8 Content Promotion Strategies to Drive More Traffic to Your Site
You’ve done the hard part – you’ve slaved over your content, perfecting it for its debut with your audience. Now you’ve hit that publish button – is your work done? Not by a long shot. In this article, we’re going to discuss exactly how to promote your content so that it works for your brand.
The Basics of Content Promotion
The fact is, we don’t just create content for content sake. It’s not a “nice to have.” It serves a strategic purpose.
We create content to get people onto your site. Once there, they can see evidence of your expertise and authority, learn more about your brand, and with time become a client or customer.
And you can’t just assume that once your content is published that everyone is going to see through the millions of pieces of content on the internet, lock eyes on your content, and be drawn to it like a moth to a flame.
Sadly, it doesn’t work like that.
Every brand needs a strategy in place to attract people to their content.
But you don’t just want any ol’ person – you want the right people. You want to attract people to your content who could potentially become clients or purchase your product. That’s the ultimate goal.
And that’s what we’re going to discuss, with 8 specific content promotion strategies for how to promote your content to get all the right eyes on it.
How to Promote Your Content So People Will Actually Read It
1. Optimize It for SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process that aligns your content with search engines like Google. When your content is optimized, it has a greater chance of appearing higher on search engine results pages, where people searching on that topic will see it, click it, and be directed to your website.
How does this work?
It all starts with choosing the right keywords, which are words and phrases that people search for on the internet. Do your research with a keyword research tool like SEMRush or Ubersuggest to see what people in your industry are searching for.
When you have your keywords, sprinkle them strategically throughout your content. The key places you should use them include:
Title
First paragraph
An h2 heading
Meta description
URL
There’s a whole science around SEO that is difficult to get into in a few paragraphs. If you really want to perfect this strategy, it can be a good idea to hire an SEO writer who knows how to leverage SEO throughout your content strategy.
2. Share It on Social Media
Social media is a great, free strategy that is perfect for content promotion, especially if you’ve built up your social media audience.
After publishing content, take the time to promote it on social media. And don’t forget to use relevant hashtags that will attract even more people outside of your audience.
And to make your content even more social-friendly, include share buttons! These buttons, on the top or bottom of your article will encourage readers to share it on their own social media networks.
3. Repurpose It
There are so many content formats out there – from blogs to videos to infographics. And people have preferences when it comes to the content they consume. Some prefer to watch a quick video while others prefer to sit down and read it.
Repurposing your content into these various formats can help you to reach your entire audience. You can also use repurposed content to encourage people to visit the original piece of content for a more in-depth look at the topic.
4. Use Your Email Newsletter
This is where it’s important to build up an email list – a list of people who have subscribed to receive information from your brand via email. If you haven’t already done so, now’s the perfect time!
Your email newsletter is the perfect place to announce new content and get people excited to read it.
Include a subject line that creates excitement and curiosity around the topic. Then use the body of your newsletter to tell people why this topic is important and how this piece of content is going to help them.
5. Quote Experts – And Tag Them
Perhaps you’re new to the game and your name doesn’t have the weight that attract audiences. So add weight to it by pairing it with someone who does have the weight.
Use quotes from experts in your field. With some, you might be able to email them for a quick quote you can use. When emailing, make sure to thank them for their time, tell them what you’re working on and invite them to share a couple of sentences with their point of view.
You might also use a quote from an article that they’ve already written. You might even do a round-up post that highlights the opinions of several experts in your field.
Once the content is published and you’re getting ready to post it on social media, don’t forget to tag the individuals you quote. You never know – they might read it, love it, and share it with their audience. But even if they don’t, including their name when you post can give your article more weight.
6. Leverage Content Communities
Content communities include such sites as Medium and Mashable, where you can post content that drives interest in your brand.
Some of these communities will allow you to post whatever and whenever you want. Other sites have a more guarded process, with specific requirements to post on their site, as well as a an email where you can pitch to their editor.
How does this help you?
These content communities give you access to a large audience that don’t yet know you. Posting content here allows them to get to know you and your brand – with some of them even coming back to your site to see more of your content.
But that’s not all – it also helps you on a deeper level, with inbound links back to your site. These inbound links help to increase your authority with search engines like Google and can lead to better SEO results.
7. Use Your Email Signature Line
Every email you send has the potential to capture your audience’s attention.
What is an email signature line? It’s the portion at the bottom of every email where you usually put your name and business information. But this space can also be used for content promotion.
Simply include a heading like “Check Out Our Recent Blog Posts” and then list a few of the titles on your blog, with links to each one.
Then, whenever you send an email to a client or colleague, you have the added potential of them clicking over to see your content!
8. Encourage Employees to Share It
Promoting your content is all about finding new audiences – and each and every one of your employees probably has their own audience. Some of them might not yet be familiar with your brand.
Why not encourage your employees to post your content on their feed – perhaps LinkedIn or Twitter, where the content would best fit in.
You might even create some sort of rewards program or incentive for employees who share your content. This could be a gift card or special treat for every so many shares they do. After all, they’re adding value to your content strategy – why not give them something of value in return?
Concluding Thoughts on Content Promotion
So now we’ve discussed hwo to promote your content, you have the tools you need to do it!
Notice, none of these strategies are particularly complicated or costly – it’s just a matter of weaving them into your content process. To make sure you don’t miss a beat, why not bake these strategies right into your content calendar?
I hope that these content promotion strategies help you to get more eyes on your content!
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