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3 Reasons Your Blog Isn’t As Successful As You’d Like

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The only blog growth stories we hear are the ones where the blogger went from zero visitors to over 100,000 visitors within a timeframe. These success stories dominate what we read, but there are more stories of bloggers not growing their audiences and feeling stuck.

You don’t hear much about these stories because they’re not on Page 1 of Google’s search results.

You might be in that situation right now. You’re producing valuable content but don’t see the traffic returns you’re hoping for.

The success of any content brand is based on your ability to drive traffic and conversions. All of the tactics for growing your content brand go back to these two principles.

So why do most blogs struggle? Why do most people feel stuck and not like they’re hitting their traffic goals. In this blog post, you’ll learn three key reasons this is the case.

 

#1: Not Enough Content Marketing

Most people follow what Brian Dean refers to as a “Publish and Pray” approach. These people create great content, put it on the web, and that’s it. At the most, a random tweet promotes the new piece of content.

If we want people to take the time to engage with our content, then we must take the time to effectively share that piece of content with our audiences. Before you publish your next blog post, plan out how you’ll promote it.

List all of your social networks on a piece of paper and how often you’ll promote the blog post when it goes live. One picture on Instagram, four tweets, one Facebook post, and one Pinterest pin are some of the options. And don’t forget about your email list.

When you come out with a new piece of content, approach from all touch points. However, the way you promote the content when you publish has the same importance as the post-publish plan.

How do you promote a blog post you wrote three months ago? For me, I frequently tweet my older content and pin it on Pinterest. Right now, those are my two major social networks for promoting evergreen content.

However, I also make it a point to link to my older content in my newer content. When my new content racks up visitors from all of the promotion I’m doing, some of those visitors will trickle to the older blog post that I mention in the newer blog post.

A lack of content marketing is often the main reason why content creators don’t get the traffic numbers they’re aiming for.

 

#2: You Don’t Leverage In-Content Relationship Building

While this is technically content marketing, it deserves it’s own section. That’s how important in-content relationship building is.

This is more than just responding to your visitors’ comments. This is mentioning people in your content and letting them know that you mentioned them.

This one strategy alone is amazing for building relationships, and some of these people may decide to share your content.

Even if they don’t share, they read your content and know who you are. Have a lot of relationships like that, and a lot of surprising opportunities and visibility can come your way in the long-term.

Force yourself to mention at least three people in each blog post you write. That includes outbound links as you can tell someone that you mentioned their content within your content.

When I publish a blog post, part of the marketing is reaching out to all of the people I mentioned. I’ve formed healthy relationships from this one tactic. The results have included social shares and guest appearances on my podcast.

Relationships are key in any niche you’re in. The most connected people in your niche are still looking for ways to get more connected and meet more people. In-Content Relationship Building allows you to do that.

 

#3: You’re Not Putting In Enough Time

What you put in determines what you get out. For some people, it’s not putting in enough time in the right areas.

I recently learned that when people say they never have enough time, that just means they aren’t using enough of their current time properly. If I go for a long stretch without doing any work (i.e. over an hour), I will also feel like I don’t have enough time in a day to get everything done.

You have enough time. The question is how are you using your time. Are you using at least an hour of your day to promote your content? Are you focusing on the right tasks or focusing on necessary but small impact tasks that can be delegated?

If you are not achieving the results you want, it always goes back to how you are using your time. Even if you think you’re using every minute to the best of its ability, you’re doing something wrong if you’re not achieving the results you want to achieve.

The first two tactics hold true for most people, but sometimes we need to take a deeper look at our work ethics and everything we do to find the answers we seek.

 

In Conclusion

Just because you may not be hitting your goals now doesn’t mean the script always has to read that way. Taking a deeper look at what you’re doing and continuing to self-educate yourself will help you in any area.

For blog traffic specifically, it comes down to consistently creating high value content and then promoting that content to your audience. Once you figure out what works best for you, it all comes down to how much time and effort you put in towards your goals.

