10 Blog Post Marketing Steps to Take Immediately After You Publish
Last week I wrote 10 SEO Blog Post Publishing Steps that Most Bloggers Forget.
The post did well: 100+ Tweets, 50+ comments (half mine), and Michael even told me, “when I saw it, I was like, this is what I like.”
One reason that post did well was because I followed the advice in the post (with the exception of #5).
Another reason it did well is because I followed up with many of the 10 blog post marketing steps that I want to tell you about today.
1. Schedule Instead of Publish
I always schedule rather than publish because scheduling gives me one last chance to look over the post.
I also schedule my posts to be published at midnight for three reasons:
- So the published on time is 00:00. I’m a little OCD about it.
- So it has the maximum number of hours with the current date.
- So it has a few “live-hours” before Feedburner/Aweber emails out between 7am-9am. This gives it a chance to have a few Tweets, Likes and comments before it gets emailed out.
2. Read it Again
Immediately after your post is published, read it again. You should’ve already looked it over for grammar. Now is the time to look for ways to improve the final post.
If you don’t enjoy spending a few minutes reading your post one last time, then you probably didn’t do a very good job of writing it.
It’s like fixing up an old car. Once it’s complete, if you don’t spend at least a few minutes admiring it, then you know you could’ve done better.
3. Tweet it Out
Simple enough, eh?
I don’t use any auto-tweeting tools because I like to adjust the tweet and I like to be able to say, “hey world… I just now finished this post. Come be one of the first to see it.”
4. Share on Facebook
Facebook, on the other hand, is a bit more strategic.
When you publish your blog posts on your personal profile, understand that those people are primarily your friends and family. They probably don’t care too much about the content of the post but they will be interested in the fact that you wrote it. So when you add the comment to the link, include something a bit more personal.
When you post your link on your Facebook page, know that these are people who have “Liked” your blog/brand/company. So here, add a comment mentioning the benefit of taking a few minutes to read the post.
It’s important to share the article on both your personal profile and Facebook page at the same time because people who follow both are more likely to see it. It’s the same reason you’re starting to see the links that multiple friends recommend.
5. Set Up Automatic Pinging
If you’re unfamiliar with pinging, there are a number of sites and platforms (including Google, Yahoo!, and Technorati) that allow you to automatically notify, or “ping,” them when your site is updated with new content.
If you’re using WordPress, it’s easy to set up.
From your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings > Writing and scroll down to Update Services.
In that box, copy and paste these URLs:
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.twingly.com/
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.bloglines.com/ping
http://ping.feedburner.com/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://www.octora.com/add_rss.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://www.wasalive.com/ping/
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://bblog.com/ping.php
I’ve gathered this collection of pinging services over the last three years. Let me know if I’m missing any.
6. Email Broadcast
Assuming you’ve started to build your email list, email out your blog post to people who have signed up for your blog updates.
You can simply write up and send out an email with a short introduction and link to the post.
Or, depending on your email marketing service, you can automate this step.
I use Aweber’s Blog Broadcast function and integrate it with Feedburner. This way, every time I update my blog, my list automatically gets an email with the blog post between the hours of 7am-9am. I chose that time so it’s sitting at the top of their inbox when they start their computer in the morning.
If you’d like to know how to set up the Aweber Blog Broadcast function, let me know in the comments.
7. Link from Old Posts
Last week I talked about interlinking by adding links to old posts before you publish a new post. You can also do the opposite.
If you’re doing a good job of optimizing and writing evergreen content, then your old posts will continue to get traffic. An easy way to get traffic to a brand new post is to dig into your archives and link from a few relevant posts to the new post with the keyword as the anchor text.
It counts as a link and a trackback. If you’re struggling to get that first comment, consider doing this because the default settings in WordPress count trackbacks as comments. I’ve found that people are more likely to comment if they see other comments.
8. Link from Other Sites
About a year ago I was considering starting a new blog by taking an existing blog and putting it on a new domain. I asked Michael for his opinion and he told me that it’s nice to have two high-traffic sites (his being IncomeSup.com and Retireat21.com).
One reason that it’s nice to have multiple sites is that you can link between them.
Whenever I publish a post on my new blog, I search the archives of my old blog for relevant articles until I find at least one chance to link to the new blog post.
This adds a trackback, adds a link, increases traffic, and strengthens the structure of my mini network of sites.
9. Submit it to Article Directories
If you’re serious about blogging and would like to boost your SEO, consider submitting your posts to article directories.
Here’s the process:
- Rewrite your post so it’s new content.
- Submit it to a few article directories (ArticlesBase, GoArticles, and ArticleDashboard).
