FREE Content Promotion Checklist For Online Boutique Owners

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Seriously, if I’m honest I wish I’d had a content promotion checklist when I first started on my blogging journey.

Had I known how to market your blog effectively from the very beginning, I would have been further ahead now.

I also think seeing great results early on would have helped me to stay more consistent with my content promotion activities from the very beginning.

If you want to make sure you get as much traffic, subscribers and sales from your blogging activities as possible, then you’re going to love my content promotion checklist. It’s exactly the sort of actionable guide I wish I’d have.

First, we’re going to look what 5 things you need to do prior to publishing your blog post – making sure you’ve designed content with the best chance of being successful.

Then, we’ll break down a simple 5 step content promotion strategy you can follow every time you publish a new post.

Finally, we’ll look at an element of content promotion you may not be that familiar with: repurposing, but I think you’re gonna love it.

SIMPLE & EASY CONTENT PROMOTION CHECKLIST

Content promotion checklist: 5 ways to optimise your new blog post before you hit publish

Take the time to craft a killer headline

Make sure you include the keyword phrase you want your blog post to rank for in the article headline and post url. Your headline is what people see first, so spend time working on a great headline that makes people want to click through to read your post.

Don’t forget to include subheadings throughout your post (like this one)

It’s important to remember to include the keyword you want to rank for in the subheadings within your post – H2/H3 etc.

Using subheadings within your post, especially in longer content, makes it easier for people to skim your blog post going to precisely what interests them.

Create great images and save them correctly

Make sure you’re saving your images with the keyword that you want to rank for, helps you to be found easier within Google image search. I’ve also wrote a post on how to make Google index your website.

Include one image that has the post name (in the dimension best suited for Google) and also create a Pinterest optimised image.

Want more info on how to optimise your product pages for better pages too? You should check out my free 3-part video training for Shopify store owners.

Use your keywords liberally (but naturally)

If content marketing is part of your traffic generation strategy, it goes without saying (or at least it should) that you’re thinking about what keyword you want your article to rank for.

Re-read the body of your content to make sure it’s included several times while still sounding natural.

Formatting matters – make your post as easy to read as possible

Think about how easy to read your post is.

Think about the length of your paragraphs, the font size, the way images are used to break up the post. And remember, people often read on their mobile devices so check what your formatting looks like on that platform too.

Want to dive deeper into SEO and how to write better copy for your online boutique? Read more:

When it comes to SEO Brian Dean is the guy to pay attention to. Check out his mega post on SEO for Ecommerce.
Shopify has some great free resources on their blog. If you’re just getting started this post is a great place to start.
Want to be more organised with your SEO activities? You’ll love the systems shown in steps 8 & 10 of this article.

Want even more content promotion ideas?

Click Here To Download My Free Content Promotion Checklist

Content promotion checklist: The 5 step system for sharing your content consistently

Create a killer Pins and get busy pinning

Seriously, if you don’t have the budget (right now) to pay to promote your content, your best chance of getting it out in front of as many eyes as possible is Pinterest.

Make sure every post you write has a beautiful Pinterest optimised graphic. Want examples of the standard of Pin you want to create? See below, and follow my Pinterest boards.

Content promotion checklist - good pin example — Content promotion checklist – good pin example

Content promotion checklist - meh pin example — Content promotion checklist – meh pin example

Create a custom Facebook graphic (well a few, but more on that later…)

Wouldn’t it be great if we could create one graphic and that would be it?

Sadly, we need to resize our graphics to the medium we’re posting on – which is super time consuming.

That’s why I love Canva pro . For just $10/month it lets me resize my graphics at the click of a button, among other things. It will also help you quickly and easily do one of the other pro-tips I’m about to share.

You’ll find a bunch of other tools in my ecommerce marketing tools kit in this post.

Mail your email list subscribers

Yes, even if that’s a measly list of 5– 3 of which are family and friends.

Send a short email to your mailing list letting them know you’ve got new content up on your website, and don’t forget to link to the post at least twice within your email.

One tip I’ve found that works really well is including the intro to the post within my email – with a link to continue reading.

Use social bookmarks to get more traffic

Honestly I thought social bookmarking was dead, and while it’s not always the most targeted traffic, bookmarking your posts with the most popular platforms does help.

These are the social bookmarking sites I’d recommend getting started with Reddit, Delicious, and Stumbleupon .

Share in groups and forums you’re active in

Now, because I know some people will read this the wrong way I’m gonna explain.

This doesn’t mean dumping a link and running. It means sharing your content in way that is useful and inviting. Think about the actual copy you use when you post – write in a way that makes people want to click through to your article.

Want to learn more about email marketing and social bookmarking? Read more.

Content promotion checklist: How to repurpose and re-share your content (on autopilot)

Break your content down into micro-content (for even more visibility)

Think about the blog post you have written. If you’re writing with SEO rankings in mind it’s likely your blog posts will be 750+ words and contain several images.

Can you break down the tips into smaller IG images or Facebook images? A pro-tip is to think about how you will create micro-content from all of your bigger posts, even before you start writing.

Make your blog posts multi-media rich

Well written, SEO optimised, media rich posts do well and tend to get linked to organically. So go back to your post and look at where you could add other forms of media to make the post even more valuable. Remember, these don’t even have to be your media.

In fact, I recommend linking to others as a content promotion strategy – but we won’t go into that in this post.

Create social media graphics in batches

Remember I mentioned that pro-tip, we’ll it’s simple: create 4 -5 images to promote your post all with a different image (and variations of the headline if you want). This way when you are re-sharing on your page or in your communities, it doesn’t look spammy or boring.

Reschedule your blog posts to be re-shared automatically

Don’t want to spend hours re-sharing your posts? Well you don’t have to. You can use a free tool like Hootsuite to help you schedule in re-sharing your posts weeks and months in advance.

Don’t want to use another tool? Then don’t forget you can set posts up to be shared ahead of time directly within Facebook.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed and fall behind when it comes to content promotion. That’s why I recommend creating both your content and promotional graphics in batches. This is so you can set it, forget it, and move on to other things.

Want to learn more about graphic creation and social media automation? Read more.

Want to take advantage of a few tools to help you get the word out faster and more effectively?

Buzzsumo, Scoop.it, Viral Content Buzz are all worth a look. Here’s a video I made on how I use Buzzsumo

Click Here To Download My Free Content Promotion Checklist

Okay, so that’s it.

I told you this was a simple content promotion checklist, as I’m a big fan of keeping things as uncomplicated as possible – especially when you’re just starting out.

The goal is not to try and do everything, but to focus on doing the right things and this content promotion checklist will help you do just that.

Before I go let me ask you a question?

Did you learn something new from this blog post – if so, please share it with others on social media – you’ll be helping me promote my content.

And, as always, if you have any questions or are confused about anything you’ve read the comments are open and I’ll be happy to answer.