14 things you should do AFTER you publish a new blog post
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So, you have hit publish on your carefully written blog post…what next? How will people find it? How will you get people to read it? Here are 14 things you should do after you publish a new blog post to ensure your content is found and read.
So, you have written a killer blog post that you know your audience are just going to love. But how will they ever know you have written something they would like to read? Your audience is not going to just magically know (I wish there was some kind of app or plugin that meant they did though!!).
After you hit publish on your blog post, you then need to promote your blog post. The good news is there are so many ways that you can do this. The more you do, the more likely your blog post will get read, the more likely you are to get shares and comments, and the more likely you are to gain readers and subscribers who will come back to your site again and again.
So here are 14 things you should do after you publish every blog post (feeling daunted by the number ‘14’ – just do as many as you can, but remember the more you do the more page views your blog post will get. Over time you will begin to work out which of these work best for your blog.)
1. Share your new blog post on Twitter
Just a quick tweet to say you have a new blog post and link to the URL, together with a nice photograph or graphic (your tweet is much more likely to be read if you include an image).
**BONUS TIP**
Schedule a few extra tweets to go out 3 days after, 7 days after, 2 weeks after etc. Or use a scheduler to do this automatically for you. I use CoSchedule’s* awesome ReQueue feature to automatically resend my tweets out on a schedule of my choosing.
READ MORE >>> How to schedule and automate your social media with CoSchedule
2. Share your new blog post on your Facebook page
Let your Facebook followers know you have a new blog post, make sure you include a little blurb, the URL and a photo.
**BONUS TIP**
Don’t just share new posts on Facebook. Make sure you are also sharing a nice mix of your old content, other people’s content and general chitchat about your life – keep it social!!
3. Share your new post on Instagram
Take a nice photo or graphic from your post and share it on Instagram, letting your Instagram followers know you have a new post on your blog.
**BONUS TIP**
Just as with Facebook, makes sure you take the time to be social on Instagram. Don’t just share your new posts, share snippets from your life too and make sure you take the time to reply to comments, as well as like and comment on other people’s posts
4. Pin your new post on Pinterest
Every time you create a new blog post, make sure to include a pinnable image (vertical, 600×900 or max 600×1200, with text) in your post and take the time to pin that image on to every board that is relevant – both your own boards and group boards. I find the Tailwind app* really helps to make this quick and easy, and to spread out my pins evenly.
**BONUS TIP**
Make sure you also spend some time pinning other people’s content onto your own boards to make your boards look attractive and interesting to your Pinterest followers.
READ MORE >>> Beginner’s guide to Pinterest for bloggers
READ MORE >>> How to use Tailwind – a step-by-step guide for bloggers
5. Share your new post with your email subscribers
Make sure that you share every blog post with your email subscribers. You can do this either every time you post or in a weekly newsletter. Need help with email? Check out my post on how to get started with email marketing.
**BONUS TIP**
Don’t just email the whole blog post to your subscribers or they will have no reason to click through to your blog. Email a short extract with a ‘continue reading’ link to your actual blog post.
6. Share your new blog post in Facebook groups
There are lots of Facebook groups that will allow you to share your latest blog posts with a wider audience. Join a few and share your content. (But make sure you follow the rules exactly or you may get chucked out of the group!) Helene has a fab list of Facebook groups for bloggers on her Helene In Between site. If you blog about food, you can come and share your food and recipe posts over in the CookBlogShare Facebook group.
**BONUS TIP**
Don’t forget to connect with the other people in the group too. Don’t be that person who dumps their link and runs. Even if you are super busy that day, you can still do a few likes and make a couple of quick comments. Not only is it the right thing to do, but by connecting with other bloggers you will give yourself all sorts of opportunities in the future and make valuable friends and connections.
7. Share your new post on blogger linkies
Linkies allow you to put a small photo and link back you your new blog post on someone else’s website (usually a bigger and more influential blogger). In return you link back to the linky and comment on a few of the other posts which have been linked up. Linkies are a great way of getting your site seen as well as a great way to improve your SEO, get more comments on your blog and connect with the blogging community. Every time you publish a new post you should link it to a few relevant linkies.
