Blogging is the most effective way to keep your website from getting stale. We include the ability to blog in all of the websites we deliver as every site owner should be blogging. There are folks that take the time to create the perfect social media post, but then in 72 hours, no one ever sees it again. Had they created that social media post on their blog and shared it, people would be looking at it for years.

So how do you turn a social media post into a blog post?

It’s actually pretty straightforward. The first thing you do is select a social media post that would be a good topic for a blog post. There’s no hard rule on how long a post should be, but we recommend shooting for at least 300 words.

Start by copying and pasting your social media post into your favorite editor (MS Word, Google Docs, etc…). If you used a tool like Yaytext and have emojis on your post, be sure to remove them as they don’t translate well into most blogging platforms.

It’s all about content.

Social media limits the length of a post so you probably ran out of space before running out of things to say when initially creating your post. So add in those extra details, examples, and points you wanted to add. If you had other images and/or links you wanted to include, make notes in your document.

Once you’re done writing, do a quick spell and grammar check and you’re ready to move to the next step.

Build your post:

Copy and paste your post from your document editor to your blog editor. Be sure to paste as plain text to get rid of any special characters or formatting. While most editors will translate formatted text to HTML, they do it inefficiently which slows down the page load time. Take an extra 3 minutes to redo the formatting in your blog post – it’s well worth it. And don’t forget to periodically save your post as a draft in case you lose your connection.

Once the post is formatted with font sizes, lists, bold, italic, etc…, it’s time to spruce up your post. Add in your images, infographics, or embedded videos to give your post some extra visual flair. At the very least, you should add a featured image that will be associated with your blog post. Check with your web designer for the proper dimensions for the image. If they don’t know, or you designed the site yourself, experiment with different sizes.

Now you’ve got your images so it’s time to add some links. We recommend that any external links (links to sites other than your own) open up in new tabs. Make sure you put at least two links to other pages from your own site in your post.

Finally, add some tags and categories to your post so visitors can easily find similar posts on your site. If you’re not sure how to best categorize and tag your posts, we can help.

Review before publishing:

Use your blog’s preview post function to get a look at your post before it’s published. Proofread it (or have someone else do it), and click on all of your links to make sure they work as planned. Finally, resize your browser or check it out on your phone to ensure that it looks good on mobile.

Lastly, make any final tweaks and then hit the publish button. Congratulations, your post is live and in a place where you can easily share it!

Wrapping up:

Blogging is a great way to bring traffic to your site. So if you’re already spending time creating social media posts, take a few extra minutes and make them blog posts instead. Remember, you want to drive traffic from social media to your site – not the other way around. If you have any questions about any of the tips on this post, or would just like us to review your site, please sign up for a complimentary consultation.