10 Important Steps to Take After Pressing “Publish”

You’ve done your research. You’ve written new content. And now, you’ve pressed “Publish” on your latest WordPress blog post.

Now what?

Too many business owners see publishing their content as the final step in the process, but the reality is that pressing “Publish” is just the beginning. Some experts suggest spending as much as 80% of your time promoting your content, compared to the 20% you spend writing and publishing it.

If you’ve been guilty of publishing without promoting in the past, it’s time to improve your promotion game. Here are 10 things you should do after hitting “Publish”.

Update internal links in past posts

A smart thing to do for SEO is to go back to old content that’s relevant to your new content and add a link to your latest post. Especially if you want to rank with the newly published post.

The more internal links a post has, the more search engines deem that post to be important, and the more chance it has to rank. So, remember to link from your old articles to new ones. But don’t just add random internal links. You need to make sure the posts you link to, and from, are similar in topics.

For instance, if you’re in the health and fitness space, and you’ve published a new tutorial on getting six-pack abs, linking to your new content from past posts on exercise routines will improve the SEO of your new piece. That will also make it easier for readers who enter your site through your old content to find your latest contributions.

Check your SEO

Writing content for specific keywords is so 2007, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore SEO entirely. While it’s no longer appropriate to follow strict optimization schedules, take a few moments after you’ve published your content to ensure it meets today’s best practices.

The easiest way to do this is with a WordPress SEO plugin like Yoast SEO. Once the plugin is installed on your site, fill in a focus keyphrase for each of your posts and make changes according to suggestions in the “Analysis” section until you get a “green light”. Ideally, you want to do this before you start writing to establish your post’s focus while saving you time optimizing afterwards. Additionally, make sure you don’t optimize for the same keywords on two different posts.

SEO takes time, and so is your post’s ranking. More often than not, it takes some time for a piece of content to rank and climb the ladder in Google’s search result page. Sometimes the keywords that you’ve optimized your post for are too competitive for you to rank. In that case, it’s a good idea to optimize the post for different keywords or rework the post altogether.

Send it to your email contacts

Remember, your website’s readers won’t automatically know you’ve published new content. And since they likely don’t check your site every day, the fastest way to alert them to your new post is to send out an email blast to your list.

You can do this manually, but many email marketing list providers also offer opportunities to automatically notify your readers whenever new content goes live. As an example, Mailchimp offers a simplified process for linking your blog directly to your newsletter.

Another way is to establish regular newsletters, in which you send your subscribers a compilation of articles you’ve published. Setting up automation for this task is probably a good idea. Luckily, there are many email marketing tools/softwares in the market to help you. You can take a look at Mailchimp, Sendinblue, HubSpot, or any other provider that suits your budget.

Share your on social media

Sharing your post on social media is one of the most obvious post-publishing promotion steps. But did you know that it’s not a good idea to automatically share the same update across all of your different profiles?

While the lure of auto-updating your social channels with a single click is undeniable, it’s better to have a solid social media plan that includes relevant, thoughtful, and platform-specific content. When this is executed correctly, you can expect better engagement and closer ties to your customers.

When you auto-post to multiple social channels, your ability to engage with your audience diminishes. So, craft new content for the channels you’re active on. It’s the only way to drive real engagement and to prevent the auto-posting mistakes that could cost you customers.

If you do share your post on your social channels, make sure that it’s interesting and relevant for the audience on those platforms. For example, the software communities are more active on Reddit and Twitter. So, if your company is in the software industry, sharing a technical post on Facebook probably won’t get you a lot of engagement.

Schedule future social promotions

On the subject of manual social updating, remember that it’s perfectly appropriate to share the same piece of content multiple times.

While you’ll want to be careful to not spam your followers, the reality is that, in an age of declining organic social reach, most of your readers won’t see every update you post. To catch as many people as possible, you should share updates multiple times, using different formats.

Tools like MeetEdgar and MissingLettr can help reschedule past content automatically, but you can also handle these promotions manually by setting a calendar like in this example.

Reach out to influencers

The subject of influencer marketing is built on a simple premise: if you can get an influencer to share your content or product, you’ll build your own audience faster by leveraging their follower reach.

Think about it. If your site is new or small, you might have a list of 500 readers who have signed up to be notified when you publish new content. Compare the impact of sending out an update to this list with getting a mention in an email from an industry expert with a list of 100,000 subscribers.

Of course, getting the attention of these influencers is easier said than done. A few popular approaches to influencer marketing include:

• Quoting influencers within your content and tagging them in your social updates after your post goes live.
• Creating content that offers genuine value to their readers.
• Building relationships with influencers well in advance of asking them to promote something.
• Targeting lower-level influencers with medium-sized audiences, rather than the top folks in your industry.

The level to which you decide to engage in influencer marketing is something only you can determine. Approach it from a “what’s in it for them?” mentality, and you’ll position your content best for influencer sharing.

Submit your blog post to industry communities

Another way to get eyeballs on your content is to place it in a location those eyeballs visit frequently – in this case, industry communities.

Reddit has always been popular for this purpose, though you’ll need to watch out for that community’s sensitivity to self-promotion. Alternatively, look for other industry-specific forums, message boards, Facebook Groups, and other community sites serving your niche.

For instance, if you’re in the web marketing space, you could try submitting your latest content to sites like GrowthHackers.com to be showcased to their communities.

Suggest your post to industry round-ups

Round-up posts – like our monthly WordPress news round-up on the Bluehost blog, are quite popular these days. You can use this trend to your advantage by reaching out to the blogs that host these lists and asking that your post be included.

To do this, you’ll need to find the sites in your industry that are publishing round-up lists. A couple of quick Google searches should turn up a few candidates. You’ll also want to set up an RSS feed for your field’s top publishers to see if/when they roll out new round-ups.

When you find past round-ups or see new ones hit the web, simply use the blog’s contact info to reach out and make the case for including your content. You may not be successful every time, but when you are, you’ll boost both your perceived authority and your site’s SEO

Update your content

This isn’t a strict promotional technique, per se, but it is an important part of ensuring your content remains engaging and promotable over the long run.

Have you ever clicked through to a blog post, only to realize that the content is several years out-of-date? When visitors encounter dated content on your site, they may be less likely to trust your current articles – let alone link to your post or share them virally with others.

For these reasons, it’s a good idea to periodically review your old articles for outdated content. This doesn’t need to be complicated. Once a quarter, you could audit your top 10-20 pieces of content (according to Google Analytics) and make any necessary updates. In particular, look for:

• Statistics based on data that’s more than two years old
• Industry best practices or other recommendations that have changed
• Screenshots of websites, tools, or other resources that have changed in appearance

Leave a note at the top of your article noting the date it was updated. You can also include an overview of whatever changes were made so that future visitors will know your content is still relevant.

Repurpose your content

Finally, a great way to get more mileage out of your existing content is to publish it in multiple formats. Not only does this take some of the burdens off your editorial calendar, but it also opens up your readership to those who prefer to engage with different content formats.

For instance, you could turn your blog post into:

• A video or series of videos
• A podcast
• An ebook or downloadable guide
• An infographic
• One part of a longer series

Get creative! Your existing content represents a wealth of promotional and repurposing opportunities. Using the strategies above will ensure you get the highest possible value out of the work you’ve already done.

What other steps do you take after publishing a new piece of content? Leave us a note below with your suggestions!