This post by Debbie Gartner was originally published on ActiveRain. Debbie is the president and owner of The Flooring Girl, a flooring company in Westchester, N.Y., and Stamford, Conn.
Last year, my July 4th fireworks post was my No. 1 article on ActiveRain with over 10,000 clicks. Most of those clicks occurred the day before and day of the event, and I believe most were local searchers.
I wrote a new post for this year: July 4th fireworks 2014 in Westchester County. We will see how it does.
Here are some tips:
1. Make sure your title is keyword-rich. It should include “July 4” “fireworks” and your geography. Also, I would include keywords in the first and last lines of the post. I would also try to use variations and/or synonyms in the post (e.g., July 4th, Fourth of July, Westchester County vs. Westchester NY.)
2. Include 2014 in your title. If you do a search, you’ll see there are posts that come up from various years. You want people to click on yours, and they are more likely to if they are sure the info is current. Also, I believe there are many trending topics on Google that rely on this type of info and prioritize current posts over those from a year or two ago. (This is a theory.)
3. Include good content and complete info. Include info about whether the event is free or costs money/where to get tickets, parking info, etc.
4. Include pictures. Make sure they are your own or that you have legal access to them. Last year, I tried to take pictures of fireworks … and needless to say, they turned out terrible! Earlier this year, I bought a subscription to clipart.com and I have a few pictures I collected from there. Use keywords in your image.
5. Link back to your post. First thing is to make sure you add the post to Google Plus. This can really help your placement in the search engine results pages (SERPs), and if you set up Google authorship your picture will probably show next to the post, which can result in higher click-through rates. Write another post or two that links back to it, to strengthen it (I might do one a few days later). If you have other platforms that you blog on, link to it from there. (Note: I linked to my post up above.)
Note: Determine where you want this post to originate. Is it ActiveRain or your own site. Generally, for my flooring posts, my priority is my own site. But for events like this, I choose ActiveRain because: a) I don’t want to clutter my site with nonflooring articles (I want to be the authority for flooring) and b) this is a short-lived article, so ActiveRain is ideal to get me quick placement — and once we reach July 5, I don’t care about this article anymore.
6. Post early. The sooner you post, the more your post will have aged and the higher the chances of rising higher on the page. Last year, I wrote mine on May 31. This year, I was a bit later and posted on June 6. The longer you wait, the more competition you’ll face.
7. Add it to other social media channels. Use Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon or whatever you use. I would post on here a few times (maybe once a week until the event) and then maybe the two days before the event, the day before the event and the day of the event. (Use your best judgment here. Some sites like Twitter are fine if you post often vs. others where it may be too spammy.)
8. If you wrote an article last year, link to your new article. I went back to last year’s article and put a BIG link at the top of the page to my new article. That way, if anyone finds last year’s article, they can easily get to the updated info. Plus, it gives me another link to my post.
9. Add a Google map. This helps Google place the geography of your post. Recently, Judi Barrett wrote an easy “how to” post on this.
10. Bonus tip: It’s even better if you can update your post a few times with new info. Also, if you get more comments/interaction, that also helps.
Do you guys have any other suggestions?