Chances are you put in time and effort already, but even if you feel like you’re putting in a lot, chances are you need to put in even more.

What are your thoughts on these reasons most bloggers feel stuck? Do you have any tactics for overcoming stagnant traffic growth? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

5 Important Elements of a Perfect Guest Post Contribution

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guest blogging pitch

This is a guest contribution from Hugh Beaulac

You’ve found your niche, and creating new content on your own site brings you joy, but you also don’t forget to find reputable websites to submit guest posts.

And you want to contribute to top blogs that match your niche, right?

It takes time and energy to rank, and proficient bloggers understand how valuable that is in terms of link juice, and if a blogger accepts your submission, you enter an already-established community, sharing your message.

In short, guest posting gives you many opportunities, and here are some other reasons why it is great:

  • It allows you to build your writing portfolio and get your name out.
  • Collaboration with top-notch blog owners helps to become a better writer.
  • It helps to establish contacts with other bloggers and find new readers.
  • It’s a way to find potential clients.
  • You can get a backlink for your site.

Although blog owners also know core benefits to accepting guest posts, they want to collaborate with trustful writers only. If you can prove your expertise and knowledge, you can be featured on top-notch websites.

But…

How to create a perfect guest post contribution? You’ll learn how to craft it in this blog post.

 

#1: Do Research

Have you found a website you want to contribute to? Great!

It’s time to roll up your sleeves and do research before bothering a blog owner. The more you know about the website, its owner, its values, and writing style, the more chances you have to hook a blogger.

How to do research:

  • Read submission guidelines to follow the instructions;
  • Analyze published content to find what topics have been covered on the site;
  • Pay attention to a content calendar to understand what type of content is in demand;
  • Find contact info and blogger’s name.

Before contacting the blog owner,  analyze the website to understand more about its audience and their needs. If applicable, follow guidelines closely as it’s a proven way to show your interest in contributing to the site.

 

#2: Write an Eye-Catching Email Pitch

In the business environment, we write many emails daily.

If you don’t get as many replies as you might want, just imagine:

The more popular a blog owner is, the more emails he or she receives daily.

What does it mean? You need to send an eye-catching email pitch that will be both interesting and useful!

Writing emails that don’t convert is just a waste of time and effort, so do your best to send a solid email.

So, how to write a brilliant guest post pitch?

  • Personalize an email by adding blogger’s name;
  • Introduce yourself;
  • Describe the purpose of your email;
  • Write down several guest post ideas that might be a good fit for the site;
  • Create a short outline for every topic;
  • Provide a blog owner with the best links to your recently published articles.

guest blogging pitch

Sending an email pitch, you make an impression on bloggers and help them make the final decision whether they need your assistance or not. Once you start writing better emails, you can reach influencers and get your topic approval.

 

#3: Craft a Well-Written Article

Once a blog owner has chosen a blog post topic, it’s high time to start crafting a well-written article as writing a post gives no guarantees of acceptance.

Criteria for a well-written article:

  • Comprehensive and smooth content that offers new perspectives;
  • Actionable tips and pieces of advice;
  • Statistics proofs;
  • Visuals that support ideas (infographics, screenshots, images, etc.);
  • Links to other posts on the blog;
  • Improved readability of your article (headings and subheadings, the text is divided into chunks,  short sentences, bold/italic/underline font styles, etc.).

If you need the ultimate guide to writing a compelling blog post, here it comes:

  • Analyze your potential readers, their needs, and problems to give them what they crave.
  • Do research and collect useful information, statistics, data, case studies, etc.
  • Create an outline to put down all important insights and make your writing easier.
  • Write the article, adding visuals.
  • Give it some time and proofread/edit the text.

If you offer evergreen, unique and compelling content, people will read it with a big pleasure. Plus, it’s more likely they will share it on their social media which means attracting new visitors to the blog. All in all, publishing a well-written article gives many advantages for a blog owner, readers, and the author.

