With more than 70 million WordPress blogs online alone (The Social Skinny, February 2012), inbound marketing agencies have the unique challenge of not only ensuring that their clients’ blogs stay at the top of the search rankings, but that the right blog articles stay front and center too.  If you’re turning out the recommended 3 to 5 blogs a day for maximal lead growth, then your best blog entries can easily become buried amongst the clutter.  Want to make sure that your best blogs stay visible? Then here are some of the top 5 ways an inbound marketing agency will make sure your best content is always easy to find.

1) Include Related Blog Post Links

Think about it: if your reader is already reading about how to train a dog to “sit”, don’t you think that he or she would be interested in reading a blog post on how to get the dog to “lie down”?  The best blogs on the ‘net all have links posted to other related blogs at the bottom of each blog posting that they make.  This is a great way to not only help the visitor and get them to earn more trust in you, but it will also keep visitors on your site longer. The longer a visitor’s on your site, the more likely you’ll be able to convert them into a lead or a customer.

2) Make Use of Social Networking Sites

The best way to keep old news alive is to keep bringing it back.  Having an inbound marketing agency post links to your older blogs social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter will go a long way in helping bring a fresh flow of traffic directly to your best blogs.  The end result:  you get more leads.

An inbound marketing agency will be able to set you up with the tools that you’ll need to help determine which blogs are your “best” (statistically speaking).  Sort all of your posts based on inbound links and page views, and then begin incorporating those top blog posts into your social media updates.

TIP:  Worried that your old content will be an obvious duplicate of something you’ve posted in the past?  Don’t be.  StatCounter recently reported that the half-life of a Twitter update is 2.8 hours, and Facebook is 3.2 hours, so there’s a good chance your friends and followers didn’t catch it the first time around.  Or maybe even the second.  Or quite possibly the third.

On a side note, it’s important to make sure that your older blogs are appropriately updated before they’re republished.  You don’t even have to create a new draft – you can simply change the “publish” date to the current date.  That way, your readers won’t think that they’ve somehow come across old, redundant content.

3) Include “Most Popular Post” Links

Now this one anyone can – and should – do.  Whether it’s on your homepage, on your blog page, or any page of your website, you should have a side menu bar that shows all of your top blog posts.  Including anywhere from 3 to 5 links to your best blogs will go a long way in getting them more exposure.

4) Save Time with your Email Marketing Campaign

Who says you can’t use blog posts in your email marketing campaigns?  In fact, in our free Ebook “The Fast Track to Powerful Emails” we strongly recommend it.  Using your blog to feed into your email marketing not only strengthens your emails, but it also saves you a heck of a lot of time too.

When choosing blogs for your emails, keep in mind that what you should be focusing on is solving your leads’ pain points.  Pick your very best, most comprehensive blog posts that are about resolving someone’s problem, and make a list of where that would fall when it comes to where a lead is in the sales funnel.

5) Visit Q&A Forums

Now here’s an easy one that anyone can do:  Go to Yahoo! Answers or any similar Q&A forum.  Then type in a subject matter that matches your market or niche.  Find a question, and post an answer that references your problem-solving blog post.  It’s a great way to nab the attention of traffic that otherwise may not have been able to find you.

Key Takeaways:

There are a number of things you can do to increase the exposure of your best blogs, such as:

  • Include links to related blog posts after every blog posting
  • Advertise your old blogs on social media sites (after updating them)
  • Include a “most popular links” box in your navigation panel
  • Add links in your email marketing content
  • Use your blogs to answer questions on Q&A forums

Need Help?

If you’re interested in maximizing your websites blog, contact us today to schedule your free marketing analysis.