What are the first things you do to promote your blog

So you have sorted out the template, all the content is perfect and your good to go. What are the first things you do to get visitors? I have submitted my blog to a few directories but thats about it at the moment, any tips?
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Submitting your blog to lots of directories will help only a little if no one knows about it yet. I have a few suggestions that might help you:

1. Write down your blog's URL in your signature every time you post in a forum.
2. Join mybloglog.com and visit other related blogs there.
3. Actively and genuinely give comments in other blogs and write down also a link to your blog.
4. Do link exchanges with related blogs.
5. Use pinging services like pingomatic.com every time you post something.
6. Join some more blog communities to get more exposure. You'll have to be actively visiting other blogs there too for a start.

From my experience, doing all the above should bring you at least 40 visitors a day on your first two weeks.

Anyone else care to add for other tips?

 

Thank you very much for that - very helpful
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I'd add to that: bookmark your blog and/or blog posts in sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Furl, Delicious, and other social networks. Submit your RSS feed to some RSS directories and search engines. Add it to your forum signature and start posting about related topics in relevant forums. And now I'm going to go do everything Fennimore suggested for my own blogs

 

Thanks alot for the help penni.

I'll use that to promote my very new blog.

 

you can also promote your blog by writing or buying some unique articles. search engine love UNIQUE everything.
also try to exchange link with other high pr blogs.

 

I submit my blog to blog directories, use the URL of my blog as a sig in forums and I submit it to social bookmarking site. I also exchange link with related sites or blog.

 

along with all the things already mentioned here .. make sure to ping the blog after you add content .

 

submitting blog on free & paid directories and also link trading, thats the good thing

 

Prepare some high quality posts (10+) and contact established blogs for link exchange.

 

1. install some kind of tagging program for places such as digg, tecnorati etc
2. write some good content post (so ur blog is active)
3. submit to directories for initial backlinks
4. write some more post.
5. submit your rss feeds to feed directories.

 

thaks for the info
x

 

alisha,

I suggest getting a StumbleUpon button on your page on your posts. Also, "stumble" your blog. You should get some visitors as a result. Two months ago, I set up my WP blog and wrote about how I benefited. Here's the post:

StumbleUpon traffic is great for a new site

 

Thanks for sharing. Good post. Rep+

4. Do you automate your link exchange process or you contact the webmaster personally?
5. How do you deal with spammy comments?

 

First of all, make it in Wordpress and use UTC.
Then tag every relevant keyword.

You're half way there already!

 

Thanks for the rep

I've never automated my link exchange process because too many of that in unrelated sites will appear to Google as link spamming. I've always contacted the webmasters / blog owners personally, but not on my first visit.

Here's a tip:

Put their links in your own blog first before you contact them. Say something like, "I've enjoyed reading your site [you could mention one topic in particular] and added your link in my blog." If they think that your blog is interesting, then they won't mind doing the same.

As for spammy comments, well, that's one heck of a problem we can't avoid, is it? If they ask for a link exchange, always remember to put relevance over anything else. It's no use, for example, to link your Dora the Explorer blog to some free lesbian porn site (no matter how much Dora the Explorer resembles the name of a sex toy )

 

1. Blog Submissions / RSS Submissions
RSS feed submissions can be found in the left column at: http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm

2. Post Press Releases to Online Resources
A list of sites that allow for press release posting can be found under 'press release posting' . A number are available at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/pressreleases.html

3. Post Announcement on Usenet
To locate topic-specific announce groups, consider searching http://www.newsguy.com to locate groups specific to related topics.

4. Post to Forums
Favorite Feeds - http://www.feedforall.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=3
Your Blog Announcements - http://www.forum4bloggers.com/viewforum.php?f=12
Got Blog - http://www.blogomania.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=7
Announce Software, Blogs or Relationships - http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=5

5. Promote & Auto Detect Blog Feeds
Graphics experience is not required. Simply select alternative colors and insert text to personalize RSS feed graphics. The RSS graphics tool can be used by clicking the following URL http://www.feedforall.com/public/rss-graphic-tool.htm or choose ready made graphics from: http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-graphics.htm .

 

1. Stumbleupon
2. Onlywire.com
3. Have a sig to your blog
4. Submit to directories (the rss and non-rss)
5. Write articles and submit different versions of them to article directories (not 1 article to every directory)
and everything listed above that I have not mentioned

 

Read this excellent article: 21 Tips for a successful blog launch.

 

Thanks for the article, really useful