Running a quality blog required time and effort. It is thus important to ensure your posts receive maximum coverage and reach. Here are 11 easy ways to get most out of your blog.

1. Use Graphics and media in your posts

I highly recommend using at least one relevant image in each post whether it is an image, graph or another graphic that is relevant to the topic. It makes your content more appealing. It improves the quality and readability of your content. It also helps to break the monotony of text and makes it easier for readers to scan your content. It also improves the chances of being shared on social media.

2.  Run Your Headlines Google Keyword Tool

It is important to write about topics that readers want to read about. Don’t make the mistake of guessing what users are searching for. It is difficult to get it right without research or factual data. This is where Google Keyword Tool can help. I often use it to choose titles for my posts. This ensures the post will get found on search results and have higher readership.

Tip: When using Google Keyword Tool, it is very important to change the default “broad match” selection to “exact match”. This is located on the left of the screen. See image below. This will only show you search volumes for the exact phrase that is entered which is more accurate than broad match.

3. Link to Relevant Posts

It is very important to reference or link to other posts in your content. This includes linking to other content from your blog as well as external sites. In-context linking within your content improves the quality of your posts and offers more value for readers.

It also helps to draw attention to other posts on your site and increase your page views. When you link to external sites, you also get noticed by the author. This helps build connections and relationships.

4. Create Content Mashup Using Curation Sites

Content curation sites like Paper.li and Storify have become very popular in recent years. These services allow you to publish free digital newspapers by combining content from various sources including your blog, social networks, as well as other sites. It is great way to present content in a creative and visually appealing manner. It is a very effective way to get extra publicity and expand your readership. Furthermore, the process can be automated so there are minimal administration overheads.

5. Look Beyond Facebook and Twitter

Social networking plays a vey important role in the success of blogs. Bloggers often use several social media sites to promote content. Relatively new sites such as Google Plus and Pinterest and social bookmarking/news sites such as Stumble Upon, Reddit and Digg can be very effective for driving traffic to your blog, and can easily outperform Facebook and Twitter.

6. Social Media Automation

Most blogs share posts on several social media and networking sites. This can be very time consuming, leaving you with less time to focus on creating valuable content. This is where automation can help.

Although, full automation is not recommended, automating repetitive tasks such as sharing new posts from your blog on all your social profiles, offers several benefits. It can boost productivity and efficiency, and leave you with more time to focus on other important issues that require your attention. There are many tools e.g. HootSuite that you can use to automate social media submissions.

7. Optimise Your Posts

If you use WordPress as your blogging platform and have the right tools in place e.g. All in one SEO plugin, then very little effort is required to optimise your posts on a day to day basis. But there are other areas to consider. Most bloggers include images in their posts however very few get around to optimising the images for optimal load times. Using images over 100Kb in size will not only have a negative effect on SEO but also alienate mobile users and those accessing your blog over slow or congested networks.

8. Make Sure Your Blog is Mobile Enabled

A recent study has found that in spite of the growing share of mobile Internet use, less than a third of businesses have got around to creating a mobile enabled website. Not having a mobile enabled blog is one of the biggest mistakes you can make and one that you cannot afford to overlook.

9. Participate on Other Blogs Related to your Niche

The easiest way to do this is by contributing to discussions via comments. This offers several benefits.

If you contribute something of value, readers will click on your link and visit your blog. You will also get noticed by other bloggers who will in-turn reciprocate by visiting or commenting on your blog or by linking to your posts. It is one of the most effective ways to build relationships with other publishers.

10. Integrate your Feed with Feedburner

It is common for readers to access blog content via RSS feed readers. Instead of the default RSS feed that comes with your blog platform, consider serving your feed via Google’s Feedburner service. It is free to use and takes a couple of minutes to set-up. Serving your feed with Feedburner provides more control and enables users to subscribe to blog updates by email. It is a very effective and simple way to build your email list.

11. Take Advantage of Guest Posts

Guest posting is one of the most powerful and effective ways grow your blog. Most bloggers use this technique to take their blog to the next level. Accepting guest post from other authors is a great way to build your content and add diversity to your blog. Guest posting on other blogs on the other hand is a very effective way to get extra exposure and drive traffic to your blog,