#4: Promote on Social Media

Congratulations! Your article went live on the blog!

You’ve put much time and effort into it, but it’s not enough to satisfy a blog owner’s needs. After publishing the article, it’s time to promote it to attract more readers!

Don’t hesitate to share your article via social media.

By the way, do you know the power of social media?

All the above-mentioned stats prove that sharing articles on social media helps to attract more readers and promote your text without investing money. If you help to drive traffic to the website, a blog owner might be thankful and, therefore, you can be invited to write another post in the future!

#5: Communication with Readers

Experienced bloggers know that putting readers first is a surefire way to create a perfect post. If you write an article thinking about your audience’s needs and expectations, you should stick around and respond to comments on the post after it has been published.

For a variety of reasons, communication with readers is crucial, and you’d better reply to their comments as fast as you can.

If readers interact with you after reading a blog post, it’s a great sign that the material was interesting for them. Encourage people to leave comments and involve them into communication to hold audience’s attention and make them want to check the website over and over again.

In Conclusion

Being a successful guest blogger pays off, so try to contribute to profitable websites and always think about benefits a blog owner may get with you.

If you need to understand top reasons guest content is declined, pay attention to picture below:

guest post requirements

Learning from common mistakes most guest contributors make is a great way to stand out from the competitors and be featured on top websites.

Have we left something off the list? Share your thoughts in comments!

Hugh Beaulac is a writer who runs MC2 blog and writes on various topics. He contributes to different websites, so Hugh knows how to give a blog owner what his/her audience craves. 

How To Get More Blog Traffic With Less Work

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If you ask a blogger about his/her goals, it won’t take long before you hear “get more blog traffic” as one of those goals.

It takes a considerable amount of work to boost your blog traffic, especially in the beginning. The work is worth it in the long-term, but you can take some shortcuts along the way. These shortcuts will cut down on your workload so you can commit more time towards other priorities.

Even then, you may still find yourself committing a significant amount of time towards promotion. However, certain tasks can be reduced or even eliminated.

Create Evergreen Posting Cycles

If you’re the person continuously scheduling your social media posts, put this as Priority #1. Scheduling your social media posts seems like a priority, but with so much automation available, it’s more harm than good to continue scheduling your content.

Instead, you need to create an evergreen posting cycle. That way, all of your social media posts sequentially get posted over and over again in an infinite loop. I only create new tweets 2-3 times per year when I want to incorporate more of my new content into my current evergreen posting cycle.

I don’t have to constantly copy, paste, and write social media posts over and over again. This is the beauty of automation.

For a while, I used HootSuite’s bulk uploader which allowed me to schedule over 100 tweets in just six clicks. Since then, I now use ViralTag which may be more expensive, but it has evergreen posting cycles for Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and many others.

I set up these evergreen cycles once and forget about them. The rest takes care of itself.

Republish Your Old Content

It’s great to publish new content. In fact, I write a new blog post every day. However, you can republish your older content to save time.

The idea behind this tactic is that instead of writing a 1,000 word blog post (or more depending on your preference) you update an existing piece of content. Preferably, update one of your top pieces of content.

By updating your top content, you’ll get search engines to notice and point more traffic to that content. You can also use successful content to drive more traffic to your new and emerging content.

Some bloggers have such massive libraries of content that all they do is republish and hone their existing content. You may not be at that point yet, nor may you want to implement that approach, but it’s worth considering.

These same bloggers that only update their new content frequently write guest posts to drive more traffic to their content. These bloggers often publish their best content on other people’s blogs while still providing immense value on their blogs.

Delegate Tasks

I always look for more ways to delegate tasks within my business. The more tasks you can delegate, the more of your time you can commit towards other areas.

And not all tasks are created equal.

You only perform certain tasks because they are necessary for your business. These tasks generate no revenue but help keep everything in place. Scheduling new content, editing the content, growing your social media audience, and other tasks fit the list.

