Steemit is a great platform with lots of potential in the future. Why hasn’t it gotten mass adoption yet? Well, the first thing I noticed when I attempted my first post is it seemed kind of hard. Yes, the site itself seemed a little difficult to navigate and understand. But it seemed like I was very limited when posting on steemit. That’s because knowing a little html goes a long way.
I’m still learning how to make my posts better on steemit. But there’s no sense in waiting until I’ve mastered it before making a post to show you some of the things I’ve learned so far.
10 Tips For Posting On Steemit
Add links
Add Media
Add headers
Write a great title
Add italics and bold
Find other related posts
Create a series of posts
Share your posts in other places
Get your followers engaged
Create a call to action
How To Add Links On Steemit
Links are essential to a nice blog post. But while it’s easy to add links to posts on most blogging platforms, it’s not easy on steemit. Here’s how you do it: put brackets around the word you want to be the hyperlink text [like this]. They put the link of the url to wherever you’re linking to in internet land, with parenthesis around the url. Make sure not to add any spaces in between the two or it won’t work.
For example, if I wanted to link to steemit blog page, in the text of a post I would write something like this:
Be sure to check out the rest of the posts on my website.
The text above would look like this on steemit:
Be sure to check out the rest of the posts on my website.
How To Add Media To Your Posts On Steemit
Media gives an image to a post, which helps your post make a bigger impact and makes it more memorable. Images help us understand the text better, and makes us perceive a post as more credible and of higher value. Of course, try to make your images as helpful and relevant as possible.
The first image in your post is used as your thumbnail when others see your post in their feed. So make sure to choose your first image wisely. Obvisouly, choose the best image you can. Choose one that will make people click on your post. If you have a video in your post before an image, the thumbnail for the video will be the image used as the thumbnail for your post.
You can easily add images or video to your steemit posts. Just drag and drop images on to your post. Make sure you have rights to the images you use, or at least have permission to use them. Depending on the licensing agreement, you may or may not have to give credit to whose image it is.
I use Pixabay.com a lot for free images, but you can get better images on sites that charge for the use of royalty-free images. I also use Canva.com to create my own images for free. It’s limited in its capabilities, but at least you don’t have to learn a complicated program like Photoshop. I’ve paid to have a lot of images made on Fiverr too. You’d be surprised how much you can get done on Fiverr for as little as $5. It has saved me a lot of money and time, while helping me focus on what I do best – content creation.
Videos are almost as easy to add. Just simply copy and paste a Youtube video’s url and it will show up. There’s even an option on Youtube to make the video start at any point you want when they click play to watch it. Ideally, post your own videos on Youtube and then add them to your steemit posts. But if you’re far away from being able to produce your own videos, don’t let that stop you. You can still use other people’s videos, just make sure you add something to it, such as your own thoughts on the subject.
Avoid posting others’ videos and writing a short amount about it. Personally, I think that’s tacky and it looks like yo’ure just trying to take the easy way of producing content for the sake of getting upvotes. Add video when it’s supportive to your post. Don’t just add video to piggyback on someone else’s great content. Produce your own great content and you will do better in the long run.
How To Add Headers To Your Steemit Posts
Headers are another important part of blog posts. They help seperate ideas within your post. By adding headers to your posts you make your posts easier to scan. Readers can scan your headers quickly and decide whether or not they want to read your post. Or they can skip right to the section they want to read. Otherwise, they may feel overwhelmed and be reluctant to read any of it. Headers are also useful for when people who have already read your post want to go back and find something within your post, such as a link.
Headers are also important for search engine optimization (SEO). Header tags tell search engines how important that particular text is. It’s a good idea to put your target key words in your header tags, but only in a way that describes the text below it and makes sense to the reader.
It’s pretty easy to add headers to your posts on steemit. Just add a “#” before the text. For example, an h1 tag would look like this:
Write The Best H1 Tag You Can Think Of
To make an h2 tag, as a subheading, just add another “#” so there’s two of them. For h3 tags you’ll use three #s, and so on.
How To Write A Great Title
Whether it’s for your blog or steemit account, writing good titles for your posts is one of the most important things you can do. Your title is almost always the first thing people read about your post, and it’s often the only thing they read before deciding whether or not to click on it and read it.
When you search for something on google, you see the title and a description below. However, on steemit you only see the title and a photo. That’s why your title and thumbnail image is so important.
