Some Uncommon But Outstanding Blog Promotion Tips!
Written by Usha Bhavani on Monday, May 16, 2011 under Blogs, SEO | 0 Comments
======================================================
If there’s one question I’ve been asked over and over again, it’s “how to promote my blog?” “Blog promotion” can be the most despised word for some. I believe it’s just the discouraged screaming “sour grapes.” But I understand why this is happening.
Blog Promotion
By the time you finish reading this article; hundreds of new blogs will have been created. The blogosphere is becoming more crowded and highly competitive with each passing moment – making it harder to secure a place at the top. No wonder people have a problem promoting a blog using many of the age-old methods. Not all of them work anymore! This results in many bloggers “giving up.” There’s a reason why the Web is full of abandoned and unattended blogs.
On the other extreme, there are bloggers who have achieved great success and the sun shines on them every single day. The current scenario calls for ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking and using SEO tools and blog promotion methods that work today, in the growing new marketplace and changing search algorithms. An innovative approach is necessary if you don’t want to be trodden upon by the ‘smarter’ marketer.
By the time you finish reading this article; hundreds of new blogs will have been created. The blogosphere is becoming more crowded and highly competitive with each passing moment – making it harder to secure a place at the top. No wonder people have a problem promoting a blog using many of the age-old methods. Not all of them work anymore! This results in many bloggers “giving up.” There’s a reason why the Web is full of abandoned and unattended blogs.
On the other extreme, there are bloggers who have achieved great success and the sun shines on them every single day. The current scenario calls for ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking and using SEO tools and blog promotion methods that work today, in the growing new marketplace and changing search algorithms. An innovative approach is necessary if you don’t want to be trodden upon by the ‘smarter’ marketer.
What is “Blog Promotion?”
For the purpose of this discussion, it’s just that – promotion. It involves acknowledging that you need visitors to meet the goals of your blog. It involves developing the right attitude that your blog has to serve your visitors who could be potential customers, and it’s crucial to get it out of your mind that it’s the other way round.
I’m not going to bore you with a long spiel on what blog promotion is. Considering you have good content, used appropriate on-page SEO, Let’s take a look at some of the uncommon but very effective tips you can use to promote your blog. I don’t see many bloggers implementing them. The best way to go about it is to choose a couple that you would enjoy doing, and focus all your efforts on them for some time, until you start seeing results.
Without further ado, here they are…
Social Blogmarking
This isn’t a typo – I do mean Blogmarking. This is a new form of blog promotion where you write a post on your blog first, then submit your post to an active blogmarking site.
Unlike social bookmarking, where everything revolves around the power users who get to choose posts that are to be featured on the homepage; blogmarking works differently.
The articles that get to the front page are not dependant on the domain name or on who submits them. Your post gets a ranking based on the number of votes from active users. A catchy title and quality content is all it takes to get to the front page, and if you succeed in doing that, you will see a stream of traffic. The quality of traffic from these sites is great.
The only blogmarking site I used is Blogengage.com and it’s wonderful. But there are others that are supposed to be good too: Blokube.com; BizSugar.com; and DesignFloat.com (for blogs with design news only).
Content Syndication
We all know and have used article directories for many years now. There are some great article directories out there that can be used for blog promotion.
Content syndication puts a twist to this method and offers excellent results. You are going to leverage the power of top websites and blogs in your niche. In fact, this is called high-profile content syndication.
If you have a blog about parenting, you could submit your articles to momsnetwork.com, which is one of the most popular parenting websites online. For Tech websites, there is Makezine.com. Similarly, if your blog is on Internet Marketing, then your articles can be submitted to Mashable.com, BetterNetworker.com, and Site-Reference.com.
The niche you’re in doesn’t matter, as there are plenty of popular content syndication websites out there that could help promote your blog and send tons of visitors your way.
Talking of content syndication, we cannot afford to miss out on Ning.
Ning Communities are thousands of Social Networks online centered around almost all types of niches.
Visit Ning.com and find a community specific to your niche/topic. Make sure you join a community that has at least 1,000 members, and make your presence felt. You can submit articles within all the Ning communities and they get to the FRONT PAGE.
Tip: You must ensure that you syndicate your blog content only to reputed portals that are related to your niche.
Secret Blogging Groups
I know how this sounds, but yes there are many that not many people know of. As long as you join the right groups, there is nothing illegal about it.
They consist of groups of bloggers, usually numbered around 50. These groups help each other in several ways, with the main goal of driving traffic to each other’s blogs. They share each other’s posts with their followers on social networking sites and everywhere else, and all of them stand to gain in the long-term, since the blogs are exposed to a larger audience.
Since these groups are heavily moderated, there won’t be any spam and you retain the right to share only links related to your niche, and that too if you feel they are worthy. An example of a good club is DailyBlogTipsRetweetClub. Most of these secret clubs are by invitation only, so you may want to find out if anyone you know are in the clubs and get in or create a club of your own and have your friends or known marketers join in.
Networking
All other tips to promote your blog given here don’t really need you investing much of your time, but this one requires your time. This is the best advice I can give you on blog promotion. Being a successful blogger is all about linking with other bloggers, engaging in conversations with them and being a part of the community of bloggers who take care of each other.
Initially, it may seem like a big botheration and if you’re a new blogger, you’d be apprehensive approaching the established bloggers. But believe me, it works!
By networking, I’m talking about commenting on others blogs, emailing bloggers when you post new content on yours that will be of interest to them, responding to comments on your blogs, guest blogging, asking others to guest blog on yours, connecting with other bloggers on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Since it takes time to build trust, don’t expect to see results too soon or expect other bloggers to be pally right from day one, this isn’t going to happen. If you think the top bloggers are too busy and you may not be noticed, look for slightly less-known blogs with good activity and traffic.