You need to delegate these types of tasks and focus on what only you can do (i.e. creating videos for a training course).

Some of these tasks may be difficult to hand over. I know it was difficult for me to hand over my Twitter growth to someone else. However, that decision was well worth it and allowed me to pursue other ventures.

If I had to continue growing my Twitter audience on my own, there’s no way I would have hosted the Breakthrough Success Podcast or any virtual summits.

Delegating more tasks opens the doors to more opportunities, and more importantly, time to think. You can think about how you’ll expand instead of just doing.

Taking 10-15 minutes to do nothing but think of ways to expand is one of the most powerful ways to grow your business. It’s similar to creating an outline for each blog post you write. You know that the initial time it takes to create the outline will save you massive time and result in a higher value blog post.

Think of the 10-15 minute daily “Thinking Time” as writing a blog post outline for the longest piece of content you’ll ever write. It’ll definitely come out better with the initial Thinking Time.

Craft Email Rubrics

Most people spend an extraordinary amount of time in their inboxes. It seems like for every email we reply to, three new emails come to replace it.

Your inbox is a crowdsourced to-do list which, without moderation, will pull you away from what you’re actually supposed to do.

You may also send emails to reach out to more people. While this can be delegated, many people prefer to do the outreach themselves or at least in the beginning.

Eventually you’ll find yourself writing the same kinds of emails and answering the same questions over and over again. Understanding this principle is essential for getting out of your inbox quicker.

Instead of writing a different email each time, begin crafting email rubrics. Keep those emails in an easy to access folder on your computer.

The next time you respond to the same question here’s what you should do:

Head over to the email rubrics folder

Copy the appropriate email rubric

Paste the rubric into the email

Include the person’s name

Send

This will save you a lot of time. Instead of writing the email word-for-word over and over again, you can click a few buttons and then the exact email shows up. You can also apply this for outreach emails and any emails you find yourself sending often.

As bloggers, we will get the same types of emails. Developing rubrics for our responses will streamline the process so we can respond to and send more emails in a shorter period of time.

In Conclusion

Blogging take a lot of work. You have to create, promote, and monetize your content. None of those three key factors can be missing.

However, there are ways to streamline the process and cut through the noise. Delegation will help you streamline any process, but you should consider automation first. There is no reason to delegate a task that can be easily automated.

Regardless of how much time you shave off from your process, commit to implementing at least one tactic from this blog post. Whether it’s contacting potential employees on a site like UpWork or getting started with ViralTag, get in the habit of taking action based on what you read.

What were your thoughts on these tactics for getting more blog traffic with less work? Do you have any additional tactics for us? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Get Out Of Writer’s Block

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Writer’s block is the last place any content creator can be. This affliction results in the blank screen that stays blank for a very long time. When writer’s block strikes, we need to put it out as quickly as possible.

This article will show you how to get out of writer’s block so your creative mind can continue to flow and provide ideas with ease.

#1: Ask Your Audience For Topics

Asking your audience is one of the best ways to get out of writer’s block. Not only will you receive many ideas, but these are ideas your audience wants more of. By providing more of what your audience wants, you’ll attract new visitors and have a more loyal audience.

In our effort to amplify our voices, we must remember that our audiences appreciate when their voices are heard. Listen to them by asking them for topic ideas. You might just stumble across a content idea that ignites your blog traffic.

#2: Consume More Content

I consume as much content as possible, especially when I’m running out of ideas. I read anywhere from 10 to 30 books every month (lately it’s been closer to 10). I read paperbacks and Kindle eBooks. I listen to audiobooks and podcast episodes.

I also publish five episodes on the Breakthrough Success Podcast every week. This isn’t just a shameless plug. Understand that for me to continue publishing episodes at this rate, I must, on average, interview at least five people every week. That’s over 250 people I interview every year, and since I usually interview more than 5 people every week, that number is closer to 300.

If I choose to turn Breakthrough Success into a daily podcast or run some more virtual summits this year, I’ll interview over 400 people every year.

