In this step-by-step tutorial, I’m going to show how to increase visitors to your blog with the help of a free service called IFTTT. This strategy works for WordPress blogs and also the blogs of other platforms.
IFTTT (If This Then That) is a web-based service. It allows users to syndicate content on web services and social sites. Sites like Gmail, WordPress, Blogspot, Facebook, Telegram, Instagram, Linked In, Pinterest, and much more are included.
The users have to set conditions (triggers) that start actions between the two services in the IFTTT site.
However, I’m not going deep on the IFTTT service here, like what it is, how it works, or how to use the site for content syndication. I’m also not going to show how to create social media profiles for IFTTT. There are plenty of tutorial videos on YouTube and Google. It would help if you went through a few of them to understand IFTTT.
But let me draw a very brief outline of the two most important terms, i.e., IFTTT “Service” and IFTTT “Applets.” A good understanding of these terms will help you grasp my syndication strategy.
IFTTT “service” represents the 650+ individual brands inside IFTTT. These brands are Gmail, Google, WordPress, Blogspot, Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, Instagram, Linked In, Pinterest, Instagram, Bitly, Dropbox, and many more.
And an applet is a connector of two or more services or sites (out of 650+ websites). You may need to set conditions for the connectors (applets). These conditions trigger your desired actions.
My Content Syndication Strategy
My strategy is simple. We will take our main blog posts and repost the content on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social sites using the IFTTT service. But we are not going to connect our main blog with the IFTTT. Instead, we will create a new blog at free wordpress.com and combine it with the IFTTT.
Not posting the main blog post is because we don’t want to repost our entire blog posts on different sites. Blog posts these days are getting longer & longer because of Google ranking factors. 300-500 word posts don’t work these days. We need to make 1500- 5000 or more worded posts to impact Google’s ranking.
One of my blog posts, The GrooveFunnels & ClickFunnels Review and Comparison, is almost 7,000 words long. I can break it down into 20-30 pieces, and I can repost & share the pieces via IFTTT on Facebook, Twitter, and other sites 20-30 times!
So, to get the most out of our efforts, we will break down our blog posts into a few pieces. And then repost the parts to our wordpress.com blog. I’ll discuss breaking down the process in Step# 5, which is very important.
Before reposting our wordpress.com blog, we will add a catchy headline and an eye-attracting image. Posting a meaningful and catchy headline is vital, so is a catchy Image with it. We can use our main posts’ headers (H1, H2, H3, H4) as headlines. Or we can create new headlines to include with our pieces of content.
Finally, we will add a “read more” or “continue reading” link-back to the main article on our main blog. The visitors will come through these links after the pieces of content get syndicated. And it is crucial for our strategy.
For SEO reasons, it’s always better to hyper-link an anchor text around your keywords. You can do this: “read more on your-anchor-text,” or “continue reading your-anchor-text.” Also, hyperlink a word/keyword of the post’s body to your leading site’s different but similar blog post.
You can post pieces of your content as many times as you can on the wordpress.com blog, but don’t overdo it. Take 5-6 of your main blog posts and post one piece from each. 3-4 a day would be enough, but mix it while reposting and don’t line up all the pieces from the same blog content.
This way, the same visitors will get different posts on your blog instead of repeatedly seeing a particular Content.
That’s all for my strategy, so let’s get to action steps:
Step# 1. Create An Account
Make a Free Account at the ifttt.com site. Also, sign-up for your required services (more on services needed in step# 3) out of the site’s 650+ services. Do not forget to note down & save each service site’s login info; you’ll require it later.
You also need to check the posting rules and guidelines of each of the service sites. Some of the sites may not approve of our syndication strategy. Include only those sites that have no objections. And discard those if you find our plan violates its terms.
Step# 2. Start With the Service of WordPress
Create a new blog at free wordpress.com as a secondary blog. Name this blog as the same or similar to your main blog. And connect the secondary blog with the IFTTT WordPress “service.”
Step# 3. Connect As Many Services With The WordPress Service
You’ll notice there are many applets already created by other users. Select and connect these applets that connect WordPress service with other services. You may need to sign-up for a new account here.
Select the applets wisely. Be cautious that you don’t create a loop. For instance, you have connected an applet that shares your wordpress.com blog content on Tumbler. And you joined another applet that connects your Tumbler blog with your wordpress.com blog. What will happen?
Whenever you make a blog post to your wordpress.com blog, it will be on Tumbler automatically, and from Tumblr, and Tumblr will share back to your wordpress.com blog. The loop will post 100s of the same content in both places unless you stop it manually. So, be careful on this issue.
Step# 4. Share One Content Multiple Times
Break down each of your main blog posts into many pieces, and post the parts separately to your wordpress.com blog. Include catchy headlines & images. And never forget to add a “read more” link back to your main content.
Do not post all the pieces of one content on the same day. Visitors from Facebook or Twitter, and other sites may get bored, ending up to the same post multiple times.
You also can repost one piece of your content multiple times. But give a substantial time gap between the repeated posts. And always replace the headlines and the anchor text with new headlines and new anchor texts.
The syndication flow with the four steps above may bring some visitors to your main blog. But there’s an important step left to skyrocket the visitor flow.
Step# 5. The Most Vital Task Of My Syndication Strategy
This step needs a background and some clarifications before going to the action step- “what to do.”
Set and forget thing doesn’t work here. Even the pieces of posts get syndicated all over the net with the four steps above. They may not get noticed by the users and members of the syndicated sites. Check my set and forget Blogspot stat as the proof below image:
Eight hundred eighty-eight posts get only 2938 views, four comments, and one follower! Not the result I was expecting!
The sites you connected your wordpress.com blog with the applets have individual characters. Facebook is different from Twitter, and so are all the other social sites. The interfaces of the sites are different. Some websites use hashtags, some use keywords, some use Likes, and some use Up-votes. The user community of each website is also diverse reacts differently to a specific action.
And the rule of thumb for any community is you’ll never get noticed unless you contribute to the community. Nobody cares about you and your content unless you care about them and their blog. So, you need to check how you get to contribute first!
We are breaking down our long articles into pieces and reposting them on Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites! But this reposting strategy needs to be clarified further, and I mentioned before (at Step# 3) that I’ll do it here.
Just think about it- our broken-down pieces of content might not make any sense to the readers. The parts may seem out of context- we will destroy our reputation instead of building it in the community just because our contents are not understandable, coherent, precise, or logical. So, you must address this issue, and it will in the first part of strategic action step 5 below.
Strategic Action Step 5
(1) Make each piece of content a good read before posting. Add an introduction or edit some parts. The bottom line is to make it an enjoyable read to entice readers to click the “read more” links.
(2) From time to time, log in to the sites you have connected by your applets. Familiarize with the interfaces, check how you can get involved with the community. I cannot generalize and instruct what to do for all the sites. But don’t worry, there are many free tutorials for each site on this too!
Say you need to know how to generate more views on your wp.com blog or Tumblr blog posts. Go and search Google & YouTube! Got It?
Final Words On My Syndication Strategy
Consistency is the key to my syndication strategy. So, by consistently doing the five steps above, you’ll see the results. Nothing may happen with the first few posts. But you’ll see results within a week if you post a few pieces of content each day. You’ll notice that many of the community members are checking your blogs. And a good number of them visit your main blog through the “read more” links of your content.