Networking can get you amazing amounts of traffic, as long as you stick to it and let your reputation as the “go-to” blogger grow.
It All Boils Down To Getting Word Out About Your Blog
Over the years, I’ve seen that focusing your blog promotion efforts more on connecting with new readers is the only way you can boost your blog traffic. This means, you got to get word out about your blog to new groups of people. Try and spend time on networking, blogmarking, syndication and in groups, but make networking your major focus. This will help you in the long-run.
To promote your blog in practice is harder than talking about it, but when you see your visitor or subscriber count grow and your sales shoot up, you will heave a sigh of relief that it was all worth it. Witnessing success is all you need for added motivation and incentive.
For the purpose of this discussion, it’s just that – promotion. It involves acknowledging that you need visitors to meet the goals of your blog. It involves developing the right attitude that your blog has to serve your visitors who could be potential customers, and it’s crucial to get it out of your mind that it’s the other way round.
I’m not going to bore you with a long spiel on what blog promotion is. Considering you have good content, used appropriate on-page SEO, Let’s take a look at some of the uncommon but very effective tips you can use to promote your blog. I don’t see many bloggers implementing them. The best way to go about it is to choose a couple that you would enjoy doing, and focus all your efforts on them for some time, until you start seeing results.
Without further ado, here they are…
Social Blogmarking
This isn’t a typo – I do mean Blogmarking. This is a new form of blog promotion where you write a post on your blog first, then submit your post to an active blogmarking site.
Unlike social bookmarking, where everything revolves around the power users who get to choose posts that are to be featured on the homepage; blogmarking works differently.
The articles that get to the front page are not dependant on the domain name or on who submits them. Your post gets a ranking based on the number of votes from active users. A catchy title and quality content is all it takes to get to the front page, and if you succeed in doing that, you will see a stream of traffic. The quality of traffic from these sites is great.
The only blogmarking site I used is Blogengage.com and it’s wonderful. But there are others that are supposed to be good too: Blokube.com; BizSugar.com; and DesignFloat.com (for blogs with design news only).
Content Syndication
We all know and have used article directories for many years now. There are some great article directories out there that can be used for blog promotion.
Content syndication puts a twist to this method and offers excellent results. You are going to leverage the power of top websites and blogs in your niche. In fact, this is called high-profile content syndication.
If you have a blog about parenting, you could submit your articles to momsnetwork.com, which is one of the most popular parenting websites online. For Tech websites, there is Makezine.com. Similarly, if your blog is on Internet Marketing, then your articles can be submitted to Mashable.com, BetterNetworker.com, and Site-Reference.com.
The niche you’re in doesn’t matter, as there are plenty of popular content syndication websites out there that could help promote your blog and send tons of visitors your way.
Talking of content syndication, we cannot afford to miss out on Ning.
Ning Communities are thousands of Social Networks online centered around almost all types of niches.
Visit Ning.com and find a community specific to your niche/topic. Make sure you join a community that has at least 1,000 members, and make your presence felt. You can submit articles within all the Ning communities and they get to the FRONT PAGE.
Tip: You must ensure that you syndicate your blog content only to reputed portals that are related to your niche.
Secret Blogging Groups
I know how this sounds, but yes there are many that not many people know of. As long as you join the right groups, there is nothing illegal about it.
They consist of groups of bloggers, usually numbered around 50. These groups help each other in several ways, with the main goal of driving traffic to each other’s blogs. They share each other’s posts with their followers on social networking sites and everywhere else, and all of them stand to gain in the long-term, since the blogs are exposed to a larger audience.
Since these groups are heavily moderated, there won’t be any spam and you retain the right to share only links related to your niche, and that too if you feel they are worthy. An example of a good club is DailyBlogTipsRetweetClub. Most of these secret clubs are by invitation only, so you may want to find out if anyone you know are in the clubs and get in or create a club of your own and have your friends or known marketers join in.
Networking
All other tips to promote your blog given here don’t really need you investing much of your time, but this one requires your time. This is the best advice I can give you on blog promotion. Being a successful blogger is all about linking with other bloggers, engaging in conversations with them and being a part of the community of bloggers who take care of each other.
Initially, it may seem like a big botheration and if you’re a new blogger, you’d be apprehensive approaching the established bloggers. But believe me, it works!
By networking, I’m talking about commenting on others blogs, emailing bloggers when you post new content on yours that will be of interest to them, responding to comments on your blogs, guest blogging, asking others to guest blog on yours, connecting with other bloggers on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Since it takes time to build trust, don’t expect to see results too soon or expect other bloggers to be pally right from day one, this isn’t going to happen. If you think the top bloggers are too busy and you may not be noticed, look for slightly less-known blogs with good activity and traffic.
Networking can get you amazing amounts of traffic, as long as you stick to it and let your reputation as the “go-to” blogger grow.
It All Boils Down To Getting Word Out About Your Blog
Over the years, I’ve seen that focusing your blog promotion efforts more on connecting with new readers is the only way you can boost your blog traffic. This means, you got to get word out about your blog to new groups of people. Try and spend time on networking, blogmarking, syndication and in groups, but make networking your major focus. This will help you in the long-run.
To promote your blog in practice is harder than talking about it, but when you see your visitor or subscriber count grow and your sales shoot up, you will heave a sigh of relief that it was all worth it. Witnessing success is all you need for added motivation and incentive.
(source:http://topics.dirwell.com)
======================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment