interviewee Asking Them To Share The Post

As soon as the post is live, email the interviewee letting them know
that the post is live. Ask them to share the post with their followers
and also ask them to provide any feedback they have on the process.

Step 8 Follow Up With Post Updates

Once the post has been live for a few days, follow up with the inwant to know the post is reaching lots of people and in this email
you can ask them to share it once more with their followers.

No

TTop Lists

Lists posts are usually favorites among blog readers.

Lists are easy to read. The format naturally breaks up the
content into sections giving it structure. Its also easy for
visitors to skip ahead to points they really care about on the
topic being covered.
List posts of various types do well with blog readers making it easier for you to market the posts in the ways discussed in this guide, but there is a type of list post that
will make that task even easier.

share them. For others, you can reach out to them and show them the post with subtle nudge requests that they share the post.
H ere i s h o w to c reate to p l i s ts an d h o w
m ark et th em .

to as k th o s e y o u i n c l u d e to h el p

Step 1 Find An Idea And Concept For The Top List

Sometimes youll come up with an entirely unique idea for a top list. If
you do, go ahead and start writing, but if youre struggling to come up
already show interest in.

L ook for the top posts on the blog s.

F irst, see if they have a P op ul a r P os ts section. T hese are u su ally fou nd in the
sidebar area.
S econd, look at the nu mber of social shares on each post.
F ind the most popu lar posts and write down the topics.
T ake those topics and create top lists based on the topic.

H ere are a f ew

ex am

p l es :

T opic: I nterior D esig n T rends

T op L ist I dea: 1 0 1 T op I nterior D esig n T rends
T op L ist I dea: 1 0 1 T op S ou rces O f I nterior D esig n I nspiration
T op L ist I dea: 1 0 1 T op I nterior D esig ners
T opic: B ig D ata
T op L ist I dea: 3 0 B est S ou rces O n B ig D ata
T op L ist I dea: 3 0 E x perts W ith T he M ost K nowledg e O n B ig D ata
T op L ist I dea: 3 0 T op B log s A bou t T echnolog y A nd B ig D ata

Step 2 Include Influencers From Influencer List In The Post

both and include why you included them on the list.

Step 3 Publish Post And Share With Influencers Included

Start sharing the post with your network of connections to get
some initial interest.

the fact that they were included. Ask them to share the post with
their followers.

No

Featured Articles (Ego Bait Posts)

Featured articles are blog posts written with focus entirely on one of

and going more in-depth with your coverage. Its another type of ar-

No

Featured Articles (Ego Bait Posts)

Featured articles are blog posts written with focus entirely on one of

and going more in-depth with your coverage. Its another type of article that blog readers enjoy and it can really earn the attention of an

This method and others in this guide are called E g o B a i t P os ts . Sometimes its
written as E g oB a i t too.

Step 1 Browse Industry Blogs For Current Trends

Youre looking for topics that your audience is currently interested in. You can create these from scratch, but taking a hot
topic happening right now gives you a better chance for hitting
a hot button with readers.

Go To Your Influencer List &

Step 2 Find An Influencer That Is Affecting The Trend
ject of your article so make sure there are multiple points you can dis-

Step 3 Write A 2,000+ Word Feature Story On The Topic & Influencer
In general, longer posts rank better in search engines than
short posts. But readers also see longer posts as more authoritative. This word count gives you room to share examples
will be able to use as guidance for themselves.
Open with information about the hot topic. Capture attention with important questions
that make people feel surprised, intrigued, etc. Use stats to show how the topic could

encer in a good light throughout the article. Positive information is part of the Ego
munity once published.
Here is an example of how to frame a featured article:
Topic: Slow Loading Blogs Hurting Readership, Rankings And More
: Synthesis Hosting For WordPress And Copyblogger Media
The article would discuss the problems a slow website can have. It would also discuss current hosting options for WordPress and then show how Synthesis is a host-

Step 4 Share The Post With Your Community

Build some buzz around the post. Get some comments, shares and in-

Step 5 Reach Out To The Influencer

Share it with them, but dont ask them to share it. If the article is good
and if it appeals to their better interests they will likely share it without asking.

No

Co-Authored Posts

Co-Authored Posts are posts that bring together in

insum of all its contributors.
Individuals can create wonderful posts, but bringing
together multiple authors can elevate a post to new
levels. Readers not only get one point of view, they get
multiple views from the people they look to for information and they get all in one place.

blog post that is the sum of all its contributors.

Individuals can create wonderful posts, but bringing together multiple authors can
elevate a post to new levels. Readers not only get one point of view, they get multiple views from the people they look to for information and they get all in one place.
Co-Authored Posts are also great vehicles for blog marketing. Each person included
as an author on the post has an incentive for the post to do well.
Instead of one person promoting the post you have two, three or more people sharing the post between each of their communities, greatly expanding the audience and
lifting the post and everyone involved up to new audiences.
Here is how you can setup and author a co-authored post with one or more of the

Step 1 Find A Common Hot Topic

Browse industry blogs and websites. Find the topics that are top of
mind for your target audience. You can create brand new topics that
may be interesting to potential readers, but building on existing hot
topics gives you a greater chance of hitting home on a great article.

Find An Influencer Or Influencers

Step 2 That Will Want To Participate
the second step.
ly have useful information and insight into the hot topic.

Step 3 Determine The Best Post Formula

First
their input on the topic. Then you could use that input to create a post
and title it, Industry Experts Share Advice On [Hot Topic].
Second, you could create a blog post as normal using input from each person and
simply credit the post as being co-authored by each of you. It doesnt have to in-

Third

theyll be to share the post once published.

There are other post formulas that would probably work too.
Once you determine the type of post you want to create or the type of post you think
list through the common methods email, Twitter, etc. describing the topic and
if they would be interested in co-authoring a post.

Step 4 Determine Where The Post Will Be Published

the best place to publish the post.
There are a few factors that will determine the best place to
publish the post.

T h e o p ti o n s i n c l u d e:
Y ou r B log
T heir B log
A nother B log
The topic will be one factor.

It might seem that it would be in your best interest to publish the post on your blog
stand to gain just as much if your name is on the post and its published on the in-

Step 5 Write The Post

using them as an expert for input on the article direction.

Step 6 Have Those Involved Share The Post

same since theyll have a vested interest in the success of the post just like you will.

Putting It All Together

There are many types of posts that you can and will write on your blog that will do well.
Not every post has to be a form of Ego Bait to be successful. In fact, if you do it all

But using various degrees of Ego Bait in your posts will help you grow your blog.
Each of the posts mentioned above will create the type of post that is easy to market.
encers from your industry and give them a vested interest in the success of the post
youre expanding the audience likely to read the post.

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CHAPTER THREE

Organic Search
By this point you probably have some great ideas for blog posts. Maybe youve even
idea of blogging and marketing your blog you may have even reached out to one or

In this chapter, youll learn how to format your blog posts so they rank well in search
Its an essential part of blog marketing and in the following chapter well show you the
steps and tools you need to optimize your posts.
LETS JUMP IN.

No

Optimize Blog Posts

People are looking for information online. Blogging is

one way to feed the demand for information.
O p
ac c
1. C
2. C

ti m i z i n g y o u r b l o g p o s ts f o r o rgan i c s earc h
o m p l i s h es tw o th i n gs :
reates content you r targ et au dience wants and needs
ommu nicates what you r content is to search eng ines so they can share it with you r targ et au dience

Whenever youre creating online content you want to

you focus on the reader the SEO part of the equation

But there are some important steps to take to optimize your blog posts so that you
communicate with the search engines so they can rank your posts.
The topic of SEO was covered extensively in a previous guide The Advanced
Guide To SEO.
For this chapter well cover only relevant information and provide the steps for optimizing your blog posts for SEO.
HERE ARE THOSE STEPS.
N o te: W e won t spend mu ch time on the basics like title, U R L , etc. T here are
cou ntless posts on those topics, bu t we will inclu de them becau se they are essential

Step 1 Keyword And Focus

When marketing your blog posts youll often be covering the topics that your target
audience is looking for online. Youll be writing about hot topics, trends and comaudience is searching for on search engines.

When creating each blog post you want to have one main keyword phrase in mind
for each post. From that one focus keyword phrase you might have additional secondary keyword phrases. In most cases, youll naturally use the secondary keywords
when you write the post, but if youre cognizant of them ahead of time you can make
sure to include them.
An example might be writing a post for the keyword phrase l i v i ng room
s i g n. That is your focus keyword.

de-

S ec o n d ary k ey w o rd p h ras es m i gh t i n c l u d e:
modern living room desig n
vintag e living room desig n
living room desig n inspiration
You get the picture.
From your blog post ideas youll need to extrapolate the main keyword focus.
Once you do that you can create or recreate your title.

Step 2 Title

It could be argued that the title is the most important piece of your blog.
Obviously the content needs to be outstanding, but if your title isnt appealing nobody is going to click to read the content whether its from a link on social media, a
search result or anything else.
To capture attention your title has to be intriguing to your target
audience. It has to really entice them to want to click.

And on the other side, you want the title to be optimized for SEO. After all, the title needs to be relevant to the target audience and it needs to communicate to the
search engines what the post is about.
Some say you cant do both, but it is possible if you know the secret.
H ere are s o m e ex am p l es o f c atc h y ti tl es u s i n g c atc h y ti tl e f o rm
th e k ey w o rd p h ras e f ro m earl i er i n th e c h ap ter:

u l as an d

ARE YOU MAKING THESE COMMON LIVING ROOM DESIGN MISTAKES?

101 INSPIRATIONAL LIVING ROOM DESIGN TRENDS
25 MODERN LIVING ROOM DESIGN TIPS FROM THE EXPERTS

and there are

many others) while also using the focus keyword phrase.

T y p
Q
L
H
S
M

es o f p o s ts th at d em
u estions
ists
ow- to
ecrets
istakes

an d c l i c k s i n c l u d e:

Also notice that the last title in the list is an example of the type of posts that are
easy to market. It includes tips from experts. You can interview experts in the industry and get them to share the post once its published.

K eep it u nder 6 0 characters

U se the focu s keyword once

Even though title tags are based on pixel count width rather than a number of characters, its worth keeping titles to 6 0 c h arac ters o r l es s .
Keep titles natural, relevant and clear for readers.

Step 3 URL

There are a few theories on creating URLs for blog posts.

One school of thought is to use full title as your URL.
Lets say you chose the title:
101 INSPIRATIONAL LIVING ROOM DESIGN TRENDS
Your URL ending would become:
/101-INSPIRATIONAL-LIVING-ROOM-DESIGN-TRENDS/

The other thought is that shorter URLs are better. So to keep it short you would use
the URL:
/INSPIRATIONAL-LIVING-ROOM-DESIGN/

Both are valid, but you dont want to come across as blatantly targeting what you think
search engines want. Create the URL to provide the most relevant information to your
audience. When they see the URL they should instantly know what the post is about.
A few rules for creating blog URLs:
A void u sing the date in the U R L u nless it s absolu tely imperative that you need
to avoid du plication with another U R L on you r website or blog
U se dashes instead of u nderscores
U se all lowercase letters instead of u ppercase or proper case

Step 4 Description

The meta description is another important element for encouraging clicks from
search engine results. The major item people see on the search engine result pages
is the title.

