Blog Marketing

Hi...
I am considering starting my blog. I Was just wondering. What are the tricks people do to make their blogs very popular? I don't want to end up with a blog where nobody will be reading but me!

 

If you figure out how to do it, let me know would ya? I'd like to know as well

 

Write about interesting subjects, and people will start reading your blog. It's as simple as that

Of course, there's a few things you can do. Submit your blog to all the Blog Directories, stick to one focused subject and make sure you have all the blog features (i.e. RSS feeds, comments, trackback, etc).

 

IMO a blog is like an online newspaper or magazine…people will read it if they are interested in the topics you're writing on.

Just like any other site you need to find ways to promote your blog online. I don't think there's any "secret" that can instantly position your blog as "successful".

Set goals for yourself and your blog & judge yourself against your progress on meeting those goals.

 

If you're considering starting a blog that relates to your business ( online), try to avoid strong marketing hype. Blogs are good because they personalize your business but they only do it if you support the candid, informal style. If however, you intend to use it for promotion of whatever you want to promote, make it subtle, so that not to scare everyone away.

Also it might be a good idea to start different kinds of contests from time to time: they generate a lot of interest.

 

If you have a My Yahoo account, you can add your site there, which gets you into their listings of RSS sites. They update it based on how often you historically have updated your blog, and other people can add it to their My Yahoo pages if they like it.

To add it, go to Choose Content and you should be able to figure out how to add your link from there.

 

Does anyone actually read other blogs? I struggle to find enough time just to keep up-to-date with forums, and don't read any blogs anywhere.

 

there are numerous directories you can submit your blog to - find a few, and post links on some more active blogs.

 

I do. There are some great ones out there on just about every topic if you look hard enough.

 

I pretty much only read blogs if one comes up in a search.

Probably if you talk a lot about unique things, people will find you. For example, I was doing a search for some information about law school and found a blog for a guy who goes to the same law school as I do. He has a bit more limited of a potential audience, but at least people may find his blog.

 

What are you going to BLOG about? That's the primary thing that matters.

Is it controversial or political?

If you're going to start a blog about knitting you can kiss traffic goodbye

 

What's wrong with knitting? If you can get all the grandmas online to read it, you are set!

 

I suggest hosting it on your own site. I have mine at http://blogger.thinkbling.com The reason for this is because you want to add the content to your own site instead of adding it to Blogger or Blogspot.

Make sure you make your xml feed available and that there is a link to it.

Add your blog to blog directories and/or blog aggregating site.

Lastly, add it to forums like this that show your most recent blog title in your posts, although I believe that DigitalPoint is one of the original implementers of this.

 

Find out who the popular bloggers are on your topic or close to, and do a post about their blog, make some positive comments. Make sure you have a pumping blog with good content. Then email them and just let them know you enjoy reading their blog and here is the address for your's if they are interested. If you are lucky they may post about your blog.

I read http://thehomelessguy.blogspot.com/ when I have time. This guy has a lot of interesting things to say and shares a lot about how he is going. So I like to check in every now and then to read his blog. BTW it's in the top 10 for a g search on 'homeless' so pretty easy for everyone to find. He has been blogging for a few years, but recently went off-line and didn't reconnect his old archives.

Other than that it's good old fashioned sem, getting listed in searches, directories etc.

 

When I started bloggin a few months back, i was kinda doing it just to keep notes concerning our website. If I changed text, if Gbot hit us hard, our best day for unique hits, etc. Didn't expect people to read it, nor did I care. But a few peeps do, and I found one guy who links his blog to mine. I do stop by to read the G Blog - and i guess Y has one now too.

 

I'd like to recommend my article at:
http://www.misohoni.com/diary/2004_07.php#000232


...and if you have an Asian Blog you can submit it at:
http://www.misohoni.com/bba/

 

just be yourself - write often - get an RSS feed - read other bloggers and link to them - comment (genuinely) on others blogs - submit your site to search engines, directories - optimize it for SEs (like you would any other site) - define your boundaries (I like niche topics best) - have fun - don't take yourself too seriously.

I could go on....

 

My site is a blog style website. But for promotion the following steps I would recommend:

First don't expect to much from submitting your rss feed to things like feedster, etc... but yes sumbit to tha mayor ones like technirati, Syndic8 etc.. and make it a habbit to ping them after an update. Automaticly ( as in Movable type or manualy with http://pingomatic.com/.

Submit just like normal site to all the directories and searchengines.

The great advantage in blogging is the easy linking. If you do have original content. Use bloglinker or other ones you like. But start making link exchanges with blogs that have related content.

Update often, or your visitors will not come again.

my 2 cts..

Hans

 

The pitfall of new bloggers is not theming a blog. Readers are not interested in your day to day, and there are so many journal style blogs out there that already get very little traffic.

If you look at the successful 'professional' blog publishers like Gawker Media and Weblogs Inc, they've all themed the blogs in their network, and the authors rarely deviate from their given topic.