After spending all that time perfecting your blog post, what’s the worst-case scenario if you don’t have content distribution platforms

Writing a blog post is really only half the journey. You then need to work out how you’re going to distribute it. How will you promote your hard work? How will you find readers? Even better, how will you encourage people to read all of it?

In a world of information overload, getting people to click on your content is a challenge. Even if you’re bursting with natural-born writing talent, it’s not enough to guarantee that you’ll rack up the views.

These steps are a great way to make sure you’ve done all you can to get more eyes on your page.

Review Your Post Before Publishing

When you publish your blog post, make sure you optimise it for readers. To ensure you’ve written the best article possible, make sure that:

• You’ve nailed the title. Include some keywords, short and targeted that stand out from the other main titles on the search pages.
• You’ve made it readable with lots of white space, headings, bullet points, and short and snappy sentences and paragraphs.
• You’ve got some high-quality and relevant images or infographics to break up the text and encourage people to share your content. Don’t forget to caption your images to help people scan-read.
• Make sure other people proofread the content.
• Your URL includes your keyword and your meta description piques people’s interest.
• You’ve referenced other sources to add credibility and authority to any claims.
• You’ve checked that it loads quickly and that all your links work.
• You’ve written an article that clearly answers a reader’s question or addresses a pain point and delivers on what it promises in the title and introduction.

Pick Your Content Distribution Channels

Content distribution is just as important as content creation—if not more important. How else are you going to let people know that your blog post actually exists? Content distribution is the way you deliver your content to your readers.

There are three kinds of distribution channels:

• owned (for example, your website, blog, newsletter, or social media platforms)
• paid (this includes PPC, social ads, and influencers), and
• earned or third-party channels (such as mentions, shares, appearances on forums, reviews, or guest posts that are done for free)

Your chosen content distribution channels will depend on your audience.

• Do they prefer certain platforms?
• Where do you see the most engagement?
• Find the channel that’s the best fit for your company’s brand?
• How large is your social media following?
• How much money can you dedicate to content distribution?

Be Social Today

One of the best forms of distribution today. The social media platform you choose to target will depend on your audience and the nature of your blog post. For example:

• Facebook – most companies will want to use Facebook as part of their content distribution strategy. Post consistently on your account, sharing your blog articles with a hook to entice readers, plus an image to get their attention.
• Instagram – lets you share your blog post as an Instagram story, link to it in your bio, or link to it under an image. The latter only really works if the image is particularly intriguing and high-quality.
• Pinterest – like Instagram, sharing content on Pinterest works best if your images or infographics are incredibly appealing. Build online boards to further boost traffic.
• Twitter – use hashtags to share related content in your niche.
• hashtags.org is a great way to find hashtags relevant to your industry.
• LinkedIn – This can be used for personal and business accounts If you want you can have various platforms so choose more than one. Try out multiple and use analytics to see where you’re succeeding the most. But be sure that you’ve adjusted your images and optimised your titles as necessary for each platform.

Participate in any discussion and respond to feedback. And remember to include a link to your blog on your social media profile.

Don’t be afraid to share your article more than once on social. A study by Co schedule found that doing so can increase your traffic by 3,00%.

Hit Up Their Inbox

In the UK, every £1 spent on email marketing has an ROI of £38. And so, using email to distribute your content is exceptionally effective. After all, you’re contacting people who have already demonstrated their interest in your brand.

Then send out a monthly or daily newsletter with a round-up of your blog articles or promote one specific blog article. Explicitly tell readers what they can learn from looking at your content.

Send your email at the same time each week, so not at the weekend or late in the evening. You can also segment your email lists to further personalize your messaging, sending specific articles to specific readers.

Why not include a link to your post as your email signature and get members of your team to do the same. Use a company called Wisestamp to create professional-looking email signatures.

Ask for Help.

 You can ask a related third-party website to feature your article in one of their emails in return for doing the same for them. This way you can both reach more readers.

Remember any third party is also more likely to share your content if you mention them.

Perhaps you can reference one of their articles, or a piece of their content, or even promote one of their products?

BuzzSumo is a great place to identify the highest shared of influencers or authors that’s within your particular subject or niche and think about how you could get them to share your content or how you might include a reference to them in your article.

Reach out to them and see if you can get a quote or interview.

 This is a popular way to promote your blog and boost your site in search rankings.

Exchange a link to your own article or in your author bio or in the comments section.

Look for Sponsors

Build relationships with influencers in your particular niche. Finding an influencer on Facebook or Instagram, for example, to share a link to your content can massively boost traffic as people trust recommendations from authoritative figures.

Consider Paid Content Promotion

Each social media platform offers the chance to pay for advertising, from video ads on Facebook to promoted tweets on Twitter.

Think about the best social network for your audience and the optimum format for your adverts, as well as your resources. Can you afford to spend on content advertising?

Content creation and promotion will increase initial traffic, it isn’t the most sustainable way to drive engagement on your blog. You can’t consistently pay for readers so consider how often you can afford to implement this particular content distribution method.

Niche Research

Spent time researching the local forums related to your niche.

Research the persona/audience, does it fit your target reader, and make sure that there are lots of recent posts and comments indicating that it’s fairly active.

Then post a link to your article with a summary of why members might find it valuable. Continue to engage with them after publishing. If they think you’re just there to promote your own stuff, they won’t appreciate you posting.

And check the rules. A few forums will not allow product promotions, so you’ll only be able to share educational or informational content.

But, again, don’t simply post a link to your article. This will look like spam. Provide useful answers and put a URL of the article at the end of your comment or on your profile where they can find out more if they want.

Add a Call-to-Action (CTA)

Once you’ve got a reader on your page, ensure all your efforts aren’t for nothing. You want to move them down your conversion funnel and the best way to do this is by including a call-to-action.

Get them to subscribe to your email list and include social CTA buttons in your blog posts, they can ‘share’ or ‘like’, further boosting engagement.

Evaluate Your Success

Set metrics to determine the success of your content distribution method. 

• Traffic and views – more traffic and views your article gets, the more effective your content distribution strategy.
• Social media  – monitor engagement on social media to see how well your audience is responding on that particular channel. This allows you to judge both the success of your content and the success of your distribution method.
• Sign-ups – more sign-ups to free trials or newsletters indicate that people are reading your content and responding favorably.
• Feedback – check the comments section to see how much your audience is engaging with your article and how popular it is.

The End Game 

Simply writing great content is not enough to secure a readership, it’s really only the first hurdle. You then need to get your blog post under the nose of your readers.

This means working out where your readers are hanging out and targeting them directly—either via social, email, or through arrangements with third parties. As a last resort, you could also try paid advertising.