I consume a lot of ideas just by interviewing people. Combine that with all of the time I spend reading and listening to content, and you can understand how much content I’m willing to consume to get better at my craft.

#3: Hack Your Mind When In The Writing Flow

Writer’s block doesn’t just happen when you can’t think of a new idea. Writer’s block sometimes happens when you’re in the middle of an idea.

You briefly leave your computer, return to the idea, and then you find yourself stuck. A blog post that once flowed so easily now feels stuck in a traffic jam.

How do you continue writing midway through a blog post when the ideas aren’t flowing out as well.

The answer is to hack your mind when you are in the writing flow. The best approach is to finish a piece of content from start to finish. This isn’t always possible, especially for a book, but there is another solution.

Before you stop typing and give yourself a break, type part of a sentence. Not the whole sentence. Just part of one.

When you return to that piece of content, your mind will quickly retrace its steps and you’ll remember where you left off. You’ll finish typing the second half of that sentence and then continue as if there was no interruption.

#4: Stop Writing & Stop Talking

It’s very common for most content creators to stop writing for a moment. Writer’s block is in the way.

It’s much less common to be without any words to say. In fact, it’s so rare for anyone to be speechless or out of words that it’s a big deal when it happens.

Writer’s block is different. It’s one of those universally understood idea among most bloggers. But if you struggle to find words to say when hanging out with your friends and when it’s your turn to talk…that’s more shocking.

If you find yourself struggling to write a blog post, speak it. Let the words naturally flow and don’t think for a second about what you’re saying. This is off-the-cuff and can be edited later. All you have is a basic outline to steer you through the content creation process.

You can either keep the content in video form or transcribe the audio so you have a completed blog post. Just because it’s called writer’s block doesn’t mean the only solution is to write your way out of it.

#5: Write About Something Else

The very first book I planned to self-publish as a Kindle book was horrible. I knew 3,000 words in that this book was going to be an utter bust. Not only that, but I knew it would be painful for me to write.

I gave up on that book, and I’m proud of it.

If you find yourself in a project heading towards the dead end, don’t continue. Get out of that project so you can pursue something else with more promise. When you choose something promising, that’s when you don’t give up.

On some days, it will feel difficult to continue. I have many feelings like that with my own brand.

But the first book I was writing…horrible. I would need a lot of time to think what I was trying to get at in the book.

For blog posts, if you feel like you’re about to hit a dead end, you have two choices. The first choice is to scrap it like I did with my first book draft (and others). Each blog post you write makes you a better blogger, even if you don’t publish the blog post.

The second option is to write a new blog post. After you write that new blog post, return to the previous blog post that proved to be difficult. If you still find it difficult to write that one blog post after multiple attempts, scrap it. Until you scrap it, you’ll keep thinking about it and continue struggling to think of ways to finish it.

Even if you finish that type of blog post, it won’t be your best work. The best content you’ll ever produce is the content you enjoy creating.

In Conclusion

Writer’s block gets all of us at certain points. My favorite way for conquering writer’s block is to speak my way out of it. Even if I don’t transcribe videos and turn them into blog posts, I’ll speak about the topic.

As I speak about the topic, ideas will quickly flow out like a rushing stream. With these ideas in place, it will be easier for me to finish writing the blog post.

What were your thoughts on these tactics? Do you have any tactics for getting out of writer’s block? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

Mesmerizing Blog Optimization Tips And Tricks

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content creation

This is a guest contribution from Junaid Ali

In the world of digitalization, you cannot just get online, share your content, and simply be recognized by your targeted audience, now can you? It is rather hard to get where you want to. Marketers work hard and worry only about rankings. The digital marketers or anyone who works on or around the internet are dwelling in the world where they know that the importance of SEO cannot be questioned. This is the problem with many people who jump in the digital world without knowing the tactics to survive in it.