- Include a link back to the original article or one of your article directory articles.
This process takes awhile so it doesn’t make sense to do it for every post. Once a post starts getting a fair amount of search traffic, consider going through this process to boost it even higher.
10. Reply to First Comment
The first comment is the hardest to get, unless you have a site like IncomeDiary. So you want to reward that commenter by replying to their comment as soon as you can. This does two things:
- Rewards the first commenter.
- Shows other commenters that you listen which encourages them to leave comments as well.
For me, I choose to reply to almost every comment simply because I like answering questions and interacting with smart people. It takes a fair amount of time, but I enjoy your comments.
If this post helped you at all or taught you something new, I’d like to know. Leave a comment below and you’ll likely see my reply within a day.
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Hi Nicholas,
Great post it’s amazing how much we probably don’t do all the time, this post gives some great information, I would also suggest Social Bookmarking (Digg) the link as well
Cheers
Joe
Congratulations, Joe! First comment!
I’ve heard that submitting your articles to Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon only decreases the likelihood of them taking off. One digg/upvote/stumble doesn’t do much with those sites. I’m not sure About IncomeSup, but one of my posts on 14clicks has been stumbled 75K+ times.
What’s the point of ‘getting’ first comment on this or any other post if you, apparently, have decided not to allow a linkback to the commenters www site as in a normal blog comment fashion?
Since you moderate comments I don’t get it. I guess you are too important, and get enough comments anyway, without doing what most other blogs do and offer a link back as a thank you for for a visitor commenting?
Isn’t ‘no follow’ enough for you?
Why be so miserly? Reflects badly on you, in my book anyway.
I’ve just unsubscribed and won’t be back (safe in the knowledge that this comment won’t be published).
Hey Chas… I’m sure Michael has good reasons for not giving links to comments. For one, if any give web page has more than 100 links on it, Google will truncate the page (source: . On another note, you should know that Michael pays his authors. Michael reached into his pocketbook and paid me to write this article for you and everyone else here. Yes, occasionally he’ll recoup the investment and in the long-term it’ll be worth it. But that doesn’t change the fact that he gave this article and every other article on this site to you for free. If you don’t want to benefit from this resource because Michael doesn’t give you a link, that’s your choice. I hope to see you here again. Thank you for challenging us with your comment.
Nicholas, whilst I agree with your sentiment here, every blog owner gives their audience something. My own content comes from a lot of research and time on my own part (and I have a job to do 9-6). My time costs money. I know it isn’t your choice to offer links here or not, but I do tend to agree that if you moderate the comments you ought to permit nofollow links.
I agree with not allowing links in comments, it’s pretty obvious that Michael is looking out for his blog and doesn’t want to link out to 100’s of random blogs regardless of whether they are no follow or not. Also it’s going to take more time to moderate and you could end up linking out to a bad site like a porn site or something that won’t look good. If you’re really upset about not getting a “no follow” link back to your website then I think you need to re-think your blog marketing strategy because it’s clearly pretty poor + learn more about seo because no-follow blog comments aren’t going to do a great deal to increase your search engine ranking.
This is mainly a reply to “Chas” who seems like a bit of an idiot to be honest and well done in publishing his comment too, if it was me I would have deleted him and emailed him telling him to f* off.
Good post!
Thanks Nicholas, solid practical advise..I like the tips re schedule instead of just publish (also that will help me to be more structured in my approach to blogging) and I love all the automatic pinging sites…so thats on list to do this week. Thank you.
You’re welcome, Ntathu! Make sure you check out teresa’s comment below for a few more.
Before I comment on the article, I want to say great job! All the points in the article are very valid. When you’re first starting out like I am, getting recognition is a bit hard. But with time, it starts to gain traction with others in the industry. I agree that the first comment is really the hardest one around. And when you get one, don’t blow it! Once again, great article
Thanks, Samuel! Again, when you have a site like Michael’s, people tend to race to become the first comment. But for others, that comment is really hard to get, especially if most of your posts still have 0 comments. The best way I’ve found to get comments when you’re first starting is comment on other similarly-sized blogs in your niche. As you know, bloggers love comments and they’ll typically return the favor.
Thanks for the reply, Nicholas! Appreciate it. Yup I agree. To get comments, you’ll have to look to other similarly-sized blogs. Agree. Just wondering, how can I find any? I could look as well, but maybe you have a faster way to find. Thanks a lot
Sure thing, Samuel. Go to the big blogs in your niche where you like to comment and visit the sites that belong to the other commenters. Comment on their posts and mention how you found them through so-and-so’s site.
Thanks again :)!