3:20

Along with the title there are now more visual elements such
as video screenshots and author avatars resulting from Google
Authorship, which are all referred to as rich snippets.

But a secondary item on the SERPs is the description.

This is the smaller text under the Title that describes in more detail what is on the page.
When writing your descriptions you want to share a little bit of what
keyword phrase.
ing an introductory paragraph for your article.
The purpose is to convince the searcher to click through to your post.

Step 5 Headings
Its a simple thing, but headings are something easy to overlook when formatting
your blog posts.
Books have chapters for a reason.
Chapters break up the content. Its easier to digest content when it
comes in segments.
Blog post headings make it easier for the reader to digest.
Thats one reason to use headings in your blog posts and its a big reason, but another important reason to including headings in your blog posts is for organic search optimization.
Using your main focus keyword and secondary keywords in the headings gives the
reader hints as to what the content is about when they scan your article. And the
search engines use it as a signal too.

Step 6 Internal Linking

Internal links help market you blog posts as readers read your blog posts.
When someone is done reading your content you have to give
him or her a next step. If you link to 4 or 5 previous blog posts
They continue to read your content. They stay on your site. You
continue to build that trust and relationship that leads to a sale.
Again, blog readers appreciate internal links as long as its not overdone. And because readers show preference toward internal linking, search engines do as well.
Internal linking gives search engines an indication of relevant content on your blog.
By linking from an authoritative post on your blog to another relevant post you indicate that both posts are important.

indicators search engines use to gauge the relevance and authority of your blog.

No

The Best WordPress SEO Plugins

WordPress is the most popular blogging content management
system available.

One reason WordPress is popular is because of the community of developers it has.

The software comes with a huge market for free and premium plugins.
We covered, in detail, WordPress and necessary plugins that make your WordPress
site an SEO powerhouse. Well add a few to the list for blog marketing purposes as it
relates to organic search.

Step 1 Add Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin

Its the best SEO plugin for your blog. In the previous guide on SEO we covered the detailed items you want to take care of to make your blog optimized for organic search.
Yoast is a free plugin. Thats a bonus. Its been downloaded nearly 7 million times
as of this writing. With over 3,000 reviews it has nearly a perfect 5 out of 5 rating
on WordPress.
You can do just about everything with this plugin when it comes to optimizing your
blog posts.

Step 2 Add Google XML Sitemaps

Step 2 Add Google XML Sitemaps

Google XML Sitemaps
is a simple plugin. You
dont have to do much
to set it up, but it gives
Google the information
it needs to know what is
on your site.

Step 3 Add W3 Total Cache

Site speed is a huge factor in website and blog success. People expect your site to
load quickly. There is nothing more frustrating to someone than waiting and waiting for content to load. Too many WordPress blogs take too long to load.
Getting a quality WordPress host will be a big help, but adding the W3 Total Cache
will add another layer of improvement.

No

Hunt For Links

For this section well stick to how you can hunt for links for
the blog posts you create.

Step 1 Go To Popular Blogs In Your Industry

No

Hunt For Links

For this section well stick to how you can hunt for links for
the blog posts you create.

Step 1 Go To Popular Blogs In Your Industry

Go to the popular blogs in your industry. You probably have a few that you
more search for y our i ndus try +
blog and you should get a good list of
blogs to use.

Step 2 Look For Blogs That Publish Trackbacks

A common item used by most blogs is the trackback. This is
a blogs way of showing appreciation for a link. When another blog or website links to the post there is a trackback listed
near the comments on the original post.
From your list of industry blogs, create a list of blogs that allow trackbacks.

Step 3 Find The Most Popular Posts On Those Blogs

From the list of blogs that allow trackbacks, look for the most popular posts. These will be the ones with the most social shares, comments and tracks.

Step 4 Create Content Better Than The Popular Posts

Now you know the type of posts that are popular with your target audience. Your goal now is to create blog posts that go beyond those popular posts. Add more valuable content to the topic with your blog post.
This will obviously take time, but it will be worth it because youll be able to build
even more links than the original blog generated.

Step 5 Build A List Of People To Contact From The Trackbacks

Once you have your content
created you can go back to the
trackbacks and parse through
the information. Some will be
from smaller blogs that would
be nice to get a link from, but
not ideal. Others will be from
huge websites that may or
may not link to your post.

Then there is the sweet spot. These are the blogs in the middle that have pretty good
clout, but arent big enough to ignore your emails.

Step 6 Email The Bloggers From The Trackback List

Once you have your list of sweet spot blogs you can email them
letting them know about the new, amazing piece of content
youve created.
Mention that you saw that they commented/linked to the original blog post. Then mention that youve taken the topic even further with an advanced or more in-depth post.
Leave it at that. If youve done a good job a few will link to your post.
For more on creating content that attracts links and where to hunt for links see the
chapter on link building in the Advanced Guide To SEO.

No

Google Authorship
We went through the steps to setting up
Google Authorship in the Google+ section
in chapter 1. Just know that rich snippets
improve click through rates increasing your
hold the top spot on a search result page.
Go through the steps to set it up on your blog.
Check it with the testing tool from Google
and your blog will be setup to have the kind
of rich results people look for in the SERPs.

No

In Depth Articles And More

One of the recent updates to Googles results was In-Depth

Articles. These appear at the bottom of the SERPs for certain
keyword phrases. Google will show a few in-depth article options for the result. These results will include an image, which
we know with Google Authorship can increase clicks.
I wrote about in-depth articles in a blog post on Quick Sprout.
From that post you can see how to increase your chances of having blog posts listed
in the in-depth articles section on Googles result pages.
The big factors appear to be that longer articles and pieces of
content have a higher chance of being included. Were talking
about articles that are 2,000+ words.
It also helps if the post is popular with plenty of social shares
and links. So youll have to use the tips in this guide to promote
your blog posts.

Putting It All Together

chapter will help set your blog up for success with organic search.
In general, write in-depth articles that are seen as better than any other source of
content by your target audience. If you create something better than everyone else
youll have no issue achieving good results in the organic rankings.
Use WordPress and its free and premium plugins to optimize your blog, pages and posts.
It can help clean up the content so youre communicating correctly with the engines.
Finally, create the type of content that is most shared and linked to by your target

The next step is to use paid options to market your blog. This is an area many overlook when it comes to promoting their blog content, but theyre missing out.
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CHAPTER FOUR

Paid Search
Paid search arent options many people discuss when they talk about blog marketing.

But as with all the lessons in this guide its about the

.
log. Not only can you

With paid search, though, youre spending money on top of your time so the stakes
are high.
In the following sections well cover the biggest opportunities you have to market your
blog posts using paid search.

No

Google AdWords

There are a ton of good posts out there about how to effectively use Google AdWords so we wont focus on the
things that have been said before.
Well focus on a single strategy that will help you promote your blog posts instead of a general website or
ecommerce store.

Step 1 Publish A New Post

You can use this tactic for every one of your new posts since
a key component of blogging is to publish only valuable
blog content.

Step 2 Select Only Specific Keyword Phrases

The biggest and broadest keywords are expensive per click. Thats no surprise.
your brand.

Dd

Look for terms that have low competition (i nstead of hig h

or mediu m) . These terms will usually have less than 1,000
monthly global searches and even less in your local area,
which is your local country.

Its important to determine if you are targeting global readers or readers in a specific location. Only you can determine where your absolute ideal readers are located.

AdWords provides you with the Keyword Planner.

YOU HAVE A COUPLE WAYS TO BUILD YOUR CAMPAIGNS.
F i rs t, enter in the URL of your post. Google will suggest ad group ideas as well as
keyword ideas for campaigns.
S ec o n d , enter in keywords you want to target with the blog post.
Form your keywords and the suggestions you can build your campaigns.
ously not always possible. If you feel strongly about a certain keyword with high
(C P C ) to get

Step 3 Create Simple, To-The-Point Ads

The best ads, like the best blog headlines, touch on key emotions with potential readers.
Your ad headlines and description
will need to be even shorter and to the
point than your blog titles.
Create a title that describes exactly what the post is about. Then in the description,

H ere i s an ex am

p l e:

SEARCH TERM:
S ocial M edia F or B u siness
AD HEADLINE:
S ocial M edia F or B u siness
AD DESCRIPTION:
C onnect W ith Y ou r C u stomers O n G oog le+ . G et Y ou r F ree G oog le B u siness P ag e.
Thats an ad created by Google for Google+. Its clear what the ad is for. It speaks to

Step 4 Turn Off The Content Network

Go to Campaign Settings and choose Google Search Only. The default is
for Google to show your ads both in search and on its content network,
which are the sites that have AdSense. Its best for now to focus solely
on the paid search part of AdWords. Once you master search you can
move into the content network.

Step 5 Learn What Works And Create Content Based On Your Findings
The popular advice for using an ad network is to test like crazy. Obviously youll
want to test to see what kind of ads work best for your content.
But heres another piece of advice.
As you see the type of ads and type of content that do best
-

Million of people use Google to search for information. For

many search results, paid ads take up the majority of whats
above the fold.
If you see that some of your posts are doing better than others or if you notice an
opportunity to create something more relevant and more appealing to searchers

Then you can target the term for both organic and paid search.

Step 6 Bid On Competitive Blog Keywords

on Google? If they do you can target those keywords with the

Your competition likely doesnt use AdWords to promote their

blog posts so there probably wont be much competition for the
ads on their brand-related blog keywords.
When you put an ad up for their brand term the searchers will see your relevant
post and go to your blog post instead of to your competitors blog.

No

Yahoo Bing Network

More than 163 million searchers use Yahoo and Bing

each month. Of that number, 54 million dont search
using Google. In some cases, the Yahoo/Bing network is
cheaper on a cost per click (C P C ) basis too.
When using paid ads to market your blog posts, dont get
forget about Yahoo and Bing.
For this section, though, well share a few steps for using
the Yahoo Bing Network to market your blog posts with
paid search.

Step 1 Broaden Your Keywords

With Google, costs are competitive. More brands use Google to attract visitors to
their websites and landing pages so the costs are high.

means there is an opportunity to focus on the broader search terms.

Use the same keyword research you do for organic search and for paid ads. Target

Step 2 Location Target To Get Your Exact Customer

Do you know where your best
customers are? With Bing Ads
cations to promote your blog
posts. Most local businesses
focus on promoting their business pages, but there are plenty
of searchers looking for lists of
things to do in cities and states.
Use the Geo-Targeting feature
on Bing Ads to promote your
top list blog posts. There will be
very few, if any, other ads with
this type of content.