**BONUS TIP**
If you blog about food, you can link up with the #CookBlogShare linky – details of the latest linky can be found in the pinned post on the CookBlogShare Facebook Page.
8. Submit your new post to photo sharing websites
This depends on your niche, but there are often places where you can share photos from your new blog post. If your submission is successful, you will gain page views from the users of the photo sharing website. For example, if you are a food blogger you can share a photo of your latest recipe on Foodgawker. There are also other ‘Gawkers’ for other niches, such as Craftgawker, Weddingsgawker, Dwellinggawker and Stylegawker.
**BONUS TIP**
I used to submit to loads of photo sharing websites, but now I only submit to Foodgawker – it was the only one I ever got really decent traffic from. But it’s worth experimenting and seeing which sites work best for you.
9. Submit your new post to roundups
You might not be able to do this straight away, but keep your eye out on social media – especially Facebook groups (like mine!) – and if someone is doing a roundup on the topic of one of your blog posts and does a call out for submissions, be sure to submit yours. If your blog post is selected, this will not only increase your page views, but it will also boost your SEO as it will give you a valuable backlink. And on that subject…
10. Make sure your blog post is optimised for SEO
Really this is something that should be done BEFORE you press publish on your new blog post, but it never hurts to check! Make sure that you have included your keywords in the title, first paragraph, scattered a few times through the post, in at least one of the headings and in one of the alt descriptions. If not go back in and update the post!
**BONUS TIP**
Use the Yoast plugin to help you do this – for more information on SEO and the Yoast Plugin check out my post on how to use the Yoast SEO plugin to optimise a blog post.
11. Create internal links
Hopefully, as part of your blog post writing process, you have included some internal links FROM your new post TO a few of your older posts (make sure you double check you have done this, and if not add some!) But you should also see if you can add internal links FROM some of your old post TO your new one. Search for any relevant posts or roundups on your website where you could drop in a new link to your new blog post. Doing this regularly will greatly boost your blog’s SEO by keeping readers (and search bots) on your site.
12. UPDATE YOUR CONTENT CALENDAR
A blog content calendar is a really important tool, not only for planning your content, but keeping track of it too. Use your content calendar to record the URL of your new blog post, its status (Not started / Draft / Scheduled / Published) and where you have shared it. This will help you see at a glance what still needs to be done. Get into the habit of updating your content calendar after you’ve published each blog post and you’ll never get in a muddle or forget to do something!
Not got a blog content calendar yet? I’ve made one for you >>> Free Blog Content Calendar
13. Answer your comments and emails
This one is super important and often overlooked! Make sure you answer each and every comment, be it on social media or on your blog post. And if anyone sends you an email about your post, make sure you reply to that too. Replying to comments and emails really builds trust and engagement, both so important for building your blog.
**BONUS TIP**
Have a set point in your day when you do this… it will be much quicker and more efficient than responding to each comment and email as it comes in and you will feel much less overwhelmed. Just set a timer for however long you want/need to dedicate to emails and comments, to stay on top of this, and once the timer’s gone off don’t touch it until your next session.
14. Check your analytics
Check your Google Analytics to see how well your latest blog post has done. If it has done well, work out why (your comments/social media may be able to give you a clue) and make a note to yourself to make more content like that. If it bombed, try to work out why… and don’t make that mistake next time!!
**BONUS TIP**
Sometimes it takes a while for traffic to pick up on a particular blog post… I have had posts that have done nothing for weeks or even months and then suddenly got popular! So, don’t be too disheartened if one post doesn’t immediately do well. But do watch the overall trends… and give your audience more of what they love!!
READ MORE >>> How to set up Google Analytics on a WordPress blog
READ MORE >>> How to use Google Analytics – a beginner’s guide
It sounds like a lot doesn’t it? But once you get into the swing of things, this should only take you an hour or two after you hit publish – quicker if you use a scheduling tool. And honestly it is far better to write fewer blog posts and promote them thoroughly, than write lots and lots of blog posts but never share them anywhere.