Nice tips. I have a bunch of links taken for step 5 (automatic pinging) but I haven’t tested them to make sure they’re still functioning. It’s a list of update services taken from various blogs and sites. Maybe once I test them I’ll let you know!
Sounds good, Niall. Be sure to let us know.
Nice, thanks for this. I’ve already been implementing quite a few of them, but you’re right, I should be going to my older content and updating it with new links and recommendations. My best post has links to about 20 other pages, and in my google analytic metrics it just keeps people trapped on the site for ages.
Now I’ve added the ping services (awesome list, thanks) and will go and syndicate some of the information out to ezinearticles etc (which I’ve been a little lazy promoting recently).
Sure thing, Neil. Now with so much emphasis on original content, article directories don’t work as well as they used to. But you’re guaranteed at least one targeted backlink. I’ve heard it works well, but, personally, I’d rather spend my time creating content for my site and let the backlinks come naturally.
Great post, Nicholas. I just installed plugin that lets me schedule when my posts will be published and I like it so far.I do have a question about article marketing.
Do you use an article spinner or do you do it yourself?
Hey Dwayne… You shouldn’t need a plugin to schedule the posts unless you have a need for more functionality. Generally, I try to limit the number of plugins I use. I’ve never used an article spinner. In fact, the only articles I’ve submitted to Ezine, etc. were completely original content. I understand that it works well, but I try to steer clear of tools that someday may get me kicked off Google.
So i am the First Commenter
Am i going to get anything ???
hahahaha…
Nicholas… Liked your Post…
Ah, Michael gets a bunch of spam comments so the comments need to be manually approved. Hence, the allusion of first comment. I’m glad you liked it, Sanjit!
Great post. I always see you all promote Aweber. I’m looking into purchasing it. I set up mailchimp on my blog, but it might be difficult transfering a list from mailchimp to Aweber. Do you know if it is possible to start out with a free email service and then transfer your email list to a paid service? How do you setup Aweber Blog Broadcast Function? This would be good to know even if I am not able to purchase it yet. Also great advice about submitting to article directories. What is the most popular article directory that brings this blog the most traffic? I might just do that when my blog is up and running.
Hey Abigail. I don’t think there’s a way to transfer a list to a new email marketing service. Your best bet is to set up a new squeeze page and email your existing list to sign up for your new list. A few others have asked about the Blog Broadcast function. Perhaps I’ll dedicate a post to it. I’ve found that my articles on EzineArticles get the most traffic.
Hi Nicholas. Thank you for the reply. This is good to know.
Nice list – I also try and make a point of uploading any imagery I use in the post to my Flickr account with a link back to the post – ditto an embedded Video from YouTube or similar
That’s a good idea, Clive. I experimented with that exact thing on this post (http://14clicks.com/seo-social-media-email-marketing/) by uploading each of the images I created to my Flickr account. I’ve noticed more trackbacks than anything as a result. Let me know what you experience.
Hi Nicholas,
first of all. Great content!
I would like to recommend a site called http://www.networkedblogs.com/ which automaticly publish a tweet and facebook post after publishing your blog content.
Regards from Germany
Thomas
Hey Thomas… My advice in the article is to stop auto-tweeting/posting because it’s not authentic. What are your views?
Hey Nicholas,
I'am an entrepreneur and love to automate/simplify things. You are right. Personal tweets or facebook updates are better but this takes time. I save this time to write incredible articles or simply enjoy life
To my mind, Facebook and Twitter are tools to spread my message and stay in contact with my audience. If people are interested in my blog post they will also read some “unpersonal” tweets etc.
Thomas
The 10 Blog Poat Marketing Steps are very fruitful, no doubt.
Fruitful? How so, Muhammad?
Hey Nick
Another solid post. Fortunately, I do most of these things already, but I had a question about the article directories. Why does the post need to be rewritten (except to abide by different directory rules) if you wrote it originally. Why is this different than syndication? I see the same article in different newspapers and as long as you give attribution, how can it be considered duplicate content? This has always puzzled me and I thought you might know. Lastly are you rewriting for each different directory and if not, aren’t we faced with the same question?
Cheers
Mark
Hey Mark… Unfortunately, I’m not sure about duplicate content anymore. It used to be a big deal, but I’ve also thought about how even Yahoo! and every major news site delivers almost exclusively syndicated content. I have the same question. My best guess is that news sites don’t rely on search traffic (considering most of their content is out-dated in a matter of hours). My understanding is that the articles will do better if they’re rewritten for every directory. I wish I knew more.
Hey Nic, another great article. I liked your idea on scheduling a post for midnight so it has the maximum number of hours with the current date.