No

2 Tier Networks
nd

There are still a number ad networks out there although Bing Ads
and AdWords are the biggest. There is some opportunity with 2nd
Tier Networks.
H ere are tw o s tep s f o r u s i n g tw o o f th e m
T i er N etw o rk s .

o re p o p u l ar 2 n d

Step 1 Lijit
Lijit has an extensive content publisher network. As an advertiser, you
audience types. Since youve done the
for your target audience you can use
Lijit to target that exact person.
The ads you use on Lijit will show on
publishing sites similar to your blog.

To take the most advantage of Lijit, create ads that promote your blog content as a
type of R el a ted P os ts or R el a ted C ontent ad.
Y o u r ti tl es n eed to h i t o n th e c o m m o n em o ti o n s o f p o ten ti al read ers :
11 SURPRISING WAYS HOMEOWNERS CAN LOSE EVERYTHING
HOW TO AVOID AN EARLY DEATH
STUDY SHOWS UNEXPECTED ANSWER TO THE JOB CRISIS

Step 2 Chitika
Chitika seems to have a large collection of
blogs in its publishing network. They are
also heavily focused on mobile ad delivery
for advertisers.

Since Chitika is making a push with mobile it makes sense to test mobile ads on this
platform. Blog posts continue to be popular with mobile users so there is reason to
believe you can have success by promoting your popular blog posts with mobile ads
on other popular blogs.

Step 3 7Search
7Search has a network of websites
that use the 7Search search box for
internal search. 7Search displays
ads along with the internal website
results.

cause of the low keyword bids.

Putting It All Together

ing their blog content. For that reason alone its an opportunity for you to gain an
advantage over the competition.
By using the strategies above you can ease your way into the paid options for marsales to your business.
HERE IS A RECAP OF THE STEPS TO TAKE.

Step 1 Use Exact Match Headlines On AdWords

Match your ad headlines to keywords. Then use the description to make

Step 2 Target Specific Keywords On AdWords

keywords for the most success.

Step 3 Broaden Your Keyword List With The Yahoo Bing Network
There is less competition on Yahoo Bing so you can
keywords.

Step 4 Use 2nd Tier Networks For Niche Ad Services

2nd Tier Networks like Lijit, Chitika and 7Search have extensive
look like R el a ted P os ts

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CHAPTER FIVE

Social Media
you can build online are social media communities.

once you have your social media communities established.

og post on social media.

your blog posts on social media. These are tactics that have worked to help build some
of the biggest blogs on the Internet.
LETS GET STARTED.

No

The Best Social Networks For Promoting Blogs

It seems that new social networks come out every month. There are big social networks and niche social networks. There are tons of opportunities for
you to promote you blog on every one of the social networks, but for most
people its not reasonable to try to use them all.
Some have tried using every social network, but the common result is multiple
accounts with little to no interaction.
A better strategy is to focus on just a couple social networks or even one social
network.
Here is how you can determine the best social network for promoting your blog.

Step 1 Identify Your Target Reader

social networks. Some use only one or two social networks.
Your task is to identify your target reader and then identify the
social networks that reader prefers.

Step 2 Determine The Traffic Potential Of Target Social Networks

F ro m

o u r ex p eri en c e, th e s o c i al m

ed i a s i tes th at s en d th e

F acebook
T witter
G oog le+
P interest
L inkedI n
The results vary depending on your target reader.
If your blog post is more geared around professional readers and business you

If your blog post is more geared around professional readers and business you
is more visual it might make more sense to focus exclusively on Facebook, Pinterest
and Instagram.
-

No

Automate Content Sharing

Autom

Social media marketing can take quite a bit of time. Weve already discussed the
process of building online communities that allow you to market to them over and
over. Its not small task to build those communities. And once youve built them its
no easy task marketing your blog posts to them.
T h an k f u l l y , th ere are to o l s th at m

ak e i t eas i er.

Automation is your friend when it comes to sharing your blog posts on social media.
In this section were going to go over the steps for automating as much of your content sharing as you can.

Step 1 WordPress Sharing

WordPress Sharing is
possible if you use the
Jetpack for WordPress
plugin. It provides a few
services including stats
right in WordPress and
the sharing function,
which automates sharing
to a few social networks.
Go to your W

o rd P res s D as h b o ard .

On the left hand navigation hover over Settings and select Sharing in the secondary
pop-out navigation.

the most likely options are F ac eb o o k , T w i tter, G o o gl e+ and L i n k ed I n .

Next, when you start another blog post youll see the sharing settings
at the top right near the scheduling widget in the editing area. Make

For each new blog post the title will automatically become what is shared along with
a link to your post. You can customize what is shared each time by editing the message in this area with each post.
By setting up this automation your new posts will automatically share to a few select

Step 2 Buffer
is a freemium social
sharing tool. With the free version you can schedule up to
ten posts into your queue for

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

require the premium version.

Then setup your schedule. Youre given 10 items in the queue at once. Setup to have

require the premium version.

Then setup your schedule. Youre given 10 items in the queue at once. Setup to have
as much on the weekends so its not as important to share on those days. However,
if your industry is unique it might be important to share on weekends. One example
would be if youre an NFL reporter and you need to be active on Sundays.

You also want to share during the times that your target audience is online. For
most, this will be from about 11:00 AM Eastern Time in the US to about 9:00 PM
Eastern Time in the US. Again, if your customer is m o re l o c al i z ed than that in the
US or somewhere else in the world youll have to adjust, but these are the general
busy times on social networks.
Another way to determine the best times to share content on social networks is to
use Followerwonk. We mentioned this tool earlier in this guide.

Followerwonk integrates
active on Twitter. It will also setup your updates to post at those times automatically
for you right from Followerwonk.
Each day, schedule new posts to share 5 times every other hour during the day.
Create a new, unique title for each of the times you share the post.
For example, the original title is 10 Surprising Ways To Unclog Your Kitchen Sink.

T h e o th er f o u r w o u l d b e:
YOU WONT BELIEVE HOW YOU CAN UNCLOG YOUR DRAIN
CHECK OUT THIS GENIUS METHOD TO UNCLOGGING DRAINS
DID YOU KNOW YOU COULD DO THIS TO UNCLOG YOUR DRAIN?
SEE HOW THE EXPERTS UNCLOG THEIR DRAINS
This gets your new blog post shared with your audience multiple times so that the
most people have the most opportunity to see it. Yet your posts will appear unique

This gets your new blog post shared with your audience multiple times so that the
most people have the most opportunity to see it. Yet your posts will appear unique
because youre changing the title each time.
And as you share more posts youll see the titles that work best with your audience.

using the same title tactics, but well talk about this in the next section on
re-posting blog content.
more content. Its good
to work in content from other sources that are complementary to your blog. You dont
want to promote your own content all the time and its good to make those connections with other people that might be valuable members of your community.
Sharing their content is what they want and theyll likely return the favor if you
share theirs enough times.
priate hashtags. T h es e h as h tags w i l l w o rk o n T w i tter, F ac eb o o k , G o o gl e+
an d o th er s o c i al n etw o rk s .

services such as Hashtags.org, What The

Trend and Taglus. These services (f ree and
premiu m) show you trending hashtags, tags
that have high (a nd low)

Step 3 Dlvr.it
Dlvr.it is a similar automation
tool that allows you to automatically share new posts to
this up using the RSS feed for
your blog, which is usually (i f
you re u sing W ordP ress):

yourblog.com/feed/ or yoursite.com/blog/feed/
share not only content from your own blog, but content from 4 other complementary blogs. Again, that gives you the opportunity to help others that may potentially
help you in the future.

No

Re-Post Blog Content

Re-

Re-posting blog content allows you to get a full life out of your content.
As you grow the blog youll build up a great collection of articles, but
they wont all be hits right away. You can give these great articles new
life by continuing to promote them on social media and through other
channels.
Here are the steps to take to re-post your content on your social media

Step 1 Identify Old Posts For Sharing

You could create a spreadsheet to do this, but we get a little too geeky with the
spreadsheets in these guides so well take an easier route.
Open up your WordPress dashboard and click on the Posts link in the left hand navigation. This will show you previous posts on your blog. Youll be able to see 20 at a
time by default.
If you click on S c reen O p ti o n s at
the top right youll have the option
to see more (o r less if you want) .
For this exercise, 20 works, but more might work depending on how many posts
you want to schedule at one time.

Step 2 Creating New Titles

Identify a post you want to share. Since all of your posts will
be great you can choose any of them.
Youll see your original title of the post, which you can use
again if its catchy. But if you want to share something fresh
you can create a new title.

F i rs t, simply change the title with something similar and just as catchy.
T h e o ri gi n al ti tl e:
10 WAYS TO UNCLOG YOUR DRAIN
T h e n ew ti tl e:
YOU WONT BELIEVE HOW THIS PERSON UNCLOGS THEIR DRAIN
S ec o n d , you can grab some text from the post and use that as the new title. Quotes
and stats work well.
Use variations of those options and you should have no shortage of new titles for
your post.

Step 3 Sharing Old Posts Using Buffer

Right click on the V i ew

l i n k under the post youre sharing and paste it

even if youre busy.

Step 4 Retweeting Old Posts Using WordPress Plugins

There are plugins that will automatically retweet your old
blog posts.
You can schedule these tweets to publish at intervals such as
every hour, two hours, etc. throughout the day and week.
PLUGINS INCLUDE:
http://wordpress.org /plu g ins/tweetily- tweet- wordpress- posts- au tomatically/
http://wordpress.org /plu g ins/tweet- old- post/
http://wordpress.org /plu g ins/everg reen- post- tweeter/

No

Implement Social Sharing Buttons On Your Blog

Step 1 Limit Sharing Buttons To Your Core Social Traffic Sources

Weve been talking about your core social networks this entire chapter and in the
few reasons. Having too many buttons on your blog posts will also confuse readers
and slow down your page speed.
For most blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ will be the only social sharing
buttons you need on each of your blog posts. Its tempting to put more on there to give
readers the option to share on every social network, but research shows that when people are presented with too many options they will choose none of the options.
Having three buttons at the most will limit the choices and make it easy for people
to share on the three networks that matter most to your blog.

Step 2 Using WordPress Plugins

Step 2 Using WordPress Plugins

WordPress also have a variety of plugins that make it easy to
put social sharing buttons on your blog posts. Some people like
to limit the number of plugins they use on their WordPress
blog because it can slow the blog down and it can open your
blog up to more attacks, butt a social sharing plugin is one that
should have high priority if you do choose to use plugins.

