Congratulations! You’ve just published a blog post. So, now what?

Writing a regular blog for your business is important. It gives you the avenue where you can demonstrate your knowledge about your niche. It also is where you can establish yourself as an expert. Unfortunately, there are millions of new articles posted every day.

How can you make your article stand out?

Here are 6 things to do after you hit publish that will make your next post work for you.

1) Reread

It’s easy to just leave your published article and start your next task. But if you want to make sure your post is as good as it can be, you need to make sure there are no spelling or grammar mistakes. Triple check your work.

It’s so easy to overlook mistakes during the writing process. Sometimes it takes seeing it in a different context to notice obvious errors.

Proofreading your work once it has been published will allow you to catch those errors before your readers do (hopefully). Check out this great graphic from Grammarly. It’s geared towards novels, but if it works for large works, then it’ll more than do the job for blog posts.

Pro tip: have someone else do this step. We tend to go blind to mistakes in our own writing. To really make sure nothing gets missed, print it out and hand it over to a trusted colleague.

2) Add links to other articles

Internal linking makes your website and blog site more relevant. It’s killing two birds with one stone.

One, it attracts visitors to read your other articles. You spent a lot of time and effort on those old posts. Think if this as another opportunity to use that content you worked so hard to create.

Two, it strengthens your website structure. This can boost your SEO strategy by

This is especially easy if you use WordPress.

In the editor, just highlight a word or phrase and click the link button.

Next, type the keyword into the search box to bring up any pages with that word in the title.

It’s as simple as that to add internal links to a blog post.

Pro tip: go back and do this to older posts when you publish a new article. It will add a relevance factor to your SEO.

3) Ask a question

Leaving a call-to-action (CTA) statement is good. But, it can be even more effective if you add a question. This tactic builds a bridge between you and your readers. It encourages them to leave comments and suggestions.

While it isn’t guaranteed to get comments, the real value is in imprinting yourself in the minds of your reader. If they walk away contemplating their own answers to your question, then you’re still top-of-mind. When that happens, you win.

Try posting the question on Social Media with a link to your article. This is a great way to drive interest among followers.

4) Share on social media platforms

Speaking of social sharing, for most SMBs, social media gets more visits than their website.

To optimize this, share your article on different social media channels. To make it more interesting, change the teaser for every platform. So if one follows you on Facebook and Twitter, he’ll receive two different updates.

See the difference between the formats for the same article share. Based on the different medium, we posted using different kind of text in the status area.

Other popular social media platforms are Snapchat, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest and are all worth looking into, depending on your target audience.

To learn more, check out our post on creating your own social media strategy.

5) Send it to your email subscribers

Email marketing continually shows the highest ROI of any marketing channel.

If you have a sizable email list, send the link and a snippet of your article to your contacts. This will boost both your open and click rates.

To make this process a little simpler, automate using MailChimp. This is a great little email marketing tool we use for ourselves and our clients.

Step 1) To get started on MailChimp, sign up for a free account. Note: there are paid versions, but you won’t need one unless you have more than 2,000 subscribers in your email list.

Step 2) From the home screen, choose RSS Campaign from the dropdown under Create Campaign.

Step 3) Now, add your blog’s RSS feed url. Choose the days you want to send how often you want MailChimp to check for new posts. For example, you can choose to send new posts only on Thursday mornings.

As a special note, make sure to check the box that says Resize RSS feed images to fit template. This will make sure all blog images fit neatly inside an email inbox.

Step 4) Choose which list you’ll be sending to. We recommend creating a separate group within your list for blog subscribers.

Step 5) Give the campaign a name. This is for internal use only, so choose a naming convention and stick with it. This will keep from confusion later on. This is also where you set the subject line and to email. There are a few points to know here.

• Don’t overlook the subject line. This is perhaps the most important aspect of email marketing. However, if you spent the appropriate amount of time on this during the blog writing phase, you should be good to go.
• It’s always best to send emails from a real person’s name and email address. Generic addresses like info@, marketing@, or my favorite no-reply@ (who doesn’t want to receive an email from someone saying not to reply?).

Step 6) Choose a template and design your email. I prefer to keep it simple here. Just the blog image and a block of preview text. The goal is to get readers back to the site.

MailChimp has all kinds of merge tags, which will pull elements from your RSS feed to plug into each email campaign. That is as complicated as it gets. The rest of the design process is very intuitive and drag-and-drop.

Step 7) It’s finally time to confirm everything and hit go. Once you choose the Start RSS option, the email will begin checking for and sending out new blog posts at the appointed times.

6) Respond to comments

If someone comments on any of your shared articles through different platforms, respond.Acknowledge the person who has read, shared, or commented on your article. It can be as simple as a thank you.

Bonus points, however, if you get an actual conversation going. Take this opportunity to engage with your audience.

Conclusion

Hitting publish on a new blog is only the beginning. Completing these steps will actually get your post seen online.

What do you think? Have you done many of these steps before? If so, let me know which tactics work the best for you.

Want to create relevant blog posts that generate leads? We are passionate about helping our clients create great content that resonates!