Module #7: Marketing Your Blog
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Your blog marketing doesn’t stop once you’ve created the blog post. Oh no, there’s much more you can do with it—and need to do with it. Because it takes a while for Google to start ranking your post for organic keywords, you need to take control of your own destiny and start forcing people (in a nice way) to see your wise words. Here are some ways you can do this:
Facebook is a great place to share your posts because that’s where the masses are hanging out. Go ahead and share your masterpiece on your personal page. Then, if you’re an admin of a Facebook group for brides, go ahead and share it there too. Even better, if you’re in a local bride group and the brides ask a question that you’ve already put into a blog post, go ahead and share that bad boy.
This is a really great way to share your new blog post. You can really get creative with the images you post, which makes it super fun. People loveeeee free stuff, so be sure to mention your freebie in the post. Also, make sure you hashtag everything that is relevant in the new blog post. Make sure to use local industry hashtags.
Email marketing
Email marketing is probably one of my favorite ways to promote my new blog post. I think that’s because you get such instant gratification from it. Right away you know that what you wrote made a difference in someone’s life.
Email Signature
Are you using an email signature? If not, it’s time to start thinking about using one! It’s a great way to look professional and show off all your achievements. It’s also a nice place to place a link to your latest blog post. This is a surprisingly simple way to get a potential client to click through to your website. Check out Wisestamp.
Pinterest is my personal favorite marketing tool. In the Pinterest world your articles stay alive a lot longer than they do on Facebook or Instagram. Pinterest is also a visual search engine, so articles and topics can be searched well after they were published.
YouTube
YouTube is another type of search engine but for videos. So though you might have to do a little extra work (setting the scene, editing, producing), it could pay off in dividends. If you really want to make it simple on yourself, just give a little 2 minutes of synopsis on the blog and then provide a link where they can read more in the description.
Guest Blogging
I cannot tell you all the ways guest blogging can boost a blog’s overall traffic. Consider reaching out to a fellow vendor and asking to be a guest writer on their blog. Make sure that the vendor has an audience that matches yours. You want to work with a vendor who blogs consistently and gets consistent traffic. Their traffic doesn’t have to be huge—it’s all about quality over quantity, remember that!
Every blog post you write should be accompanied by an enticing picture. If you’re wondering why, I’ll tell you—because blog post images are searchable. By adding alt tags to your images, you allow Google to index them. So, with that being said, you can see just how important your images can be.
What Not To Do
First, I’ll tell you what not to do. Don’t steal pictures from Pinterest or Google. Most of the images that have caught your eye on Pinterest have been in circulation for years. I can tell almost instantly if a picture has been stolen from Pinterest. Also, there are horrible people out there who make money on copyrighted pictures. They lay a trap with a pretty picture on Google, you “save image as” and place it on your site, they do a Google image search, and you end up getting sued for $7,000. I’m not joking.
Giving Credit
If you’re using a picture from one of your favorite weddings, make sure you give credit where credit is due. This is good practice and one that your photographers will appreciate. Tag them in the photo caption as well as in the description.
Brand
The images you choose should represent your brand. They need to be high quality and have the same type of lighting, color, and tone. Not every wedding you do will speak to your brand, so remember, you don’t have to publish them all on your website. Instead, you can use stock photos. Look into the following options for stock photos:
- Canva
- Unsplash
- Pexels
- Ivory Mix (Membership Site)
- Pops of Pretty (Membership Site)
- Haute Stock (Membership Site)
Pinterest Pin
Every blog post you create should have one Pinterest pin picture in it. This makes sharing your content very easy. Vertical pictures do better in the Pinterest world than horizontal pictures, so your main image is not the best choice for this platform. You will need to create your own. Pinterest pins with words also do better when it comes to educational articles.
Canva is a great, easy-to-use design program that doesn’t require any real design skills. Go ahead and create a free account to start off with. If you like it, you won’t regret upgrading to the pro version. Watch this video to see how you can use Canva to create a Pinterest Pin for your blog post.