HERE ARE THE TOP SOCIAL SHARING PLUGINS FOR WORDPRESS:

http://wordpress.org /plu g ins/sharebar/
http://wordpress.org /plu g ins/wp- socializ er/
http://wordpress.org /plu g ins/scrolling - social- sharebar/
http://wordpress.org /plu g ins/dig g - dig g /
http://wordpress.org /plu g ins/share- this/
Those are three popular sharing buttons. There are many more. Whichever you
choose make sure you limit the number of icons that appear and also make sure the
plugin doesnt slow down your page speed dramatically. If it does youll lose readers.

No

Sharing Snippets Or Pieces

Of Your Blog Posts Without Links

Weve mentioned a lot of the things you can do to

we wont go through those again.
But this is another strategy you can use to promote
your blog content without really promoting your
blog content.
Some people on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. dont like when all a pro-

appears to be s oc i a l m

edi a onl y content.

appears to be social media only content.

HERE IS HOW TO DO IT.

Step 1 Find A Post And Pull Out 3 to 5 Snippets

This can be a new post or it can be an old post.
Read through the content and look for key points or snippets that will make great social

If you were creating the 10 Ways To Unclog Your Drain article, one of
the snippets you would pull out would be one of the points that were
included in the post.
Quotes, stats and other items make for good updates too.

Step 2 Schedule The Snippets Using Buffer

earlier in the chapter. This will allow you to share multiple snippets
at once instead of having to do it throughout the day, which you can
still do if you have the time.

Step 3 Share Short Tips That Wouldnt Make Worthwhile Blog Posts
Sometimes youll come across ideas or tips in your work that
are worthwhile to share via social media, but arent worthwhile
as a blog post.
This happens all the time with sports writers. They write entire feature articles about
players and coaches, but for simple facts like tryout information or even quick stats

You can take this same approach. Share the simple, short tips on social media to
add more value to your social media updates. Your followers will appreciate that
youre not bombarding them with blog links all the time and if your snippets are
good theyll want to visit your blog anyway to get the really good content.

No

Hashtags

Youre an expert social media user so you know what

hashtags are. In this section were going to give you speworks and other sites that allow them.

Step 1 Identify Relevant And Popular Hashtags For Your Blog Post
ics that are also hashtags. Use services like Hashtag.org to identify
popular hashtags that are relevant to your post.

Step 2 Schedule Social Updates For Your Blog Post Using Up To 3 Hashtags
When using the social media sharing tools, include hashtags. Include
a maximum of three hashtags per update. If you feel that you can inand include the link to your post again.

No

Promoting Your Blog Post On Facebook

No

Promoting Your Blog Post On Facebook

You're already scheduling and submit your post as a baHere are more steps to take to promote your post using
all of Facebooks features.

Step 1 Share Your Post With Relevant Facebook Groups

Identify 1 0 ac ti v e gro u p s in your niche. Share your post in
each of these groups.

Step 2 Message Your Connections And Ask Them To Share Your Post
Message your colleagues and friends in your Facebook network. Let them
know that youve created a useful piece of content and that you think they

leave a comment on your original post on Facebook to get the engagement conversation started.
Once the conversation is started others are more likely to join in.

Step 3 Join Facebook Groups And Share Your Content

There are a number of Facebook Groups for nearly ever niche.
-

Step 3 Join Facebook Groups And Share Your Content

There are a number of Facebook Groups for nearly ever niche.
gers looking to promote their new posts.

J o i n th es e gro u p s :
https://www.facebook.com/groups/406958982731342/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/iComment/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/341398889254797/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/commentingtribe/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/156018101189240/members/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/549454731755868/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/sharebloggers/
Once you join, youll be able to submit your blog and other members of the community will share it, leave comments and help you build the audience for the post.

No

Promoting Your Blog Post On Twitter

Sharing your post is the basic way to promote your posts on Twitter, but there is
more. Here are a few tactics for getting more traction for your blog post on Twitter.

Step 1 Find People That Have Tweeted Similar Content And Reply To Them
content similar to your blog post. Identify the people that have
shared similar content and that also have at least 500 followers.
Reply to their tweets sharing similar content and tell them that you

Step 2 Direct Message People That Have Shared Similar Content

If you follow a person that has shared content similar to your blog post you and if
they follow you, you can direct message them asking if they would share your new
blog post.
Begin by mentioning that theyve shared similar content before and that you think

Step 3 Ask People That Have Shared Your Content Before To Share Your New Post
Each time you publish a new post go to your mentions column on
Twitter. The people that have shared your content in the past are likely to share your new content.
Reply to them or send them a direct message alerting them to your new post. Ask

Step 4 Build Twitter Lists For Specific Content

You know what Twitter lists are, but are you using them the right way?
With the right lists you can quickly encourage others to tweet your new blog post
on Twitter.

Each time you publish a new post go to your mentions column on Twitter. The people that have shared your content in the past are likely to share your new content.
Reply to them or send them a direct message alerting them to your new post. Ask

Step 4 Build Twitter Lists For Specific Content

You know what Twitter lists are, but are you using them the right way?

No

Promoting Your Blog Post On Google+

page, but here are tactics for taking advantage of all

Step 1 Join Google+ Communities And Share Your Blog Post

There are a number of Google+ communities for all
niches. Join the communities most relevant to your
niche and share your blog post.

You can submit only the link, which will give a snippet of the blog post, but also add
an additional sentence or two to the update to give more of a preview to the members of the community. This will make your update stand out from the rest that only
have the link.

Step 2 Find People In Your Niche That Have Shared

Similar Content And Share Your Content With Them
Go to Google+ and search for the topic relevant to your post.
Filter the search by Google+ posts. Youll see a feed of people
and pages that have shared content relevant to your topic.

you identify these, leave comments saying that if the person liked the post they

B l og
C onta c ts .

10 Promoting Your Blog Post On LinkedIn

No

Step 1 Share Your Post On Relevant LinkedIn Groups

There is a group for just about every professional niche on
LinkedIn. You are able to share your blog posts on most groups.
Some will let you share your posts on the main feed while others
have separate feeds for promotion and for unique comments and
discussion.
Share your posts on groups relevant to your topic. Use the appropriate feed according to the groups best practice. Over time, determine the groups that send the most
new post.

Step 2 Send Direct Messages To Your Contacts

With your new post, determine the contacts that would be most
likely to be interested. Send them a direct message letting them
know youve published a new piece of content and that you think
If possible, reference a previous post the contact has shared, written or read. This
will make it more likely that the person will read your new post.

Using Viral Content Buzz

o

11

No

Using Viral Content Buzz

To Get Traffic & Build Social Authority

Viral Content Buzz is a service that is a free way to get social shares for your content. You join a community of people that help each other share blog posts. By sharing other content you build credits that you can then use to have other people share
your blog post.

Step 1 Signup for Viral Content Buzz

Step 2 Share Content Complementary To Your Blog Post
Step 3 Build 100 Credits
Step 4 Submit Your Blog Post And Use All 100 Credits

Putting It All Together

Sharing your blog content on social media is an art. There is no right way to do it.
People have success sharing blog content in their own unique ways. Some will share
only their blog links on social media. Others will share a high percentage of unique
content on social media.
As is with most things in life, sometimes the best approach is somewhere in the
middle. If you follow the strategies in this chapter you should be able to build sus-

TA KE M E TO
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WRITTEN BY NEIL PATEL & AARON AGIUS

CHAPTER SIX

Paid Social Media

cial communities and followings. In this chapter were going to share key strategies you
paid social media.
Paid is an option many dont consider when it comes to marketing blog posts. We
discussed this in the chapter about paid search and its true for paid social. There are
some good opportunities if you really want to grow your blog wi
egy you can use with
each of the following social media advertising programs to promote your blog posts.

LETS GET INTO IT.

No

Facebook

As weve been saying, Facebook is the most popular

And that goes for paid social blog marketing as well.
Here is the strategy to use for your blog with paid
Facebook advertising.

Step 1 Creating Sponsored Stories

We talked about the normal Facebook ads for
getting followers. These
can work to promote your
blog posts, but Sponsored
your blog and interest in
your brand.

Step 2 Go to the Ads Create Tool

Step 3 Choose the Advertising Objective Clicks to Website
Step 4 Select the image that is used in your blog post.
Custom illustrations work best

Step 5 Enter your blogs title into the Sponsored Story create tool
Remember, this is the most important part of your blog marketing. The title needs
to be incredibly catchy and click-worthy.
W

e v e s h ared a f ew ex am p l es i n th e p rev i o u s c h ap ters , b u t h ere are a

f ew ac ti o n w o rd s th at en ti c e c l i c k s :
S u rprising
U nex pected
S hocking
K ill
D estroy
Use more verbs than nouns. Dont give away all the information in the title.
Numbers are excellent for titles. People love lists and stats.
H ere are a f ew

ex am

p l es :

11 SURPRISING WAYS TO UNCLOG YOUR DRAIN

YOU WONT BELIEVE HOW THESE PEOPLE UNCLOG THEIR DRAINS
LEARN HOW TO DESTROY DRAIN CLOGS IN TWO MINUTES
Depending on your niche you can expect to pay about $1 per click to your blog, but
the nature of your business this can provide some excellent ROI in terms of initial
sales, but the main focus of this ad campaign is to get people to your blog. Wow
them with your content and get them to opt-in to your email list for more updates.

No

Twi
Twitter

Twitter has a variety of ad options like Facebook and

other social networks. The best one for your blog mar-

Here are the steps to create a Promoted Tweets cam-

Step 1 Select Your Most Popular Tweets

followers. This might not be your best blog post, but youre targeting
the Twitter audience so you want a tweet that garnered a good number of retweets, clicks and other types of interaction like favorites.

Step 2 Choose Your Target Audience Or Interests In Timeline

Weve been discussing your target audience
for much of this guide. By now you should
have a really good idea of the people that
will be most interested in your tweets and
your blog content. Twitter gives you the opportunity to target people based on the type
of people they follow and what has been

Step 3 Target By Keywords In Timeline

Twitter also allows you to target your promoted tweets by
keyword. We did this research in previous chapters on paid
search. You can reuse that information to choose the best keywords to target in your Twitter campaigns.

for small and medium businesses to use the platform, but much has changed with
Twitter Advertising.
You can expect about $0.50 to $0.75 estimated cost per engagement, which is Twitters way of telling you what your cost per click
is. Engagement can include anything from clicks to retweets to
replies and follows. Double this and youll get what your expected
cost per click will be to promote your blog posts with Twitter.

Step 4 Buying Tweets

Step 4 Buying Tweets

Along with sponsored tweets on Twitter there are also services that allow you to
buy tweets.
THESE SERVICES INCLUDE:
http://j u stretweet.com/
http://bu ysellads.com/bu y/allsites/by/tweets
http://tweetpeddler.com/
http://tou rnamentforce.com/bu y- twitter- tweets.html
http://retweets.pro/bu y- twitter- tweets
http://sponsoredtweets.com/
http://www.paywithatweet.com/
http://retweet.it/

No

LinkedIn

If your target audience is professionals or if you are in the B2B innections people can make on LinkedIn. It is a great sales tool for
sales professionals and the site has been investing in content as well.
As you would imagine, LinkedIn also have an advertising program

HERE ARE THE STEPS TO SUCCESSFULLY PROMOTING

YOUR BLOG POSTS USING LINKEDIN.