Search engine optimization is the heart of digital marketing and some people are not even familiar with technicalities and functionality of SEO. I have compiled some new tips and tricks for you that will help you to optimize your blog and leave you mesmerized by the results:

 

#1: Amazing content

content marketing

For your blog to prosper and thrive, you need to have amazing content on it that would attract an audience and make them get addicted to your style of writing, that they would want more and come to your blog. Your content should be authentic, useful, original, and specific as it is the new compelling content. This is what we have been hearing since forever and that good quality content is necessary for a blog to thrive but in 2017 that isn’t the only thing that will help you. Now, the only way to reliably build links is to make their content stand out enough to earn links. It can be through incorporate design and formatting directly into the content.

The thing is if you don’t have the resources to create content like this then small improvements to the format will have to do. Remember, even your best post gets old. That’s why it is essential that you revisit your best articles from some time ago and update them as Google loves fresh content and will give you a boost when you refresh your content with new data.

 

#2: Smart Content Marketing

content marketing tips

Content marketing exploded in 2016 and is even more famous in 2017. Smart content marketing is a real thing and can benefit you a lot, only if one knows how to use it effectively. For starters, your content should always have a purpose, if it is an arrow thrown blindly in the field; it isn’t likely that it will hit its target.

Secondly, your content should be engaging and attractive to the readers, you can add some pictures in your blog. Remember, UX is an extremely important ranking factor. The average time people spend on your content should be better than your competitors then your rankings will surely tank. To be successful with content marketing, you need a content marketing strategy and a fruitful plan for how it can support your goals. The bonus content marketing tip is the content resurrection.

 

#3: On-Site SEO

seo tips

It is an important factor that by 2017, everyone should have their websites optimized and mobile-friendly.  It’s no surprise Google looks at how sites display on mobile as well as the info they provide. Google has already made it crystal clear that how much mobile friendliness now adds to your site’s SEO score and if your site is not mobile-friendly and you’ll need to tone down the use of pop-ups as well or else Google will penalize you. You need links on your site to get a targeted audience, not just any links but relevant and topical links. It is no surprise that backlinks are a key to get good rankings. 2017 is bound to get competitive but these tips will definitely bump your SEO rankings up real quick as more and more people get the wind of it.

 

#4: Social Media Rankings

social media audience

Your content will get more and more readers only and only if is it reaching a lot of people. To ensure that your content is spreading like wild fire in a forest, you need to get on the high horses of social media and feel its power and see that it will do wonders for your blog. We live in the world of digitalization, where almost every human being has access to social media sites.

So, if they see your content flashing on their screen and they click on it. Viola, your rankings are increasing. You should have accounts on every possible social media platform so people can easily reach you and your blog. Advertising on your blog is important as it helps your SEO rankings. Dare to leverage the power, which is social media and watch your rankings soar.

Looking for some ways to do that? Here are some tips:

  • First of all, pay attention to the content. It must be good (as we emphasized earlier), attractive and informative. No one is looking for a business brand or product news all the time. If you want your blog to succeed, focus on other hot topics that people look for and share content on those topics. Moreover, keep in mind the word limit for every social media platform. As Twitter allows a 100-word content, others like Snap Chat offer only a 24 hr storyline. This means that you need to be active and consistent while sharing content on the social media.
  • To improve the social media rankings of your content, do add the social media sharing buttons on your blog page. This helps a lot.
  • Also, don’t forget to use powerful words and strong call-to-action in the content.

 

#5: Refined keywords

keyword research

In 2017, while all the focus is on creating engaging content that will stand out from the rest of them. Keyword research is still extremely important in optimizing your blog even in 2017. You will need to think beyond the commercial keywords. When it comes to keyword research pick low comp keywords for your content that will immediately be seen and searched. You also need to make your smart content marketing stand out from the ever-growing competitive crowd. On top of that, the new content strategy is to refine the keyword tool selection. The thing is once you have found phrases that are 3-5 words long. They will not get as many search hits as refined key words. This way you’ll get more traffic than you realize as there are tons of keywords you’ll get ranked for.