Choose a title that catches people’s attention. Use titles like:
10 Best Ways To…
Fastest Way To…
The Ultimate Guide To…
People like numbered lists. They’re easier to break down into smaller chunks. If your post has a high number of tips it will have a high perceived value. People also want the fastest way to get to their desired result. And of course, they want the best way too. So give it to them and let them know in the title what they’re getting out of your post.
How To Add Italics And Bold Text To Steemit Posts
Adding italics and bold text to your steemit posts is similar to adding headers. To italicize text just add a “*” before and after the text you want italicized. For bold text, add 2 *s on each side of the text. For example:
italics
bold
would look like:
italics
bold
Find Other Related Posts On Steemit
You can just posts your content on steemit and hope for the best, but why stop there? An easy way to build a following on steemit is to find other people who are interested in whatever topic(s) you post about. Follow authors of good content similar to yours. That’s one of the best things you can do on steemit. Maybe they’ll even follow you back, especially if you write good comments on their posts. Commenting on others’ posts is like creating your own posts because others can upvote your comments. And if your comment is good enough it may even gain you new followers who are interested in your area of interest. This is particularly beneficial in the beginning when you don’t have many followers yet. If you don’t have followers yet, the only way people will find you is in the “new” section on steemit. Whereas if someone has a thousand followers, their readers may potentially see your comment at the bottom of the post.
Besides commenting on others’ posts, another good tactic is to link to your fresh content on others’ fresh posts. The fresher the better because people don’t visit older posts as much. Just make sure your post you’re linking to is related to the content you’re linking from. And don’t just add your link as your comment on someone’s post. Add a good comment to go with it, preferrably one that shows how your post compliments the one you’re adding a link on.
Create A Series Of Posts
Creating a series of posts can have several benefits. A good series of posts can make readers excited for your next post. There can also be a financial incentive to do so since you can break down one large post and make it into 4 smaller ones, which gives you the potential to get 4 times as many upvotes. But don’t be greedy. It could possibly even backfire on you as people may be less likely to upvote your posts or resteem them. In fact, don’t create a series of posts for the sole reason of making more money from your content. Only do it if it makes sense to the reader.
Another benefit of creating a series of posts on steemit is you can crosslink to and from them. Consider writing the entire series and then spacing them out when you publish them. That way each one is still fresh when they’re reading the other posts that link to them. You don’t earn steem from posts that are older than a week old. Therefore, while linking to a post that’s over a week old is still beneficial, it’s not as beneficial as linking to a post that’s less than a day old. If you post 2 posts a day, for 3 days, that’s a total of 6 posts that one person can upvote if they read each one. Whereas if you link to 5 posts older than a week in your newest post, they’ll only be able to upvote your newest post.
You can mention that your post is part of a series, or not. It all depends on your post. Regardless, having a few related posts written before you publish them gives you the chance to crosslink to and from each one while they’re new enough to still earn money through upvotes.
Consider sharing your steemit posts on other social media sites. If you have a blog on your website where you publish the same posts as you do on steemit, you probably don’t want to exclusively share you steemit posts on Facebook. You’ll still want to drive traffic from Facebook to your website, hopefully to capure their email addresses. But you don’t want to only share your blog posts either. It’s probably a good idea to share a combonation of blog posts from your website and your steemit posts. That way you get the best of both worlds. Turn your Facebook fans in to followers on steemit and they’ll upvote your content so you make more money. And if you don’t have a blog on your website (you should), share all of your steemit posts on sites like Facebook and Twitter.
There are plenty of initiatives on steemit too. They have contests that give rewards and offer more exposure. There’s also groups that curate rewards for undervalued content. Look for initiatives like this that specialize in your niche, if possible.
Get Your Followers Engaged
One of the best ways to build a following is to get your audience engaged. The more engaged they are the more likely they are to become life-long fans that support you in any way they can. A few simple ways to get your followers engaged with your content are:
Thank your followers
Ask them to leave their thoughts in the comments
Hold contests or challenges
Ask questions
Create A Call To Action
Having a call to action in your posts will make your blogging more successful in the long run. A call to action can be something as simple asking your readers to upvote your post or leave a comment below. Only have 1 or 2 calls to action per post.
It’s a good idea to have a call to action at the end of each post. When someone is done reading your post, they have to figure out what to do next. Why not tell them what you want them to do? It’s the Aladin factor – ask and you shall receive. Telling your readers what you’d like them to do greatly increases the chances of them actually doing it.