Step 1 Signup for LinkedIn Sponsored Updates

LinkedIn had traditional online advertising that appears in
the sidebar, but the Sponsored
Updates options is much more advantageous for content producers.

Step 2 Setup Your LinkedIn Sponsored Update Ad

Sponsored Updates are almost identical to a regular LinkedIn
update. Find the updates that have done the best for you on
LinkedIn in the past. These will be updates where youve shared
one of your best blog posts. The update will have received many
shares, comments, likes and visits to your post.

Step 3 Target Your Reader

LinkedIn has a lot of unique information about people. Nearly
for you as an advertiser. You can segment your target audience by the industry, company size, title, and their location.

The estimated cost per click on Sponsored Updates is about $1-2 dollars. This is
than many of the other paid social options. Its a pretty good rate if you can turn
those visitors into subscribers and customers.

No

StumbleUpon
-

Content that does well on StumbleUpon includes:

T u torials
G u ides
I mag es
I nfog raphics
L ists

A couple of those make for really great blog posts. StumbleUpon can be very visually
focused, but people in general like something visual. If you have a great tutorial with
unique illustrations and images youll likely have a winner for StumbleUpon.
P ai d D i s c o v ery is the paid model on StumbleUpon. The
unique aspect of Paid Discovery is that you arent paying for an
ad in the same sense that you do with Facebook, Twitter and
other social networks.

On StumbleUpon, users browse the Internet by having StumbleUpon show them

suggestions website pages based on their interests and previous likes.
Users do this organically, but Paid Discovery allows content owners to pay for inclusion in the Stumble process. This way, target users are directed right to your webpage. You dont have to worry about creating ads.
HERE IS A METHOD FOR MARKETING YOUR BLOG POSTS USING
STUMBLEUPON PAID DISCOVERY.

Step 1 Choose The Blog Post To Promote

We mentioned some of the
posts that do well with the
StumbleUpon audience.
Select a post from your
those requirements. Find
a very visual post with
unique photos or illustrahas been a hit with readers.

Step 2 Select Your Target Audience

Right now, there are two options for advertising with Paid
Discovery. There is a version that is $0.10+ per unique visitors
and a version that is $0.12+ per unique visitor. The higher priced
version has some additional features most notably one that allows you to have higher priority in certain content streams.
With the higher priced version you can also get more granular in the way you target
your target audience. You can select based on age, interests and location. Interest
will likely be the most important way that you choose where you want your content
to appear in the stream.
Select the interest based on your piece of content and the industry that your business is in.
For example, if you were in the plumbing industry with a post on 10 Unique Ways
To Unclog Drains, you would opt for something in the Bizarre/Oddities or maybe
the Physics category. Youre looking for something that is popular with users, but
relevant to your topic.

Step 3 Pay Per Visitor

As mentioned in the previous step, StumbleUpon is pay per visitor. This is very unique compared to other online advertising that
makes you pay per click or even pay per impression.

And with StumbleUpon you know the person is looking at your blog post. The struggle is getting the person to look at your page for longer than a single second.
To do this make sure the page loads fast.
Include an image at the top that really captures the attention of new visitors.
Make sure your headline or title is catchy and right at the top of the page.
These are all the things that make for a great post anyway, but theyre especially important for the very selective audience on StumbleUpon.

No

Reddit

The Reddit community is one of the most passionate on the Internet. They are also
massive in numbers and have been known to bring websites to their knees after

The Reddit community is not easily impressed. Although it can seem like it, Reddit
users are looking for things that are truly interesting, enlightening and entertaining.
They can spot obvious shots at advertising like no other community.
quirements of being truly unique and unexpected you can have success.
Reddit ads appear on the top of the various pages. They are obviously ads so users
dont feel tricked into clicking on them. When people choose to select an ad they
usually know it. So there is little chance of upsetting customers this way.

You can choose to puts on the main page of Reddit (v ery ex pensive) or you can be
more selective with the niche pages (b est option) .
Here is the process for setting up a successful ad on Reddit.

Step 1 Select A Blog Post To Promote

Content that does well on Reddit is pretty varied. People are interested in content that makes them feel some type of emotion.
Reddit users share pictures of disgusting fast food, stories of rathat send weather balloons into space and more.
The content that has a chance to do well on Reddit is probably your stories that in-

Step 2 Create The Title For Your Reddit Ad

The title is the most important part of using Reddit. You only get a title to describe
your content. If you look at some Reddit threads youll notice that Reddit users can
be pretty clever with their titles, but its risky to try and get clever with your titles.
The better option is to be straightforward with the title for your content.
A n ex am

p l e o f an ad th at rec ei v ed o v er 3 0 0 c o m
thous a nds of c l i c k s ) read :

en ts ( a nd p roba bl y

THE NEW AAA ACTION GAME,

WORLD OF WARPLANES HAS LAUNCHED.
GET AIRBORNE.
Nothing fancy. Just straightforward content explaining what people could expect
when they clicked.

Step 3 Interact With Those That Comment

A unique element of Reddit advertising is that your ad really becomes a thread like
a regular post on Reddit. Users are allowed to comment on the ad where they can
discuss the topic with other users and with you.
This is a great opportunity for you to get feedback on the post
and its contents. It takes place on Reddit, but Reddit users take
notice when something has lots of comments so responding to
each will boost the comment count making it appear that your
post is very popular.
Some Reddit advertisers have experienced incredible ROI.
From a few years ago, there are examples of people seeing costs as low
as 3, 4 and 5 cents per click.

Compared to $1 per click, the potential to use Reddit as a paid marketing option for your blog is obvious.
Reddit Ads have a minimum investment of $5 for a campaign and $0.75 per impression. Thats the starting point so you can expect costs to go up from there.

No

YouTube Ads

You know that YouTube is one of the biggest search engreat place to promote your blog posts.
With YouTube Ads, you can place banner ads on relevant
post and promote it on those types of videos.

Putting It All Together

blog. A lot of the information about blog marketing covers the organic options.
While some of these can turn your blog into a popular destination quickly the more
likely scenario is that it will take time for you to build communities to promote your
blog content.

And if you do well to target your target audience on the right channels you can build

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WRITTEN BY NEIL PATEL & AARON AGIUS

Outreach

CHAPTER SEVEN

Youve made it through over half the content in this guide. Hopefully the ideas are
churning in your mind with how you can market your blog posts and really increase

how you could build communities that will allow you to market to them with your blog
content. That chapter contained some important information about outreach.
We also discussed outreach in the second chapter when we talked about the type of
blog posts that are naturally easy to market. These posts included things like interOutreach is what you do when you reach out to people via email, social media or
even in person to ask them to share, promote or simply look at your blog posts.
your blog. These strategies go beyond what youve learned in the earlier chapters of
this guide.
LETS BEGIN.

No

The Skyscraper Technique

Brian Dean coined the Skyscraper Technique. Its a technique weve
mentioned to a point in previous chapters in this guide, but well go
into more detail here about how you can use the technique to create
the type of content that will make your outreach work easier.

to your blog content and will help your blogs overall organic search rankings, which is

But beyond that, The Skyscraper Technique can also be used to increase social
shares and direct referrals to your blog.

Step 1 Create A List Of Popular Blog Posts

Open up the spreadsheet weve been referring to throughout the guide.

In the second chapter we discussed how to build your community using blogs and
forums. In this section you examined the popular blog and forum posts based on the
blogs and forums you found.
Take that list and create a new tab on your spreadsheet and name it Popular Content.

that has a high number of social shares and comments. These metrics wont tell you everything, but its a good gauge for telling you
how popular the posts are.
O n y o u r s p read s h eet, c reate th e f o l l o w i n g c o l u m

n s s tarti n g i n B 1 :

O n y o u r s p read s h eet, c reate th e f o l l o w i n g c o l u m

T itle
U R L
B log
C omments
T weets
F acebook
G oog le+

n s s tarti n g i n B 1 :

entering the top posts

into the spreadsheet. Fill out all the information for the columns whenever its available.
Once youve collected about 50 or even 100 posts youll be able to sort
the posts by the variables on the right. You can see the posts that have
the most comments, tweets, likes and +1s.
This will be your guide for creating the type of content that will make your outreach easier.

Step 2 Create A List Of Influencer Shared Content

Next, create another new
tab and call it
S ha red.

their own.

share. These posts will often align with the popular posts from the previous step,
but not always.

content that a lot of people want to share or by creating the type of content that top

C reate th e f o l l o w i n g c o l u m
T itle
U R L
B log
S hare U R L

n s s tarti n g i n B 1 :

to share.
To add more interest to this tab you can add the social sharing information and sort
it by that information as well.

Step 3 Create Content On The Same Topic, But Exponentially Better

You cant simply create something that is better than popular content or that is betinally were impressed with that content. Going just a little bit beyond the original
wont be impressive to those that youll reach out to.
No, you have to create something that will once again impress.

a news article or opinion piece on a news item in your industry it was probably 500 to
item. You could go into depth on key areas overlooked in the original article. Make your
article 2,000 to 3,000 words long complete with photos and custom illustrations.
If the original post was a list with about 10 to 20 items on it then youll have to create a list that has about 100 to 200 items on it. Bigger lists are often more likely to
be shared anyway. T h ey re i m p res s i v e. Not everyone creates those types of huge
lists so theyre impressed.

Another way to create something better is to create an advanced version of the original post. This was the strategy used on Quick Sprout for creating The Advanced
Guide Series of posts.
There were a lot of popular beginners guides, but I was hearing from
people that they wanted more than just the beginner information. So
I went ahead and created the advanced guides. Theyre over 30,000
words on average and are huge and impressive.
You can make things more up-to-date. You can add better design. You can change
the type of content by making it an infographic or even a video series that you publish on your blog.
Whatever you do make sure youre making the content quite a bit better than the
original. You need to impress the people that you want to share the content and to
do that you have to go well beyond what impressed them about the original.

Step 4 Reach Out To The Influencers

the template once again once youve created your Skyscraper content.

of content youve created.

Personalize and send the following email to them:
Hi [Name],
My name is [Your Name].
I follow you on [Social Media Site] and noticed that you shared one of my favorite
articles [Article Title].
That is such a great post. And its a great blog.
I was hearing from my readers that they wanted something more in-depth about
the topic so I went ahead and created this post: [URL]
If you have time Id love for you to check it out.
Thanks!
[Your Name]

them

If youve done your job, your post will impress them again and theyll share it with
their followers.