Thanks, Terrick. I use the WP Touch plugin for mobile users and I noticed that the published time is listed. I just like to see it at 00:00.
This is a great list, especially section 5 which is totally new to me. Thank you!
Yeah, I figured that was one area that people didn’t know much about that would also give y’all a simple actionable step.
90% of website or blog owners don’t know how to marketing their sites so they can grow their traffic volumes to significant levels.
This post ’10 Blog Post Marketing Steps to Take Immediately After You Publish’ is a unique and valuable gem that any serious webmaster should to pay close attention to.
I did copy the ‘pinging service providers URLs’ to my WordPress blog before I left this site because you cared to give easy to follow instructions.
Blog post marketing made easy by Mr. Tart
This is great and very useful stuff!
I’m glad, Steve! As I mentioned in my previous reply, I was hoping that section would be an easy way for people to take action with my advice. Teresa (below) listed a few more pinging services. I haven’t checked them yet, but consider including those as well.
Great addition to last weeks post Nicholas.
I’ll be adding all this information to the techniques that I am currently setting up and implementing in my new online business.
I’ll especially make use of the listed ping services in step #5.
Tic Tac Toe, three mentions of #5 in a row! Thanks, Robert!
I use Aweber for sending my blog updates. However, I found their Blog Broadcast templates unattractive and difficult to customize. It would be great if you can write a post on how to set up and customize Aweber Broadcast messages (add logo, pictures, links to other posts and some advertising).
I agree that the customization of a blog broadcast on aweber is confusing. If you could provide more information on how incomediary forms their emails with each post that would be so helpful.
Since there are two more requests, I’ll talk with Michael about it. The post would be a bit more technical, but I think it would benefit enough people.
Thanks, I wasn’t aware of the ping automation in wordpress.
I am on the fence about the aweber blog broadcast. I am afraid that I will loose subscribers…..not sure
What are you on the fence about, Remco? That you would lose subscribers if you emailed out every blog post? If that’s the case, then I challenge you to only write blog posts that would benefit every person on your list.
Hi Tart,
It is a wonderful post. I do write a blog based on true stories but never attempted to do the things as given out in the present post.
I will try to adopt a few in the beginning.
Thanks.
Which ones are you going to put into practice, Vijay?
Great post Nick!
After reading this I turned off Twitterfeed and RSS Graffiti that auto messaged my followers. I would typically schedule my post to be at the time of the day that was best for social media. Now I’m going with your suggestion and will write a non automated post on FB and Twitter for each. I can also schedule tweets using Hootsuite for both FB and Twitter to be customized.
I definitely need more article submissions…
I’m glad, Tony. As I mentioned in my previous post, the biggest compliment I can get from a reader is hearing about how they took action based on something I wrote. Thanks for that!
Hi Nick,
Great post.
I’m the beginner. I’m working on my own blog, it is still under construction. Therefore I’m always reading Your posts very carefully and I find them very helpfull with many wounderfull tips. Please write how to set up Aweber Blog Broadcast function.
You write about automatic pinging. You have great collection of pinging services but You missed these :
,
,
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC,
,
,
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc,
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt,
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
Best wishes,
Teresa
This is a great post, thanks for sharing the information.
Does anyone have anymore ping sites? This is one thing that I never thought to look into and am glad that it was brought up.
Thanks Nicholas
Teresa listed a few more in her comment below, Bryan. And, you’re welcome.
Hi Nick,
Great post.
I’m the beginner. I’m working on my own blog, it is still under construction. Therefore I always read Your posts with great interest and I find them very helpfull with many wounderfull tips.
Please tell us how to sey up Aweber Blog Broadcast function.
You also write about pinging services, You have great collection of them but You missed these:
mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt;
lasermemory.com/lsrpc/;
1470.net/api/ping;
blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC;
blogmatcher.com/u.php;
bulkfeeds.net/rpc;
Best wishes
Teresa
I’ll check those out, Teresa… Some of them seem to be broken or not working. Do you remember where you found them?
Sorry, I don’t remember where I found them or maybe someone sent them to me. It was some time ago, I didn’t check if they are working or not.
Teresa.
Great Post. Yes, I’d like to know how to set up the Blog Broadcast function. I only started with Aweber this morning. You mention the time of 7am to 9am. Would this be UK, USA time? I live in Australia. I guess this will be the time zone set up in WordPress.
One of the nice things about the Blog Broadcast function is you can set it so they receive the email between 7am-9am their local time. Thanks for letting me know that you’re interested in more info about it.
