One Powerful Strategy to Promote a Blog Post: a Chapter from My Book
Updated: Dec 2, 2023
How can I promote a blog post for free?
Hi, Simon Zaku here.
Today, I woke up a little earlier than I usually do thus I felt the need to give away some premium content for free.
Four years ago, I was frustrated about my blog's growth. I was lost!
I didn't have a direction to follow. I didn't have a goal or objective to chase so I almost gave up. I did give up several times!
I then figured I was doing the right thing the wrong way!
I was targeting “EVERYONE” to not "miss out on traffic".
After a while, I started creating content around my results, clients' results, stories, case studies, etc. What changed?
A lot of marketers and entrepreneurs were finding real value in what I was teaching on the blog.
It made me so confident which allow me charge better rates for my SEO and writing services.
After Publishing a Blog Post, What Do I Do Next?
This is a chapter from my premium book (learn more about it here) but I decided to add it here for free.
I've gotten questions from website owners asking what to do after publishing every blog post. I'll only be revealing one strategy to promote a blog article effectively in this guide.
The 2 Step Easy Formula to Promote a Blog Post
STEP ONE: REACH SIMILAR SHARERS
Quick story...
After publishing my first blog post which was an expert roundup article, I simply reached out to people who've shown similar interest in the topic my blog post was about.
Extra Read: How to Write an Expert Round Up Blog Post: a 3-Step Strategy for Blogs (Opens in New Tab)
The blog post was about the best Twitter (now X) automation tools according to 60 marketing experts. So I reached out to marketers and social media users who had tweeted something relating to Twitter automation.
These were people who shared similar content, commented on similar content, or even engaged with the tweeted content (I use Buzzsumo to find these users).
The goal here is to find and effectively reach out to 20 to 100 people (per blog post) interested in the type of content.
As I said, these are people who have tweeted, shared, or commented on similar blog content to yours.
You find them, get their email addresses, and reach out to them via DMs.
The first thing to do is to find similar articles to yours and I recommend using Google searches here because it's the fastest.
You can also use Buzzsumo to find popular articles on any topic.
Using Google;
Head over to Google and search for the keyword(s) your blog article is targeting.
If you're targeting “beauty for teenagers”, run the phrase on Google to find content that already ranks for it.
So let's say the title of your post is “10 Ways to Make Money Online”, I'll Google search “Make Money Online”.
Pick the top 5 results and keep them in an Excel file.
The next step is to find people who have tweeted out those 5 articles and when starting, I used buzzsumo to pull out these users FOR FREE!
Buzzsumo offers a free trial period which I jumped on.
Head over to buzzsumo.com and sign up for their free trial. After setting up your account, you'll be able to log in to your dashboard using the email and password you used.
On your dashboard, navigate to the “Content Analyzer” tab and insert any of the 5 article links above then search.
Click on the “social media sharers” tab and export to Excel (or CSV).
Repeat these for your articles above and you should have a long list of 100-250 people who have tweeted similar content.
Step 2: Reachout to 100 People (the Right Way)
Reaching out to 250 or even 100 people weekly is a lot of work because you need to find their contact details, email addresses, websites, etc.
What do I do?
I may use tools like Ninja Outreach or hire freelancers on Fiverr to find their active email or contact addresses for me and is worth it.
You can find good and super cheap freelancers on fiverr.com or freelancer.com to find contact details. Both websites are great and I use them a lot.
WAIT: Hire me to write and promote SEO blog articles weekly for your business. Send me an email through simonzakucom at gmail dot com or use the contact form here.
Here's the thing;
Reaching out to people who you don't know is not something to toy with.
Freelancers could take care of finding email addresses, social links, contact links, and websites.
What is the Process of Email Reachout to Promote a Blog Post?
There are two main tips for running a successful email reach-out campaign that converts so well:
Respect the fact whoever you are reaching out to is busy.
Do not use templates!
Put in mind that people PAY ATTENTION when you care or give value first.
Luckily, I just published a detailed strategy I call the VCR reachout strategy that works almost everytime. Here's it:
Extra Read: How to Write a Cold Outreach Email that Generates Replies FAST: the ‘VCR’ 2024 Technique
Reachout Tip 1:
Respect the fact that they're busy: write really short emails and don't make it about yourself because it isn't.
People are busy and don't have time to read through long emails from people they don't even know.
Skip introductions, and long stories and go straight to the point.
Reachout Tip 2:
Put it in mind that people only care when you show care.
If you want them to read, comment, and share your blog post, you have to do something first. The internet is all about "do me, I do for you too".
One way I do this is I go through each person's website or blog and drop thoughtful comments on their most recent post or tweet out something from their websites.
This way, they'll be more likely to do a favor back.
Here's a free template I work with:
"Hi, [Name]. I'm Simon. I was doing some digging and noticed you shared this awesome article by [Name of the Person who wrote similar content]. It's great and I especially love how [one specific thing you loved about the similar post].
I recently published a more detailed guide on [your topic and how it is better].
I've also gone through your website (or blog) and even dropped a comment on your recent article about [mention title of the article] and even tweeted it out.
Here's the link to the article: [URL].
I'll appreciate your honest review of it. And if it's worth it, I'll appreciate a tweet. THANKS!
Cheers,
[YOUR NAME]
PS: I understand you might be tight at the moment and can't go through the post which is okay. Just reply and I'll be happy to connect :)"
Reach out to 10-15 people every day. (Or any number you feel comfortable with).
Lower this number to 5-7 if you don't have much time.
Great?
Purchase the Full, Detailed E-Book for $9.97.
I hope you've learned a thing or two from today's blog. And like I said, this is just one chapter out of the many from my very book, "How I became friends wit 100+ expert bloggers in 1-year blogging".
The Story Behind the Book:
After publishing my first blog post (which was an expert round-up post),
I tweeted it out a few times and shared it on Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin too.
The next morning, the blog post had ZERO clicks, ZERO shares, and ZERO comments.
I then reached out to all the influential bloggers who participated in the round-up blog post with the link to the post asking them to share it if they liked it.
Within the first seven days, the post was already at 1,000 social shares with 1,000 visits.
That’s great considering it was a new blog with just a single blog post published!
I simply leveraged my network and promoted the blog post to as many people as I could with the help of tools and strategies.
Without the strategy discussed in this book, I may have been stuck at ZERO shares, ZERO comments, and ZERO traffic.
HERE’S WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS PDF E-BOOK DOWNLOAD:
1) How I easily get on any influencer’s radar [no matter how popular or busy he or she might be]
2) Actionable strategies that I used to make popular bloggers notice my new blog [with one post]
3) How I began exchanging emails back and forth with 15 popular bloggers in less than a week [with just 1 secret strategy]
4) How I got some of the most influential bloggers and marketers on the internet to share my first blog post
5) The strategy that led to over 1,000 social shares on my FIRST blog post [on this very blog] in less than a week of publishing
For $9.97!
Already pumped to get your copy?
Use the button above to purchase a copy of my book for just $9.97 and start building the (meaningful) relationships that matter in your blogging career.
Here's the thing;
By getting this book, you get added to OUR EXCLUSIVE VIP Forum where you get even more insights on this topic.
Here's the link once again:
