Blogging For Lawyers: How To Promote Your Blog Posts
How to promote your blog posts is probably the biggest question you have about blogging. So far in this series, we have discussed starting a blog, creating content, and in the final segment I will show you how to promote your posts. No matter how good your content is, it’s a waste of time if no one knows about it. This is something I am constantly trying to improve on for both this blog and my law firm blog. I’m constantly researching new ways to market and promote that these are some of the best ideas I’ve come across on the web.
How To Promote Your Blog Posts
Promote Your Blog With Email Marketing
Build your email list with content upgrades.
Have a clear call to action on your site where readers can join your email list. The tools I use for this are SumoMe plugin and OptinMonster. Another interesting tactic is to use content upgrades, such as the FREE blog checklist included with this post, to give away for free in exchange for emails.
Share new posts with your email list.
This is an obvious tactic that many bloggers fail to use. If someone opts into your email list, that means they are interested in your products, services and what you have to say. I promote my blog posts to my email list with a MailChimp RSS campaign, that sends my list an email with links to new posts on the blog. My favorite part is that it's automated- all I had to do was set it up once and let MailChimp do all the work. If you are sharing several posts at once, set it up as just a summary with a link, not the entire posts. That makes it easier for the reader to skim and click the link to the posts that interests them.
Send an email newsletter.
An email newsletter is another great way to promote your blog posts, and it’s a tactic I’m currently working on. I will compile my top 2-3 blog posts for the month, plus relevant info/resources from other sites in a monthly newsletter. This is also another opportunity to reach someone who didn't open some of your RSS emails that month. Be sure to encourage sharing your email content on social media by including share buttons and flat out asking readers to share.
Other Ways To Promote Your Blog
Answer questions with your blog posts in forums.
I’ve posted before about how answering questions on sites like Avvo and Quora are great free marketing techniques. Take it to the next level by linking to one of your blog posts when answering the questions. This works really well in Facebook groups. Make sure the link is relevant, helpful and follows the rules of the community.
Promote Your Blog With Social Media
Share your content where your readers hang out.
For my Joleena Louis Law blog, I get most of my readers from Facebook and Instagram so I focus on sharing those platforms for that blog. For Modern Solo, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram get the most traction. Take the time to determine 1) which social networks you feel comfortable being active on and 2) where your target audience hangs out.
Share your posts multiple times.
Use a tool like Buffer, Hootsuite, or CoSchedule to keep quickly and simply share across platforms.Promote your blog posts on social media at the time of publishing, later that same day, the next day, the next week and the next month. Coschedule has a super awesome WordPress plugin where you can schedule all of this when you schedule your post or you can just use the power scheduler in the Buffer Awesome plan.
Use shareable graphics to promote your blog posts.
Social media is very visual so great images, videos, gifs and infographics will get more shares and engagement.
Promote your blog post by being part of a Round-Up.
Modern Solo and Joleena Louis Law have been featured in roundup posts just from my frequent shares on Twitter.But you can be more proactive by finding round-ups in your niche and contacting the writers to pitch your recent, relevant posts. You can do the same thing for e-newsletters.
Use Your Blog to Promote Your Blog
Use Click To Tweet
Get the Click to Tweet plugin to make it simple for people to Tweet directly from your post.
Have prominent social media share buttons.
There are many tools for social media share buttons, but I use SumoMe. I’ve found that the best placement is to the left or right of your post as opposed to the top or bottom. The top makes no sense since it’s unlikely people will share before even skimming the post. And the bottom isn't the best since many people won't make it to the end.
Link to other posts on your site.
In each post link to other relevant links on your site. It will keep people on your site longer and bring new readers to old posts. Hope this Blogging for Lawyers series has been helpful. See the other posts in this series here and here.