No

Linking To Sources & Contacting Them

The next method for outreach is to include source links your posts and reaching out
to those sources to let them know.
Linking to sources is something you should do anyway as part of blogging best practices. Readers appreciate when you link to sources and it adds credibility to your blog.
Readers are smart enough to know that not everything you write about came from
your imagination.
Link to your sources to earn trust of readers, but also do it because it can help you
with your outreach.
HERE IS HOW TO DO IT.

Step 1 Link To Sources As Normal

The type of blog posts that need source links
are more in line with commentary pieces of
current news or posts you write about specific topics. They might also be posts that show
readers how to do a particular task.

Include source links in these posts as you normally would. But as you include these links
ly those that have blogs.
Also look for bloggers in complementary industries that share your target audience.

Step 2 Email Sources To Let Them Know About The Link

After you create these articles, reach out to those that you link to via email, social
media or through website contact forms.
Use the follow message template:
Hi [Name],
My name is [Your Name].
I just wanted to let you know that I created a new post ([URL]) and linked to your
post ([URL]) as a source for the information.
Thanks for providing such a great resource. Ive tried to build on the topic.
If you have time Id love for you to check it out.
Thanks!
[Your Name]

Step 3 Analyze The Responses & Shares You Get & Focus On Those That Engage
As you do this youll start getting responses to your emails as well as
shares from the people that you email. Theyll want to promote your
the future they might even link to and share other posts on your blog.
Analyze those that are most engaged and add them to the list of bloggers that share
blog posts, which we talk about in the next section.

No

Building A List Of Bloggers That Share Blog Posts

Knowing the bloggers that share content besides their own is incredibly useful as
you look to market your blog posts.
We just mentioned that you could start this list as you analyze the response you get

Step 1 Create A New Tab On The Spreadsheet

Call the S ha rers

Step 2 Add Titles To The Columns

U s e th e f o l l o w i n g c o l u m
N ame
W ebsite
B log
E mail
T witter
F acebook
G oog le+

n s s tarti n g i n c o l u m

Step 3 Continue To Add To The List

n B 1 :

Step 3 Continue To Add To The List

When a person links to or shares one of your blog posts add them to
this list.
As you build this list you can come back to it when you want to
reach out with new content.

No

Identifying Influencers &

Content That Gets Shared With Topsy

Once you create a blog post you can use Topsy to perform outreach research.
Topsy
youve just created and you can see who has shared it giving you
access to people that will likely want to share your post too.

Step 1 Search For Your Post Topic Using The Everything

Filter

E v ery thi ng
content, tweets and similar updates with content similar to your post

Step 2 Identify The Links To Blogs That Have Published Similar Content
Reach out to these blogs with an email or message saying:
H ey, I noticed that you wrote a blog post on this topic. I thou g ht you mig ht be interested
in a post I ve written on the same topic.

Step 3 Find People That Have Tweeted Information Similar To Yours

with a similar message letting them know that youve published a relevant and useful blog post.

Step 4 Email The Influencers On The Topic

Finally, use the
people are for your topic. Email them or reach out to them on social
media or through their website contact form letting them know that

No

Submit Your Blog Posts

TO BLOG COMMUNITIES & SERVICES
FOR EXPOSURE, BACKLINKS & SOCIAL MEDIA SHARING

There are a number of established blog communities where you can submit your
blog post. The following are communities where you can gain exposure, backlinks
and social media shares.

Step 1 Blog Engage

Blog Engage is a place where bloggers
can submit their new blog posts. Each
new submission is included on a feed
where members of the Blog Engage
community can read and vote. The posts
that are found to be the most useful and
appealing to the community are published on the Blog Engage homepage for
more members of the community to see.
The exposure you can gain on Blog Engage extends beyond the site. Once you have
a post doing well on Blog Engage youre likely to have community members sharing
your posts on social media, linking to your post from their blogs and doing even more
with your post.

This type of outreach gives you access to a powerful community of other bloggers
looking for content like your new blog post.

Step 2 BizSugar
B i z S u gar is a blog community
for the small business owners,
useful and interesting. Users
can submit relevant content to
BizSugar and the community
the most useful.

Like Blog Engage and other blog communities, the top content not only receivers

Step 3 Triberr
Triberr is a community where all
mit and share content including
blog posts. Users can see the currently hot content, new content
and content that is rising according to the voting system.
ties as well as communities like R ed d i t, H ac k er N ew s an d I n b o u n d . o rg.
I d en ti f y at l eas t
5 gro u p s an d s u b m

i t y o u r b l o g p o s t to th es e gro u p s .

No

Submit Your Post To Review Sites

There are a number of sites that allow you to submit your blog for review. Getting

HERE ARE SOME OF THE BEST SITES FOR BLOG REVIEWS.

Step 1 ReviewMe

With ReviewMe, you hire bloggers to review your blog or blog post. In your case,
youre looking to have targeted bloggers review your latest blog post. You have the

Step 2 PayPerPost

PayPerPost has been around for a few years. Over that times the service has evolved,
but for advertisers the opportunity to

to yours.

Step 3 TribePro

Instead of working alone to share and syndicate your blog post around the web,
TribePro gives you the support of many people that will share, write about and syndicate your post as well. Join TribePro for free and be able to submit your content.
Pay for the Pro level and you get to auto-submit your future posts and youll get
more access to the power of the tribe.
Here are three additional resources for blog review sites:
http://socialstrand.com/2 0 1 1 /0 9 /0 1 /top- 1 2 - places- to- su bmit- you r- blog /
http://www.thelinkmedic.com/2 0 1 0 /over- 2 5 - g reat- sites- to- su bmit- you r- blog - html/
http://www.webdesig nshock.com/2 0 0 - websites- to- su bmit- you r- blog - and- rss/

No

Find Blogging Roundups

Bloggers often host blogging roundups on their

blogs. Its a good way to publish new content
without having to create entirely original content. Most bloggers do this every Friday or on a

Step 1 Search For Blog Roundup Plus Your Niche

Find roundups that have been published in the past.

Step 2 Reach Out To The Bloggers

reach out to them via their blog or on their social media accounts.
Share your new post with them and ask them to include it if they

No

Guest Blogging

site. You can promote your entire blog and personal brand
by guest blogging, but you can also promote your individual posts by guest blogging.
HERES HOW

Step 1 Search For Sites That Accept Guest Posts

U s e th es e q u eri es :
" K ey word" + g ues t p os t
" K ey word" + wri te f or us
" K ey word" + T hi s p os t wa s wri tten by
intitle: g u est post g u idelines
intitle: g u est blog g u idelines

Step 2 Analyze The Potential For Traffic

ss of a guest blog post.

good chance that the readers are highly engaged and that theyll visit other sites and
posts when reading. This means that theyll see that youre a guest author and will
likely visit the post youre promoting.
The second is to use the site SimilarWeb.com. This site gives

get many of the same people coming back to read blogs, which
you can bet that readers are engaged and likely to visit the
post youre promoting.

Step 3 Connect With The Blog Owner And Leave Comments

Before you reach out to the blogger its good to pay it forward with
some actions theyll appreciate.

HERE IS WHAT YOU TO

blog owner when you share so they can see that youve shared the posts.
Next, leave comments on the recent posts. Were talking about really good comments that really add to the discussion and get others involved in the discussion.
Add the blog owner to your social media circles and connect
with them if possible on LinkedIn and on Facebook.
These are all things bloggers appreciate it and it will get you on
the radar before you reach out with your guest post request.

Step 4 Reach Out With Three Blog Titles

Use the contact form on the blog where they allow for guest blog
post submissions. Mention that youve been reading their recent
posts and have found them very useful. This will likely spur the
memory that youve been sharing their posts.
Give three blog titles for potential posts. Really go all out with the post titles to
make it seem like youre going to create amazing blog content that goes beyond
what theyre creating now.
Follow their guidelines for reaching out and writing the guest post.
To go beyond the usual requirements, l i n k to 3 to 5 o f th ei r p o s ts . Bloggers really appreciate when you promote their past content with your guest post.
But also i n c l u d e a c al l to ac ti o n at th e en d o f y o u r gu es t p o s t p ro m o ti n g
th e b l o g p o s t o n y o u r b l o g. Most blog owners allow you one link in a byline. This
is twhere you can put the link back to the post youre promoting.
For additional information on getting your guest blog posts published see these resources:
http://www.q u icksprou t.com/the- advanced- g u ide- to- link- bu ilding - chapter- 1 0 /
http://www.q u icksprou t.com/2 0 1 3 /0 4 /0 1 /how- to- g et- you r- g u est- post- pu blished/

Putting It All Together

Once you know the type of content that people share, you can create the same type
of content, but content that is exponentially better. This will impress those people
and theyll likely share it.
Use the strategies in this chapter to help with your outreach. Theyre the best ones
that weve used to build our own blogs.
Now its times to discuss content syndication networks.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

Content Syndication Networks

Content syndication networks have come on strong in recent years.
These networks are similar to ad networks like Google and Yahoo Bing, but they fotypes of content.
Youve probably seen these content ads on popular sites like CNN, Forbes, etc. The
ads will usually be at the bottom of the articles next to the Related Posts sections. There will usually be a similar list of posts with something like Similar
Articles Around The Web.
Sometimes theyll have images and other times it will just be text.
tent. Some will show the URL or source of the information. Others will hide it. Some

tent. Some will show the URL or source of the information. Others will hide it. Some
of the content can get a little spammy with R-rated images or headlines with get rich
quick promises.
But legitimate blogs are having success with content syndication networks and
thats why were going to cover how you can use these networks to successfully market your blog.
First, were going to look at the options for content syndication networks and then
well go over the steps for creating campaigns.
LETS GET INTO IT.

No

Outbrain

Outbrain has been getting a lot of press in the content syndication or content discovery industry. Theyre one of the leaders and seem to be providing a great cost per
click or cost per visitor for users.

Some examples put the cost per click at around $0.25 to $0.50. Thats a pretty good
cost per click if you compare it to some of the other paid options listed in this guide.

No

Zemanta

Zemanta is similar to Outbrain. Your posts

are syndicated across a network that includes
hundreds of thousands of publishers including popular news sites and blogs.
Zemanta, like the others in this list, does much
of the heavy lifting for you. After adding your
titles and URLs, Zemanta works to put the
content in front of the right people. You have
control over the image and title you choose to
use and Zemanta provides analytics so you can
see what works best in their network.
The goal with this provider and the others is not to pass link juice as was common

get new visitors to opt-in to email.

No

SimpleReach

SimpleReach is a content engine that dives through a blogs content and promotes the ones most likely to succeed in social media channels. The Slide is
the tool that sits on the same page as blog posts promoting internal posts to
read and share. And some publishers now allow the slide or the leader board
to sit on their sites promoting posts from other sites.

And thats the biggest opportunity for blog publishers.

And thats the biggest opportunity for blog publishers.

SimpleReach crawls through the most popular posts on
the most popular social networks like Twitter, Facebook,
are the most popular and most likely to be shared.
The opportunity and costs arent as straightforward as the other ones on the list, but

No

ARC

ARC is kind of a way to send content across various channels similar to a newswire
or press release service. The content you produce is sent out across sites, social media, blogs and other sites. Its truly more of a syndicate where your content is shared
and published on other sites with links back to the original source (no- follow links).
Remember, this is not about SEO. Its about generating interest in your brand through

ARC is part of PR Newswire so you know that its much like a press release service.
It gives your blog posts a higher chance of being seen throughout the Internet much

But dont think you can write your posts like press releases. Theyll get glanced over.
You still need to create the type of content that will generate real interest from your
target audience.

No

Taboola

Taboola is a content syndication platform more like

Outbrain and Zemanta. It has a variety of publishers
large and small including Politico. They deliver content
including blog posts, videos and other branded content
to the stable of publishers, pushing audiences back to
the source of the content from Around the web as
it often says next to the articles.

youll get the best engagement and what content will perform the best. Taboola
seems to be securing more success with video marketing content, which could be
more important in the coming years as more web users demand video content as
well as text-based content.

No

nrelate

nrelate is a related posts widget used on some major websites including Cnet,
ZDnet, Tech Republic, CBS News and others.
The widget started as a WordPress plugin, but evolved based on demand for content syndication by content producers.
the related posts widget. There are a lot of content syndication widgets that promote
celebrity gossip even if the post is about something completely else.

No

LinkWithin

LinkWithin is a widget for showing related posts complete with a

thumbnail image. As we know by now, the image is an important
part of content syndication.
Content suggestions are based on tags, titles, body content
and more.
Right now, LinkWithin is for use on blogs that want to promote
their past content on their own blog, but the site indicates that
they will open up revenue-sharing features in the future.
Odds are the service will be something similar to the other
services listed here.

No

Yarpp

Yarpp (Y et A nother R elated P osts P lu g in) puts a widget at the bottom of your blog to
suggest other posts readers might be interested in.
Right now the widget is only for internal use on your blog, but may open up in the
future to provide a service similar to the other services listed in this section.

No

IGIT

Igit is a related posts plugin for WordPress. With this plugin you can manually
choose posts that you want to promote on other posts on your blog. This is a unique
feature found with a few other plugins and services listed.
Again, this one is only for use on your own blog for now.

10

No

Nster

Nster has built a large network of publishers. You can have your content promoted
throughout the network on various sites. Choose the ones most relevant to your blog
post. Youll be able to track where youre having the most success and will be able to
continue to promote for your post for as long as you want.

11

No

ZergNet

ZergNet can call companies like AOL and MTV clients. You can promote your blog
post on ZergNet where it will be promoted on relevant sites. People reading articles, watching video and looking at other content will see your blog post promoted.

Creating Campaigns
For each of these networks you create basically the same type of campaign. You select the content you want to promote and let the syndicate start working on getting
it in front of the right audience.

Step 1 Select The Posts To Promote

Step 1 Select The Posts To Promote

Titles again are incredibly important for content syndicating. Your
posts need to stand out against related posts on the site where your
posts are promoted and youre competing against the other posts
that are promoted with your posts.
Choose titles based on how successful your posts have been. Pick your top ten all
ple liked those particular titles.

Step 2 Analyze The Results

Choose about 10 posts to test. If you can, do more. Youll only
pay for the clicks that come through and you can limit your
budget so you wont overspend.

are doing well and over time see what posts get the most clicks. From there you can
expand the program to include the titles that have the best chance of succeeding.

Step 3 Create Content Based On Content Syndication Network Results

Over time, youll get feedback on the type of posts that
your target audience wants to read.
You can use the results from content syndication networks
to lead you into the type of content you should be creating.
Youll know that there is an audience for this content so

channels discussed in this guide too.

Putting It All Together

Content syndication is not new, but its much more organized today.
Services like O u tb rai n and Z em an ta make it easy to syndicate your content
across a huge network of publishers. Some share content in sections on articles that
are highlighted as Related Posts or More From Around The Web.
The services will help you deliver content to targeted audiences. Youll get analytics
those analytics to put the best content in the networks and you can even use it to
create the type of posts your target audience demands.
You can also build on your own content sharing network and have members not only
share content across social media but include Related Posts sections on their blogs.
Its a method thats been used by bloggers for years as a way to help each other grow
and succeed.
Next up is a chapter on another form of content syndication that includes submitting your own content to syndication channels that are organic in nature. Youll
need to learn the nuances of each community.
Well share the knowledge you need to have a good chance of having articles that hit
home with each community.
ARE YOU READY?

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CHAPTER NINE

Syndicating On Other Websites

In the last chapter we gave you strategies for paid content syndication. The tools discussed give you an opportunity to pay to have your articles promoted on popular websites including some of the biggest news websites and blogs on the Internet.
In this chapter were putting the focus back on organic blog marketing.
ntent to platforms
to expose them to communities.
Before we get started we want to share a list of places you can syndicate your content:
http://www.buzzblogger.com/500-places-to-syndicate-your-content/
That list is very extensive and is a great resource for syndicating your content on
other websites.
If you follow these strategies and while creating the type of content each community
Again, its not easy to market your blog by organically syndicating your content, but
its proven to be a good strategy for many bloggers.
LETS GET INTO THE STRATEGIES.

No

Scoop.it

Scoop.it is something you may have seen on LinkedIn or Twitter. Its a content
curating tool that people use to build communities usually through social media.
Folks that use Scoop.it pull content together that is useful for a target audience.
Scoop.it puts this content together in an online newspaper format making it easy
for the audience to see the main page and pick and choose the articles that look
most interesting.

The idea of Scoop.it is to curate content from all over the web, but the secret is that
people are simply looking for useful, interesting and entertaining content.
HERE IS HOW TO USE SCOOP.IT TO SYNDICATE YOUR CONTENT FOR
AN AUDIENCE TO READ.

Step 1 Choose A Popular Topic From Your Blog

Start with a popular topic in your blog.
If youre a doctor, the topic might be
articles about eating right or about a

Step 2 Curate Your Best Content For The Topic

Look at your analytics and add the best articles to the Scoop.it. Do
this each week to create weekly Scoop.it collections of your best articles for your popular topics.

Step 3 Share Your Scoop.it With Your Social Communities

Once complete, share your Scoop.it collections with your social media
mentioned earlier. This will make it easier for you to schedule updates
to share your curated content on Scoop.it multiple times each week.

Step 4 Create More Topics

Once youve done it for one topic expand with more topics. You can do this with existing articles from your archives. Add new articles as possible and supplement with
other articles from around the web.
When you use other articles from around the web, reach out to those
that you include and encourage them to share your collection. Theyll
be sharing their content and yours when they do.

Step 5 Create Email Newsletters

Use your Scoop.it to create email newsletters. This is the type of
content that email subscribers love to get weekly. Its a great way to
keep those people engaged with your email program and you can
mix in your marketing updates to keep the calls to action coming.

No

Inbound.org

Inbound.org is a community that shares interesting, useful and entertaining content from the online marketing
world. It covers everything from SEO to Social Media to

No

Inbound.org

Inbound.org is a community that shares interesting, useful and entertaining content from the online marketing
world. It covers everything from SEO to Social Media to
Blogging and much more.
Thousands of users share all kinds of content blog
posts, videos, guides, slideshows and more. The post is
listed as a title with a short description in Inbound.org.
Users can go read the article and come back to comment
with others on Inbound.org.

Here is how to use Inbound.org to syndicate your content and share it with a waiting community.

Step 1 Share Your Content That Aligns With Previously Successful Posts
Checking out the All Time most active content on Inbound.org will show you that
there are two types of content (f or the most part) that become popular.
F i rs t, quick articles or posts that are funny, witty or clever are hits. They
might have one tip that is incredibly useful and obvious once you know what
it is.
S ec o n d , long articles (2 , 0 0 0 + words) including lists and guides.
Youre reading an example of one right now.

Step 2 Create And Share Co-Authored Posts

Step 2 Create And Share Co-Authored Posts

Do you know someone in the online marketing world? If you have a good relationship with that person see if you can create a co-authored piece of content. Youre
reading an example of this right now.
Share this content on Inbound.org. It wont appear as if youre only promoting your own
content if there are two of you that have created it. And both authors ( or more if you can)
are able to share and upvote the content giving it more of a chance to succeed.

Step 3 Share Other Peoples Content

Being self-promotional on Inbound.org will get you banned. You need to share other peoples content in order to be successful.
Share only the best content that you read including yours
and that of others.
3:20

A key component of this is to share content (y ou rs and

others) that the community probably hasnt seen before on
any channel.

NEED CONTENT TO SHARE?

Use the content shared in your sharing community. Remember to only share the

No

HHacker News

Hacker News is part of the Y Combinator incubator. Folks from the tech and online
marketing worlds submit the collection of articles. They form another strong community of people coming together to curate and share interesting articles and content from around the web.

Hacker News has a similar community as Inbound.org, but perhaps skews a little
more toward tech and development. If your blog aligns well with this type of community there is potential to have your articles do well on the site.
HERE ARE SOME STEPS TO TRY YOUR HAND AT HACKER NEWS.

Step 1 Comment On Popular Posts

cult to come in right away and share articles. People might click if the title is intrigu-

Commenting on popular posts will build your reputation. Youll be

paying it forward before you start submitting your own content.

GIVE FIRST. SHARE SECOND.

Step 2 Share Content From Around The Web

You can see the most popular content on Hacker News
at any time by looking at the Best section. Youll notice that many of the topics are tech-related. They have
a unique perspective that the community on Hacker
News shares.

H ere i s w h at th e c o m m u n i ty s eem s to l i k e th e b es t:
P ersonal stories of su ccess and pain ( see: W hy I tu rned down $ 5 million V C fu nding )
H acks, interesting ways to bu ild news skills ( see: H ow to g et g oo at chess, fast)
S hocking tech news ( see: G oog le accou nt vu lnerability)
V irtu al reality and machines ( see: hig h freq u ency dating )

Share the ones that have likely not been shared before on the site (s ee: Guidelines) .

Step 3 Share Your Own Content

around the web youll be able to start adding your own content.
If you want to have the best chance of succeeding in the community then create content based on the four criteria above. Those will give you the best chance of having

No

Reddit

We talked a little bit about Reddit in the Paid Social section of this guide. We didnt
tion section.
Like the previous items mentioned here, Reddit is a place where all kinds of content
can be shared with a large community of online users.

Here is how to have Reddit success, the front page of the Internet. This is going to
be similar to the other communities on here including Hacker News.

