BLOGGING BLUEPRINT:

How to Create & Promote The Perfect Post

flyte school

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Do you have a business blog that’s not getting the visits, readership and engagement that you are looking for?

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Conceive of a topic that solves the problem of your ideal customer.

• Chances are you’ve been doing this long enough that youknow the challenges your customers face.

• Come up with an idea of what the blog post is going to cover, whether it helps them raise their child, raise donations,or raze a building. 

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Uncover the keyword phrase that your ideal customer is using at Google.

• I recommend Google’s Keyword Tool.

• Look for phrases with lots of search volume.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Start with an engaging, keyword rich title.

• Your title is critical. It must grab the reader’s attentionand get them to want to read more or at least share it on Twitter

• Lead with your best keywords, as the search engines putthe most weight on the first few words of the title.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Write an opening sentence with your keyword phrase.

• A title needs help. Search engine look not just for your keywords, but where you place them. Make sure you useyour phrase in the opening sentence. 

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Explain the benefit to the reader in the next paragraph.

• There’s a number of ways to go about this, whether youstart off by asking a question, like I did above, or just jumpright into the problems that your post will help the readersolve.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Keep your post focused.

• A title needs help. Search engines look not just for your keywords, but where you place them. Make sure you useyour phrase in the opening sentence. 

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Make it easy on the eyes.

• Big blocks of text on the screen are difficult to read.Break up your content with subheaders (like in this post)and bulleted lists.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Wrap it up.

• Don’t leave the visitor hanging. Give them a recap,or some takeaways, or draw some conclusions. 

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Ask for comments.

• While I’ve often said that comments aren’t customers, theycan help with the social proof on your blog, and make yourblog more engaging. 

• There are several ways to get people to leave comments, including the outright ask, or posing a question that theycan answer in the comment section, or asking for peopleto provide examples of when something similar happenedin their own life or business.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Find a good breaking point.

• Your blog home page should work like a good news page:it should tease the stories, showing more “above the fold.”To accomplish this, use the Insert Page Break feature inyour blogging platform. I recommend right after where you’ve explained the benefits of reading your post.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Find a great image to use at the top of the page.

• People are visual and a good image can really pull them in.Plus, with the rise of Pinterest, an eye-catching visual can greatly increase your chances of getting pinned and driving more traffic to your blog.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Use an appropriate alt-tag for that (and every) image in your post.

• Google’s image search can drive more traffic to your site,and alt-tags are just the right thing to do. Start by savingthe image file with a keyword rich name, likepotato-peeling-tips.jpg, and then add an appropriateAlt Tag like “Potato Peeling Tips.”

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Find appropriate places to link to other blog posts or pages on your website.

• Creating links to other posts and pages can provideadditional help and resources to your readers, and canhelp promote older posts. In addition, those internal linkscan really increase your search engine visibility. 

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Find appropriate places to link to other sites.

• Share the love! Linking to authoritative sites providesvalue to your readers and may help your searchengine visibility.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Proofread it.

• Nobody’s perfect, but too many typos can damage your credibility and hurt your message. If you suck at grammar,give the editing job to someone else.

• Ironically, “proofread” never looks right to me.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Publish it.

• ‘Nuff said. 

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Use your share buttons.

• You know how bartenders put a dollar or five in their tipjar at the beginning of their shift? Yeah, do that.

• Click on the Facebook like button, retweet button,+1 button, and anything else you have. This primes thepump for the next visitor to your post. They see thatpeople have already shared it and say, “wow, this mustbe valuable,” and hopefully share it themselves.

• Plus, you’re spreading the word.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Send it to your email list.

• These days I recommend sending out a teaser emailrather than the full blog post to your subscribers.It brings them back to the post where they can moreeasily share it or comment on it.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Schedule some tweets.

• I’m not a big fan of automation, but scheduling out sometweets isn’t a bad idea. I use TweetDeck, but others prefer Hootsuite or Buffer.

• Since your tweets don’t have a very long shelf life, it’s agood idea to post 3 or 4 times during the day.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Publish it to your Facebook profile.

• I know you just “liked” it through the Facebook sharebutton, but you’ll get more visibility if you head backinto Facebook and post the link into your timeline.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Publish it to your Facebook business page.

• If you’ve got a lot of overlap between Facebook friendsand your business fans you might want to stagger thisupdate by a couple of hours or so. I also recommendtaking a screen capture of the top of the post and makingthat part of your update so that it shows up moreprominently in the newsfeed. Just remember to keep thelink in the update. 

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Like, comment on, and share that update.

• Switch back to your personal profile and like andcomment on your business page’s post immediately.An hour or two after that, share it on your personalprofile. Any likes, comments or shares you get on thiswill also count towards your page’s engagement ranking.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Find appropriate groups on LinkedIn and share it there.

• Yes, you posted it to your LinkedIn profile when you clicked on the LinkedIn share button, but you’ll get more mileage when you post it to a relevant LinkedIn group. Or two. Or three.

• If you’re a pro, you might consider staggering the posts to the groups, one per day, so you don’t look like one of those guys who posts the same self-promotional crap to every group he belongs to. (Hangs head in shame.)

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Post it to Google+ as yourself, and later as your business.

• There are search as well as social benefits to Google+.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Pin it to Pinterest.

• The shelf life of a pin can also be short, so considerposting it once a day for two or three days.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Use other social media platforms as appropriate.

• Reddit, StumbleUpon, even Digg might be appropriatefor your content.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Respond to comments.

• If you want to build a community and get subscribers andrepeat visitors, you need to get them engaged. Respond to every comment on the blog, whether positive or negative,for as long as you can keep it up.

• That might mean for the first 10 comments, or the first two days, or forever. Your call.

CREATE A PERFECT POST

Be consistent.

• The trick to blogging, or social media, or life, is to beconsistent. Whether that means daily posts (crazy!),weekly, or even every other week. Create consistentlyvaluable posts and publish them consistently.

THANK YOU

Rich Brooksflyte new media

flyte.bizflyteblog.com@therichbrooks

http://bit.ly/createperfectpost