How about you? How many of these do you routinely do? Do you do anything else to promote your blog posts?
The 10 essential elements of a successful blog post
12 things you MUST do before you hit publish on your blog post
11 easy ways to boost your blog’s SEO
How to use cornerstone content to increase blog traffic
How to be your own best publicist: PR tips from Honest Mum
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Whew! I am doing many of the things you say to do!! I love reading your posts-they are so helpful!!
Hooray! Glad to hear that Cindy 😀 And so pleased you are finding my tips helpful! Eb 🙂
I have never heard of linkies before. Do you have more info on this? Would love to learn more about it.
Linkies, sometimes known as link parties, are an opportunity to share your posts on another blogger’s website. The linky host (typically a bigger, more established blogger) ‘hosts’ a linky on their site and invites other bloggers to add their links, which you do by clicking a link and adding your URL. Your post then shows up as a small thumbnail with the title of your post. Visitors to that linky can click on your thumbnail and will be redirected to your post. There are usually rules, such as for every post you link up you have to visit and comment on at least two others and/or share them on social media. It’s a great way to grow your blog traffic, get comments and get your posts pinned and shared on social media. Here is an example of a linky I regularly take part in (and used to host!) >>> https://www.recipesmadeeasy.co.uk/recipes/cook-blog-share/
Hi Eb,
super checklist of things to do after publishing a blog post.
And outlined like that it seems easy. And it is easy! Except for internal linking which is very time consuming and tedious.You have to find a dozen suitable posts, then edit each to include a link, then update…
It’s very boring to me and I am soon to invest in Link Whisper, which is a plugin that automates internal linking.
Cant wait:)
Thanks Nikola! Though have to say, I would slightly disagree with you on the internal linking thing. Google uses your internal linking structure to understand the relative importance of you blog posts. It sees a post with lots of internal links pointing to it as more important than a post with just a few internal links pointing to it. So if your post is just a normal post, I would recommend just linking back from 2 or 3 other blog posts. However, if your content is cornerstone content, THEN I would recommend linking back from many more posts – this will help Google understand that your cornerstone posts are the most important posts on your site and this in turn will help you rank better on Google. In particular cornerstone content (with lots of internal links pointing to it) will help you rank for normally hard to rank for search terms. For more info on cornerstone content, check out this post >>> https://www.productiveblogging.com/cornerstone-content-increase-blog-traffic/ and for more info on internal linking, check out this post >>> https://www.productiveblogging.com/blog-site-structure-seo/ Hope that helps – and especially hope that helps reduce your workload going forward! Eb 🙂
Hey EB,
First of all, thank you for sharing the blog post promotion checklist.
Most of the things you suggested, I’m already doing.
But, the “photo-sharing website” trick is new for me. Will going to implement it in my blog promotion strategy for sure.
Yay – good to hear you found this useful 😀
Hey!
I tried to get my posts on Insta and to actively take part on events n stuff to get the word out but it’s just too much of work for one platform. Managing all of them sounds clearly impossible, if I want to keep my blog posts going and have a social life myself haha
I tend to get too addicted to Social Media anyway. Dunno how to manage all of them on my own. Maybe I can figure something out here
My advice with social media is ‘be present’ on the main ones, but don’t spend too much time there. Ideally, automate as much as you can, by using a tool like CoSchedule. To give you an idea, I spend less than 10mins per day on social media. In my experience you get a far better ROTI (Return On Time Invested) if you focus the majority of your time on SEO and email marketing. And try to avoid getting sucked into the social media vortex. It’s specifically designed to be highly addictive so the social media overlords make more money! Personally I check in once a day and give myself a time limit… and I do it late in the day when I’ve already done my much more important ‘focus work’ and I can’t use social media as a procrastination tool. You might find this post useful >>> https://www.productiveblogging.com/how-to-plan-your-day-for-maximum-productivity/ and also this one >>> https://www.productiveblogging.com/how-to-stay-focused/
Thanks for writing this. It makes me feel now that I’m doing the right thing 🙂
You’re welcome! Good to hear 😀