Great 10 points. As for number 10 I think that bloggers should get used to replying to every comment they get (as long as it makes sense). I personally do this and besides the obvious benefit of having it look like you have more comments overall, I think it shows your commenters that you take them seriously. I don’t know how many comments I have left on blogs where I asked a question and subscribed to followup comments, never to hear from the author again. That is kinda disrespect in my book.
/Mikael
Hey Mikael! Yeah, I figure it’s the least I can do for somebody who took the time to read my post and leave a comment about it. On the other hand, I’ve been replying to comments on this post for over an hour now, so perhaps it gets impractical at some point. I’ll keep replying as long as I have the time.
Sure you’ll have to think about the time aspect as well. If you get 100 comments per post, that will definitely take up significant time in terms of replying to each one. HOWEVER, if spending a few hours per post means that you will get a loving and hardcore following, I personally believe that it is worth the effort. You can’t put a price to having an army of followers that will promote anything and everything you do and say. In terms of future income, the amounts can be outstanding (if done right).
/Mikael
The other benefit to replying to comments is that if you set a precedent as someone who replies, they tend to revisit the article a day or two later to see the reply.
Great list Nick.. I read the first comment.. Is Digg more for SEO rather than driving traffic?
Hey Dennis. As far as I know, Digg doesn’t have any influence on SEO. It used to be a great source of traffic for bloggers, but I’ve gotten a lot more traffic from StumbleUpon.
Digg use to be big for SEO till they changed their linking system. You use to be able to get on homepage of Digg and then rank for your keyword just because of the sheer amount of people linking to the article found via the site.
Mike
Great post. I’ve been trying to figure out how to schedule post on WordPress.
Hey Christina! From the post view, under the Publish area: Publish immediately, click “Edit” > Select date and time > click “Ok” > click “Schedule”
Great post, I already did a few of those things, I’m guilty of not always going back to my other websites or even the same website to find links, I need to work on that.
As for “Chas” and his comment about commenters not getting links, I don’t mind, the content on I.D. is always so great, it has helped me so much, and will continue being a subscriber, reader and commenter!
I’m glad, Jamie! Yeah, I’ve seen you around here for awhile. That’s the thing about Michael’s site, so many people have implemented his advice and seen positive results that it makes sense to keep coming back. A link in the comment is small fries compared to actually implementing what Michael recommends.
Have you ever considered publishing an ebook or guest authoring on other sites? I have a blog based on the same information you discuss and would love to have you share some stories/information. I know my audience would value your work. If you are even remotely interested, feel free to shoot me an e-mail.
Hey Nicholas,
Great List of things there I almost forgot about the “Email your List” part.
Some of the tasks that are time consuming could be outsourced. Like rewriting the blog post then posting it on other article sites.
Another article place I found which was pretty good was hubpages. They email the members when there is a new post on topics they mark as interested.
Great Post.
Thanks for this article, I didn’t know the “ping” thinggy, I placed the url on my blog, I will tell you if I see a change.
Wish u the best
Sonia
Thanks for this great article. #5 Was something I had not realized and I went and added those ping sites right away to my blogs. Love your advice – it is always spot on!
These are great posts and would be very relevant to my readers and corporate clients for whom websites are controlled by IT, inflexible and never search optimized so they are invisible to search engines and usually have flash and titles embedded in graphics say music, movies etc but a search will never reveal they carry them. Google alerts and feeds that take your message to where the community of interest are (free advertising and PR) is wasted because these keywords aren’t offered to them. Clients are frustrated but I explain they can start a blog and use copy to get in the search positions they want an d even create landing pages within the blog by redirecting domains or links to that specific page. I started my blog with my own two hands out of frustration with having to rely on web developers. In five years I’ve created 8000 pages of content, get 30K visitors a month mostly from Google searches and often to archived content about a person or technology they are researching. I hold over 10K top four Google search positions organically and will often write about TV campaigns with web extensions. Say IFeelBlue.com. The first result the drug company behind that slogan is paying to be there will only have the domain and a copyright notice. That’s because it’s flash. The reason I get the click is because I know how and where to place a benefit statement within the article with the full 152 characters Google gives you to convince the searcher that your article has more value to them. There are many ways to skin a blog and I’ve used my own as a marketing lab to discover them. I’d like to guest post for you some of these eye-opening techniques. And I’d like your permission to blog this article as a guest post from you- with a strong recommendation to check out your blog because it confirms what I’ve been telling folks all along that want to start something online but don’t know how.
Touche. Solid arguments. Keep up the great effort.
Thanks for these awesome tips michael.
Great post. The tips given here are awesome and very much helpful. Thank you for sharing this.
Great Post and great tips.
I definitely need to learn more about the automatic pinging. I added your links to my site. Thanks for sharing.