In Conclusion

Blog optimization takes time, energy and a great strategy for it to make it all work. 2017 is as competitive as it can get but I hope that by following the tips and tricks mentioned above, you will get better outcomes and the rankings that you desired and they will surely leave you mesmerized.

 

About The Author

Junaid Ali is a digital marketing specialist who has helped several businesses gain traffic, outperform competition and generate profitable leads. His current ventures include Elephantation, a Dubai branding agency, eLabelz, Smart Leads.ae, Progos Tech and others.

How To Do Research For Your Blog Posts

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The best bloggers typically conduct hours of research each week for their blogs. They reference past blog posts, stats, videos, and anything else that will strengthen their content.

Not only does research strengthen your content’s value, but the right research will also set you up for SEO success. Search engines like when you link to authority sites within your content.

However, conducting research is easier said than done. Even with our knowledge, we can’t insert links anywhere we please without copying and pasting them first. We also have to find those links.

There are plenty of ways to conduct research and get those links. We’ll explore just how in this blog post.

#1: Write The Blog Post First

Write the rough draft of your blog post without conducting any research. This is a blog post that you can write as quickly as possible. Laying out the outline will help you with this step. Your focus is to write the blog post as if you weren’t doing any research.

You want to go deep with your first draft and get it to at least 1,000 words. The longer your first draft is, the more room you have to conduct research.

This is the only stage of blogging where I’d recommend anyone gets a ghost writer as you can edit it later with the research. I am currently testing having a ghostwriter perform this part while I sharpen the content during my review.

#2: Examine Each Part

Once you finish writing the draft, the next step is to examine it while thinking of the consumer. Were all stones turned? Did you mention someone or another piece of content at least once in each tactic or portion of your blog post?

Don’t examine for typos and things like that. If you find them, great. But the focus is on these questions:

“How can I conduct research to make this blog post better? What am I missing that someone else covered?”

You can also write more content during this stage to cover more ground and provide more room for research.

#3: Create An Organized References Doc

Every week, I add at least 20 links to my References Doc. I conduct research in anticipation for what types of blog posts I will write in the future. As I examine each part of my content, I go back to this References Doc to see which links make sense in the article.

All I do in this References Doc is write the name of the article, hyperlink the title with the actual link, and mention the source.

I don’t want to focus on one source when I conduct my research. I prefer to spread the wealth to provide my visitors with more options.

#4: Mention People

One of the best ways to get people to share your content is to mention them in your content. When I conduct my research, I don’t just insert the link and move on.

I mention the author of the article and a key point that author made. That way, I can contact the author and ask him/her to share the article. People love sharing articles they’re in, and people have used this method on me a few times. It worked then and it still works now.

#5: Use HARO

For the heavyweights out there, HARO will make it super easy for you to mention people AND get them to share your content.

HARO is a website where reporters submit their queries and anyone gets to respond. With HARO, people have landed themselves on places like Forbes, ABC, The Huffington Post, and much more.

You as a blogger can also submit a query for your latest piece. As you get more people to submit their responses, you can pick some people who would be a great fit for your upcoming blog post.

By mentioning these people in your content, you do the following:

Make your blog post longer

Provide more value

Know a bunch of people who will definitely share your blog post when it goes live

That last one is powerful. If you publish a blog post every day and mention an average of five people in each blog post, that’s 1825 people who will almost definitely share your content each year. That number exponentially grows as their audiences decide to share your content as well.

In Conclusion

Conducting research for your blog posts is critical to your success. You’ll get your visitors to spend more time on your site, and you’ll attract more SEO traffic.

While research is critical, it’s a big mistake to conduct research while you write the blog post. Each time you conduct research as you write, you take yourself out of the writing flow. You also risk accidentally but habitually finding yourself on a place like Facebook when you should be writing more content.

What are your thoughts on conducting research for your blog posts? Do you have any tactics for us? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.