Step 1 Build Your Profile By Commenting On Niche-Relevant Topics

really help you to gain respect. The Reddit community appreciates people that take the time to add to the community. Its a
sarcastic community that appreciates witty, clever comments.
Short, snappy comments that are clever are appreciated. So are personal stories that
you can tell in the comments to build on a popular piece of content that was shared.
Add these types of comments and youll receive upvotes for your contributions,

Step 2 Share The Type Of Content That Your Niche Reddit Audience Loves
Here is the type of content Reddit seems to like the most in a general sense:
Clever, shocking or awkward memes (see: grandma holding a gun)
Amazing stories of science (see: street pipes burst from below the street)
Shocking historical facts

There are many other types of content that do well, but these are three good content types to
target. But on Reddit youre not targeting the general Reddit audience. Start by starting your

Step 3 Share Your Own Content

Finally, as you build your reputation as a strong contributor to
the community you can start sharing your own content. Publish
the highest chance for success.

No

Blog Catalog

Blog Catalog is a place where people go to read the best blogs around the Web. You
can pay to promote your latest posts on various places in the catalog. Its a great way
posts written about your blog and blog post and have your latest posts shared on
social media.

No

Blog Carnival

Blog Carnival
new blog post. Submit your article to be included in the review where thousands of
people will potentially see your post listed.

No

Bl
Blogarama

Blogarama is a blog search engine. Submit your blog so

No

Slashdot

Slashdot is a community that submits and shares a variety of different blog posts, articles and other types of content from around
the web. When you publish a new post, submit it on Slashdot.
for submission.

No

Newsvine

The users are in charge on Newsvine. Users on the site have complete control over

No

Newsvine

The users are in charge on Newsvine. Users on the site have complete control over
the news articles from around the web that are featured on the sites homepage and
column where the community will have the opportunity to share it with more people on the site.

10

No

Digg

Digg is a place where the best and most interesting content is shared from around
the web each day. It remains one of the most popular sites on the web and it can be
Submit your blog post to Digg. Its

11 Diigo

No

Diigo is a community of bloggers and content producers that collaborate to research

and create great content. Join these groups and youll have the opportunity to submit your blog post for consideration in the posts of others. Its a way to show others
how valuable your post can be for the content they want to create. Build connec-

12

No

BuzzBundle

BuzzBundle is a software tool that allows you to create multiple social media accounts. You can easily create new accounts and automate the sharing of your blog
posts to each of them. You dont have to worry about logging in and out of multiple
accounts. Do it all in one place and quickly get your blog post shared multiple times
so it can gain the attention of more people.

13

No

Alltop

Submit your blog feed to Alltop

recent post will appear at the top of the feed and youll have instant access to the
thousands of users on Alltop that are looking for great content like yours.

14

No

Technorati

Technorati is one of the most extensive blog directories on the web. Submit your
blog and add the appropriate tags for your niche. Your blog will be included and listfeed your latest blog post will be included giving you a link back to your blog and
another automated way for each of your new posts to be syndicated.

15
1
5 BlogHub

No

Add your blog to the BlogHub directory to get listed in a place where thousands of

16

No

Regator

Regator curates the best blogs and best posts from around the web. Submit your blog
for review. Once accepted, your latest posts will be featured on the site.

17

No

Ice Rocket

IceRocket is a search engine that lets you submit your blog for inclusion. Submit
yours and youll start being listed for the thousands of users looking for great content.

18

No

Bloglovin

Search for your blogs URL on bloglovin and follow it. This will get your blog on the
list for other followers to follow.
For even more blog directories and syndication sites see this post:
http://www.toprankblog.com/rss-blog-directories/

Putting It All Together

Syndicating your content is another great way to market your blog.
Weve given you a few strategies you can use to syndicate your content around the
ter. That is a recurring theme in blog marketing and it will serve you well as you
work to market your blog and its posts.

WHAT IS THE POINT OF REPURPOSING BLOG CONTENT?

content type. And the great part is you dont have to create new content to do it.
ARE YOU READY?

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CHAPTER TEN

Repurposing Content
ter has included strategies for marketing your blog posts.
But blog marketing and promoting your blog is not only about text-based blog posts.
You can repurpose your blog content to extend the reach of your blog and to identify
further link-building opportunities.
In this chapter, were going to cover a number of strategies that allow you to take your
Some people prefer to read blog posts. In fact, a lot of people do, but everybody has
their own preference and if you want to reach your target reader that prefers other
forms of content you have to give them what they want.
Ready to get started?
LETS GET INTO IT.

step

Publish Your Post

As soon as you publish your post you can immediately get to work on repurposing it.

step

HHire A Designer To Create A Whitepaper Or Guide

Some people like to download whitepapers for reference. They may like reading blog
posts, but to them a whitepaper has a more formal feel. Whitepapers are usually designed well and easy to read.
But white papers are really nothing more than repurposed blog posts especially if
you have some really good how-to blog content.

PDF
DOWNLOAD

Simply copy and paste the content from your post to create the content for you
guide. Hire a designer to create a .pdf document that looks nice and is downloadable
from your website.
U p l o ad the PDF to Docstoc, which is a library of documents and resources. Its a
place to syndicate your blog content repurposed as whitepapers, guides and other
PDF documents.

step

Create A Slide Deck & Upload To SlideShare

step

Create A Slide Deck & Upload To SlideShare

Slideshows are another form of content some people really love. Speakers will often put
their slide decks on SlideShare and the content will do really well for those that couldnt be
at the speaking event.
Dont waste slides. Youre not giving a speech like others that create slide decks.
Youre using your slideshow as an online marketing tool.

Each slide should have one key point from your post. These points should be the

For example, a top 10 list of will have 12 slides 10 with the items from the list and
an introduction slide and an ending slide with your contact information.
Once you complete the slide deck upload it to SlideShare.

in the community and from search engines.

Use a similar title to the one from your blog post and add the appropriate tags on
SlideShare.
A d d i ti o n al s i tes to s u b m i t y o u r s l i d e d ec k to i n c l u d e:
http://www.slideworld.com/
http://www.slideboom.com/
http://www.scribd.com/

step

Turn Your Slideshow Into An Infographic

Infographics have now been popular for a few years. Ive had great success with
them on Quick Sprout:

http://www.q u icksprou t.com/2 0 1 3 /0 7 /2 5 /how- to- create- a- popu lar- infog raphic/
http://www.q u icksprou t.com/2 0 1 2 /0 6 /1 1 /5 - ways- to- g et- you r- infog raphic- to- g o- viral/

KISSmetrics has also had

success producing infographics as a way to market
the blog and the brand.

Infographics take the usual blog post and turn it into something visual for readers.
In successful cases, infographics will do a better job of communicating something
interesting and useful to the target audience.
HERE IS HOW YOU CAN REPURPOSE YOUR BLOG POSTS INTO
INFOGRAPHICS.
Before you hire a designer its a good idea to sketch or create a basic
layout. You can even do it in a word document if you would like, but
giving the designer some direction will make the design process easier
for you and for the designer.
You can hire a designer and have them create a great looking infographic for a
couple hundred dollars. Promote your infographic on a site like Freelance Switch.
Youll get lots of replies. Ask the designer if theyve done infographics before and

step

Turn Your Infographic Into A Videographic

Videographics are animations that take the content from your blog post (o r infog raphic) and turn it into an animated video that takes your content to another level.

Online video continues to grow in popularity with web users. Video is becoming a preferred channel for users and if you want to capture this audience you need to create
video or in this case, videographics.
Videographics are very similar to infographics. The same type of content will do
well. Stats complete with lists of how-to information will give viewers something
they can do to improve their lives.
Videographers are becoming more common in the online industry, but they can still

YouTube is the biggest video community. Upload your videographic to YouTube and
share it in your social communities. Add the appropriate title and tags to the video

A l s o s u b m i t an d s h are y o u r v i d eo grap h i c to th e f o l l o w i n g s i tes :

https://vimeo.com/
http://screen.yahoo.com/
http://www.facebook.com/video/
http://www.viddler.com/

step

TTurn Your Post Into A Video

As we just mentioned, videos are popular online. But you dont have to create videopost and turning it into a video.

indoors. You dont want light shining right in your face. You want it to be shining at
you, but spread out.
Create a small script and practice a few times before recording.
Then record the tip. Get it done in less than a minute and publish
the video to YouTube. Promote it on your blog and on social media.

S u b m i t y o u r v i d eo to th e f o l l o w i n g v i d eo s h ari n g s i tes :
https://vimeo.com/
http://screen.yahoo.com/
http://www.facebook.com/video/
http://www.viddler.com/

step

Hire A Professional Voice On Fiverr To Read

& Record Your Post Aloud To Create A Podcast

Podcasts are recorded shows. People like to listen to them at work on their computers.
Others will listen to them while theyre working out at the gym. Some even put them on
while theyre driving to work.

Podcasts are great to listen to in the background while youre doing something else
and whats great for content producers is that podcasts contain much of the same
content as blog posts.
Go to Fiverr and search for a professional voice. Pay someone to read your blog post
aloud while recording themselves doing so.
T ak e th e rec o rd i n g an d s u b m i t i t to th e f o l l o w i n g p o d c as t d atab as es :
http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/
https://www.podomatic.com/login
http://www.podbean.com/
http://www.digitalpodcast.com./
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/

step

Turn Your Blog Post Into A Webinar

step

Turn Your Blog Post Into A Webinar

Webinars can a successful selling tool for businesses, especially B2B companies.
There are people out there that enjoy webinars over blog posts and other content.
Many webinars occur during lunch breaks giving people a break from their normal
workday. They can listen in to the live even. They can share comments and get information on a topic they want to learn about.

HERE IS A STRATEGY FOR CREATING SUCCESSFUL WEBINARS FROM

YOUR BLOG CONTENT.
Webinars are kind of like live slideshow presentations. Some have video. Others use
audio. Turn your blog post into a slideshow like we discussed above. Also use the
information to create a script that you can follow.

Host the interview with another person that has a large audience in
the event, but have them join you for the event.
This will bring their audience to the webinar and that will give you and your blog
more exposure. End the webinar by letting attendees know that they can get even
more information on the topic at your blog.

Putting It All Together

Some people prefer other types of content instead of the traditional text-based blog post.
To expand your reach, repurpose your blog posts into the type of content more people prefer.
In this section we gave you sites where you can submit your content to such as
SlideShare, YouTube, iTunes and others.
Its important to remember that these sites allow you to list titles, descriptions, tags
and other information for your content.

also include a link to your original blog post whenever possible.

YouTube is one example of a site that allows you to include a link in the description.

subscriber or social media follower.

Its Time To Take The First Step

If you have, great!
But if you took the time to read through the entire guide before taking action then

Blog marketing is an essential part of blogging success. Creating amazing blog content is one part of the puzzle. Marketing that content is the next step. Its essential if
you want your blog to succeed.
GOOD LUCK!

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