Writing, filming and/or designing good content takes a lot of work, especially if it is done well. If you are going to put the work into creating good content, then you want to make sure it can be viewed by as many people as possible. Here are 7 ways you can hack the algorithms as well as repurpose your content to maximize the potential views. It may take a few extra steps than simply writing a post and tweeting it out to followers, but the reward for those few extra steps could be triple or quadruple the amount of views.
7 Growth Hacks Successful Bloggers Use
#1 Post ALL blogs on LinkedIn as well as your own site: LinkedIn has a very easy to use publishing tool, and their algorithm favors content published on LinkedIn versus links to your blog. Meaning if you take a blog post you wrote on your blog and copy and paste it into LinkedIn and publish it here, your post will get increased views simply because it's published using their tool. It also has the potential to be picked up by LinkedIn Pulse or one of their "channels" that users subscribe to. One of my posts was picked up and I had over 1,000 views on it just after one day. That same blog post only received 150 views on my personal site. It's worth repurposing content on LinkedIn.
#2 Post ALL videos as native Facebook videos in addition to YouTube: Most bloggers that record videos will often add their video to YouTube and use that link to share the video on all other social media outlets. However, Facebook's algorithm gives preference to its own video player when determining what content to show in people's news feeds (more here). Some people have said that their videos posted to Facebook have received hundreds of percentage points more views compared to videos posted using YouTube's player. If you create video content, you should absolutely be uploading that video to Facebook in addition to your YouTube channel.
#3 Use tags, keywords, and an SEO plugin: Again, why would you spend the bulk of your time writing a really good post and not do the follow through work of filling in tags, keywords, etc. I use an SEO plugin for my Wordpress blog and it is very helpful. It guides you through the process of tagging and adding keywords in your blog. It also uses a color system (red, orange, green) like a stoplight that lets you know when your blog is maximized for SEO. Green means go! The two or three blogs I have on my site that are super juiced up for SEO were written months ago but still drive hundreds of views a month to my site.
#4 Use headlines in your blog posts and the same keyword(s) throughout:When you start writing your post, identify a keyword(s) that you think people might use when Googling your content. For instance, the few I used for this post include: growth hacks and content. The more you use these words, the higher up you will be on the Google search for these words. By adding a headline to your blog post (like the one I used above tip #1), you are able to optimize those words even more than other references to them throughout the post. Having these included in your title also will increase optimization.
#5 Consider becoming a contributing author to a blog: I currently serve as a contributor to The Huffington Post and Socialnomics.com. I have repurposed a lot of the content from my personal blog on both platforms. Not every post makes sense to repurpose on each or both of these sites, but when it does align, it's great to be able to do so. If you write a few times a month, I strongly encourage becoming a columnist for a blog related to the discipline you write about. This is a great way to extend the reach of your content as well as build your credibility as a blogger.
#6 Share tips and other easy to package content on SlideShare: If you're like me and enjoy getting creative with your content, SlideShare is a great place to repurpose your blog posts. Anything you have written about that includes a certain number of tips, or a bulleted list of some sort is easy to start with as each item can become a slide. For instance, it would make sense for me to turn this post into a slide deck to be published on SlideShare. Each tip could be a slide as well as a follow up slide that has a screenshot or more information. Also, SlideShare easily integrates with LinkedIn now, so you can publish your SlideShares to your LinkedIn profile.
#7 Tag relevant followers and friends to posts you share on social media:Tagging friends and followers in posts can make the one being tagged feel special, and it helps multiply your potential audience. You don't want to spam your friends every time you share a blog post, so be sure to use this tactic sparingly and only if it adds value or is relevant to the people being tagged. However, when done correctly it can really give your content legs. For instance, if I share this post on Facebook and tag 5 friends that I know will be interested in the post, then this link would show up on their timelines as well as my timeline. It could reach 5 times more people than if I just shared the post. Perhaps a less "spammy" way to do this might even be by saying something like, "Thanks to all my favorite bloggers (list their names and tag them here)! Hope my latest post can make your awesome content reach even more people."
BONUS TIP
Bonus tip! If you are writing for a younger audience or certain niche audiences that have heavy engagement on Instagram (ie. fitness, lifestyle, photography blogs, etc), it would be smart to consider posting the blog there as well. Use a good visual! If it's a fitness blog post for instance, maybe take a quick video of you exercising or a picture of your healthy meal (whatever is relevant for the post) and then note in the caption that the link is in your profile. Links are only clickable in Instagram when they are in your profile. Be sure to use lots of hashtags when you post it, those are big on Instagram and will attract more of an audience.
The number one thing that successful bloggers don't do: they don't write blogs just to get views. Successful bloggers write about topics they care about. That passion comes through in their writing and it makes people excited to share it and read it. I wrote this post because I've seen some great bloggers write valuable content and unfortunately it doesn't reach as many people as it could. I hope this post helps simplify that process for you and helps you reach more people with your valuable content. If you are a blogger and have other tips, please comment below to share with others reading this post.