By: JENNIFER YESBECK

When you get done writing an epic, in-depth blog post and finally hit the publish button, you feel a sense of accomplishment; you feel like your content marketing work is done. But that’s not the case. Your work is only halfway over. Now, it’s time to work on blog marketing.

Blog Marketing Is Just As Important As Blog Writing
On the surface, blogging seems like it is mostly writing and publishing. But promoting your blog post is just as important as – if not more important than – creating and posting content.

You can’t just create valuable, high-quality content for your blog and assume readers will find their way to your site to consume it. You must use blog marketing to promote your content so you can:

Drive traffic from new audiences
Bring back existing audiences
Attract backlinks to your site
Trigger social shares
Lead to opt-ins and newsletter sign-ups

Blog marketing must be a part of your content strategy if you want your work to be seen, shared, and widely consumed.

Blog marketing is a must if you want your work to be seen, shared, and and widely consumed.CLICK TO TWEETBlog Marketing Promotion Tactics
A strong blog marketing strategy should include multiple tactics from this list.

No. 1 Target Popular Search Terms and Phrases
One of the most common ways for readers to find content is through search. They look for a topic or type a question into a search form and find relevant content. To draw readers to your content, optimize it for attracting these audiences. Do keyword research to see what top keywords people are searching for and create content to target those keywords.

PRO TIP: To find keywords to target for your blog marketing strategy, use Alexa’s Keyword Difficulty Tool. Enter a term or phrase related to your brand or industry. Then choose keywords that have a high keyword popularity score (which shows people are searching for the term) and a competition score within your range (which shows your website can rank for the term).

No. 2 Use On-Page SEO Best Practices
Another way to ensure readers find your best content via search is by optimizing your website, so your pages are more likely to rank. Each page on your website should target one primary keyword and use on-page SEO best practices to optimize the page for that designated search term.

PRO TIP: To confirm your webpages are properly optimized, use Alexa’s On-Page SEO Checker. Enter the URL of the page you want to check along with the page’s target keyword. The tool will check on-page SEO and produce a report with action items you can implement to improve the page’s SEO and increase its chances of ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). For more information on blog SEO best practices.

No. 3 Leverage Search Engine Marketing
Focusing on improving organic SEO will help your blog marketing and eventually lead more readers to your website. But when you just start SEO, it may take time to improve your rankings on SERPs organically. In the meantime, you can pay to place your content at the top of search pages. Using search engine marketing (SEM) and pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, you can pay to appear in front of audiences and draw readers back to your blog.

No. 4 Implement a Strong Social Media Promotion Plan
Next to search, social media is another primary way for audiences to find content online. Social media users browse their newsfeeds and use hashtags to discover blog posts that interest them. To use social media for blog marketing, don’t just sporadically post updates with links back to your site. Instead, create and stick to a solid promotional strategy. 

For each blog post, create multiple social media posts across a variety of platforms (focus on the platforms your ideal audience uses most).
Create custom social media graphics for each post that match the image specifications of each social site.
Aggressively promote your newest content.

Then continue to promote high performing content even when it’s old (to get the most use out of your content).

Tag any brand or person mentioned in your content (to let them know they were featured and to encourage them to share the post).

Encourage social shares of your posts by prominently displaying share buttons, click-to tweet buttons, and call-to-actions to share on your pages.

No. 5 Promote Content Through Paid Social Media Ads
Earlier in this post, we looked at how using both organic and paid promotions can get more visibility for your content through search. The same goes for social media. You can use both organic and paid social media promotions to attract the most attention to your blog content. Through these types of blog marketing, you can use detailed hyper-targeting filters to present ads for your content to a particular target audience.

PRO TIP: To better target your ideal audience, use Alexa’s Buyer Persona Template and information from our Audience Overlap and Site Overview tools. Use reports from the Audience Overlap Tool to gain insights into what other sites, brands, and topics interest your ideal audience. Then use the Site Overview report to get demographic details about readers. Use this information to set hyper-targeting settings while creating ads on social media sites.

No. 6 Tap Into the Power of Online Influencers
Another way to drastically increase your content’s visibility is by having a powerful online influencer promote it. Online influencers are writers, social media personalities, and blogs that already have loyal followers. These outlets have readers who are eager and waiting for the influencer to post and share content. To get your content extra exposure, tap into these influencers. Use them as a resource for sharing your content with their followers. You can perform this blog marketing promotional tactic in a few ways.

Invite influencers to post on your blog. When influencers write a post and then share it with their audience, it will drive their audience to your site and introduce them to your brand and other content.
Ask social media influencers to share your content through their social networks. If a social media profile has a strong following, getting them to share your content could drive a substantial amount of traffic to your site.

Make digital PR outreach a part of your marketing strategies. Publish extremely high-quality, unique content (such as proprietary data or in-depth resources), and reach out to authoritative websites to see if they are interested in covering your content. If your content is valuable enough, other sites will write about it, link back to it, and drive traffic to it.
Be authentic and return the favor. When reaching out to influencers to get help with sharing your content, remember that it isn’t all about you. The relationships must be mutually beneficial. Offer to write for their blog, promote their work, and ask them to return the favor. Form authentic relationships with influencers. Don’t just try and use them for their followers.

No. 7 Actively Guest Post
There’s another way to use influencers for blog marketing. This tactic involves guest posting on other blogs. While it may seem counterintuitive, you can promote your blog by publishing posts on other sites. When you publish content on other similar websites, you tap into their existing audience. This allows you to make relationships with new readers and drive traffic back to your site. When guest posting, always try to include a link back to your site in your author bio or article content.

PRO TIP: To find guest blogging opportunities, start by using Alexa’s Audience Overlap Tool. Enter your site or a site of a known competitor. Use the report to browse through a list of sites that share an audience similar to the target site you entered and would, therefore, be good options for guest posting. For even more tips on getting guest posts

No. 8 Set Up a Consistent Email Marketing Plan
The last item on the list of blog marketing examples is one of the most effective ways to ensure readers find their way to your website when you publish a new blog. It is through email marketing. The first step in this process is building an email list. You should always focus on encouraging your current audience to sign up to receive updates from your brand. Then once you have an email list, send regular emails and notify followers each time you publish a new post.

Writing may seem like the most important part of blogging, but it's only half the process.CLICK TO TWEETImprove Your Blog Marketing and Attract More Readers
Writing may seem like the most important part of blogging. But creating content is only half of the process.

To make sure readers find and consume your content, you must put as much effort into blog marketing as you put into content creation. Use the blog marketing tips listed in this article to promote your content, increase exposure, and drive larger audiences back to your site.

For additional blog promotion and content creation resources, sign up for a free 7-day trial of Alexa’s Advanced Plan. It includes all of the tools mentioned in this post, along with other powerful keyword research, competitive analysis, and SEO optimization tools that help your content stand out and attract attention.