26 Mar Boost Blog Traffic Using These Techniques for Promoting Your Posts on Facebook
Promoting your blog posts on Facebook is one of the most cost-effective, efficient and smart strategies you can use to drive traffic back to your website blog.
First of all, Facebook audiences are huge! 68% of Americans use a Facebook account regularly, which equals nearly 220 million people. Facebook also remains the most-used mobile app. 81% of devices have it installed.
And, since the majority of internet traffic is now mobile and the majority of mobile time is spent in-app, Facebook represents one of the best chances you have at getting views, shares, likes, new followers for your business, and – most importantly! – clicks to your website.
If you’re a business owner wondering how to drive traffic to your blog using Facebook, here are nine airtight strategies you can use to get maximum visibility and a higher click-through rate to each blog post on your website.
Writing and Posting Takes a lot of Time, So Be Strategic!
Many business owners post to Facebook in a reactionary manner – they arrive on a worksite, they snap a pic and write a quick post, they attend a company event, they snap a pic and write a quick post, they read an article they like, they grab the link and write a quick post.
There are 3 problems with this approach:
- It takes a tremendous amount of time and effort every single day to carry this out
- Your posts “check the box” for social media but don’t actually speak to a specific target audience
- You are not driving people to your website where they are far more likely to convert into a customer
A far better approach that will strategically drive the right potential customer to your site and save you hours and hours of time each week is to strategically plan out your content strategy a month or a quarter in advance.
Each quarter, you should identify the types of prospective customers you want to engage and list out the problems they have that your product or service will fix. It might be cracks in their basement walls, a property line dispute with a neighbor, or bored children at home in need of fun weekend activities.
Now brainstorm the types of content that your prospective customer wants to read. Consider these types of blog posts to help your brainstorming. Remember that your goal is to provide value, not sell your product or service. They don’t want to read a sales pitch!
However, once you’ve provided interesting, valuable content that benefits them, you want to include a Call-to-Action that helps them take the next step in solving their problem. This CTA drives them to something that you offer, whether it is a downloadable piece of content in exchange for an email address or a product or service in exchange for money.
Hub and Spoke! Hub and Spoke! Hub and Spoke!
I know, we mention this a lot in our blog posts but it is your biggest time saver when it comes to content creation and too many businesses simply don’t do it.
Once you have your monthly or quarterly content strategy in place, it’s time to start writing. But do you want to write a month’s worth of Facebook posts, Tweets, and blogs? That’s at least 30 posts, 60 Tweets, and 4 blogs. Holy cow!
No wonder most businesses post haphazardly because who has the time to write all that content!
However, if you write the longer content pieces first, such as white papers or website blogs, you’ll save yourself hours of writing time. How? Because one blog can easily be repurposed into a week of Facebook Posts and Tweets.
Essentially, each paragraph in your blog can become one Facebook post and each Facebook post can easily become two Tweets and one Instagram post. And the best part is that you are constantly providing the link back to your website to read the rest of your blog post.
And if you need to invest in a content writer, you can reduce your cost by having him or her write only your 4 blog posts each month. Get all 4 of them right at the beginning of the month and you can easily do the repurposing across social media yourself.
It’s a Hub and Spoke, folks. It allows you to write a smaller amount of content but schedule out a greater number of social media posts that all coordinate around the same message to the same target audience.
Make it a Habit to Share Every Post
Make sharing every single post you create for your blog a habit. People are more likely to keep up with your content on the social platforms they already use compared to obsessively checking your blog page.
Consider each Facebook post and share as important as the blog itself. Think of the Facebook post as your store window. You want it to be enticing enough that people really want to go inside and see what else is there when they click on the link to your blog. You also want it to be intriguing enough that people who are just window shopping still remember your display and maybe even mention it through word of mouth.
Keep in mind that Google SEO best practices suggest not sharing each and every piece of new content you create. However, this rule likely applies to larger publishers who put out dozens if not hundreds of new blog articles a week. If, on the other hand, you only publish 1-2 times a week, you shouldn’t run afoul of the overpromotion threshold.
That said, if you are making new blogs multiple times a day, consider limiting the number of times you share your content. Pick just the juiciest ones to show the world.
Boost Your Post With Paid Facebook Advertising
It’s a sad reality, but Facebook has been trending towards pay-to-play for years now. Organic reach for business page posts has plummeted over the past few years.
Even worse, Facebook recently announced changes that mean it’s even less likely that audiences will see your blog posts compared to content from their friends and family. Thanks, bots!
But the good news is that Facebook’s options for “boosting” your post with an ad budget are truly amazing. Not only do you have razor-fine control over how much you spend, but you can also target specific user traits and demographics.
With just a limited budget per day, you can earn spots on the news feeds of people who will be most likely to consider your content interesting.
If, for instance, you create a blog post about “Best Places to Eat in Downtown Austin,” you can manually target people living in Austin, Round Rock and other cities nearby. You can even select particular age ranges, allowing you to pitch some of the best bar/restaurant/music venue places just to the 35 and under crowd.
Consider boosting posts for a few of your most popular blogs each month as you start out and then move toward consistently promoting a higher ratio to get your blogs the attention they deserve.
Think Mobile First
As we mentioned in the intro, if people are seeing your content on Facebook, they’re most likely viewing it on mobile. Make sure your post is optimized for smaller mobile screens, including limiting the amount of text you use in paragraph form.
Also, make sure any image you use doesn’t have tiny details that require zooming in. For instance, don’t share your entire infographic in a thumbnail size; crop out part of it and share that instead.
Most importantly, ensure your blog site itself is responsive and mobile optimized. If people click to read an article they see on Facebook and end up on a messy site, most will back out immediately and not bother reading the article in full.
Make Sure You’re Writing Great Headlines
80% of people who see your post shared on Facebook won’t get past the headline. Some will keep scrolling and not bother clicking or reading.
Others will start reacting to the post based on the headline alone. We’ve all seen it happen, and for your blog this can actually be a good thing. Great headlines have a way of getting people talking. While it’s frustrating to hear commentary from people who clearly haven’t read the article, the whole point of posting on Facebook is getting engagement.
So embrace “hot takes” and write good enough titles so that people who actually read have an incentive to dig further. We wrote a whole post on how to write great blog headlines for Facebook, but the gist is to use phrases that get people’s attention without being too clickbaity.
Most importantly, look to your own data for feedback on headline quality. Posts that have a low click-through rate clearly show that the headline wasn’t enticing enough. Posts with a high click or engagement rate did a good job at getting attention.
Learn lessons from past successes and failures and adjust accordingly.
Use Facebook’s Text Space to Your Advantage
Every Facebook post you create with a link has room for additional text on the Facebook post itself.
Don’t neglect the importance of the space Facebook gives you above the link! A lot of people will read that immediately after seeing the photo. The text you add to your posts can lend context, provide a brief summary or reveal key benefits.
Just remember that the maximum amount of content people can see without expanding is 480 characters. Avoid using chunks of text to get your point across. Try to be descriptive yet brief. Use any hashtags or cross-tags to other pages that are relevant to signal boost your post even further. Maybe even consider using emojis????!
Attach Great Images to Your Blogs
Facebook posts with images get three times more engagement, which is why most posts you see from brands now include some sort of image.
Images catch our attention, and they can also begin to tell the story behind your blog. With the right image, you can elicit emotion from your audiences before they even read a single word. Once they’ve been engaged in this way, your audience will be more likely to read the actual post.
Make images as relevant as possible to the content of your posts, though. Don’t just use an image because it’s eye-catching.
Also, limit the use of text within your image. A spare amount of text can be great, but too much can prevent your boosted posts from running. Check out Facebook’s own image guidelines for more details on what they do and don’t want.
A/B Test Different Variations of Blog Post Shares
One of your best tools for marketing is the ability to split test two different versions of the same blog post.
For instance, say you wanted to promote a blog about how swimming pools add value to someone’s home. You can create one version that uses an image of a happy family. You can then create another version that uses a stock image of a pool full of money.
Now, show each version to roughly the same audience and see which one gets more clicks!
Performing these experiments can help you get details just right for each blog post you promote. It can also reveal preferences for different demographics when it comes to post design.
Pay attention to Facebook insights data, and it will show you how to drive traffic to your blog using Facebook.
At the end of the day, your own data is the best asset you have when trying to learn how to drive traffic to your blog using Facebook. Take notes on what works and what doesn’t, especially when it comes to what times you post and how frequently.
Also, A/B test post variations vigorously to find out how to get the biggest reaction from your audience.
Finally, make sure that the content you create is absolutely worth reading! Offer value, relevance and genuine quality to your readers. Otherwise, they may not want to click no matter how enticing the preview looks. You know the saying, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me eight or more times….”