PART 1: NO-COST STRATEGIES
You took the plunge and launched a Blog! Congratulations. You joined the millions in the Blogosphere who are sharing their thoughts and opinions with the world. It is a big commitment. That took courage!
Perhaps your Blog is about your business, career or occupation? Commercial real estate. Law. Accounting. Lending. Etc. Or perhaps your Blog is focused on a pastime about which you are passionate? Cooking. Travel. Bicycling. Snowboarding. Politics. Etc. Whether personal or professional, the most important next step for your Blog is to have readers. Now that you’ve designed and launched your Blog and have blogged a few times, you’ll want people to read it or else you’ll lose interest in Blogging. After all, if you were writing only for yourself, you wouldn’t be posting it online and it would be called a Diary, not a Blog.
So, how do you increase your Blog’s readership? Do you have to spend money to promote a Blog? The answer is yes and no. On the one hand, not all techniques for promoting your Blog requires you to spend money. Some strategies are completely free. This week we’ll examine a host of strategies to promote your Blog for free. Some of these tips will help you get people you already know to read your Blog, and some strategies will help you reach people you don’t know but might have an interest in your Blog or a particular Blog topic.
Free promotional tips
1. Send an email.
Email your friends, colleagues and contacts about a new blog post that may interest them. Eventually, you hope they’ll register to receive the postings automatically.
2. Send a tweet.
Set up a Twitter account and send a message to your ‘followers’ about a new blog post that may interest them.
3. Register link
Add a “Register for My Blog” link on your signature block so that everyone who gets your emails will have an easy way to subscribe to your Blog.
4. Recent post link
Add a “My Most Recent Blog Post” link to your signature block so everyone you email can go to your most recent posting.
5. Submit to RSS directories.
6. Submit to Blog directories.
7. Submit to general directories.
8. Comment on DoFollow Blogs
9. Try 2nd tier social media sites.
Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and del.icio.us aren’t the only social media sites out there. Small sites that are focused on a specific niche can be extremely effective. Best of all, success with one of these sites can lead to success with the major ones. Find a social media sites whose audience would be a good match with your content.
10. Participate in Blog carnivals.
A Blog carnival is a collection of links to Blog posts that all cover a certain topic, and it is published on a host blog. Anyone can submit links to be included in Blog carnivals (although there is no guarantee the host will include your link). Blog carnivals may not generate a lot of traffic for you, but it’s an easy way to get the first few links and get things rolling. It will only take 5 or 10 minutes to submit your links to several carnivals. For a list of current carnivals, go to BlogCarnivals.com. As an example of a Blog carnival, go to http://theincomeblog.com/a-real-estate-investing-carnival-august-30-2010, which is a Blog carnival for real estate investors.
11. Funnel traffic from other pages on your site/Blog.
Create some links on other pages of your website that get the most traffic. You can also funnel traffic by including a link in the footer of your RSS feed.
12. Make Reciprocal Link Agreements with other Bloggers.
Find Blogs that are appropriate and email the owner with your request. You could include a link back to them in an upcoming post, your blogroll, or anywhere else. Many bloggers publish a daily or weekly post of interesting links. These bloggers would be good to target.
13. Email Bloggers who might be interested.
Look for Bloggers who might be interested. Find a popular blog post on a related topic and do a Technorati search to see who is linking to that specific post. Contact them to let them know about your post and maybe they may link to you as well.
14. Leave comments with the URL of your post on other Blogs.
When you leave a comment on another blog you are able to leave the URL of your blog. Most people always leave the URL of their homepage, but why not leave some comments with the URL of a specific post? This will work best when you are commenting on Blog posts that are related to the one to which you are linking.
15. Post a link in Blogging forums.
You may be able to find bloggers that like your post and are willing to link to it by doing a little promotion in forums. If you try this, be sure to promote it in a place that allows this type of thing. The best way to do it is to find some threads on the same topic as your post and leave the link as a resource. This way you are providing more information for people who are seeking it rather than just blindly throwing a link out to the forum.
16. Consider doing a press release.
Depending on the type of content, you may have some success with a press release. For a press release to work, the release must have something very noteworthy. Editors get thousands of press releases each day. You can submit free press releases at www.i-newswire.com and www.prbuzz.com.
Next week, we’ll examine additional strategies on how to promote your Blog with a small marketing budget.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” Will Rogers
© 2010 – 2011, Keren Peters-Atkinson. All rights reserved.
