7 ways to market your blog
by Scott Bird | January 10, 2007
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Blogging
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You've just written a blog post you're really proud of, and you'd like to show it off. Perhaps you'd just appreciate a bit of feedback, or maybe you're hoping to generate a bit of revenue. Whatever the case, here are a few things to consider.
1. Social media
Your first port of call should be the larger social news and bookmarking sites. If your post reaches the front page of any of the following sites, traffic will immediately follow.
NB : this will most likely take the form of a large traffic spike, followed by a gradual increase in your site's traffic over the following months. Make sure you're ready for it.
2. Submit to major sites
In addition to the social news and bookmarking sites are several high-traffic sites which routinely take user-submitted content. The list includes sites such as :
Submission can take the form of an email (Lifehacker, Engadget, Slashdot), a del.icio.us 'for:' tag (TWiT, MacBreak) or a ping (Technorati).
3. Blog carnivals
A blog carnival is a site which gathers good content from a number of blogs in a particular niche, publishing it in a regular newsletter, ezine or link-filled blog post. The content for each of these is often user-submitted, and then reviewed by the blog carnival site owner.
To find out which blog carnivals are best suited to your site's content, head over to
blogcarnival.com.
4. Competitions
No matter whether your blog contains great writing, photography, podcasts or other media, competitions are a great way to drive traffic. Here I'll briefly look at two main types, writing and photo competitions.
Writing competitions
For blogs with a literary bent, writing competitions are the way to go. Regardless of the topic, if you write well, writing competitions are well worth a look.
These fall into two main categories - pre-written and challenge.
Pre-written : as you've no doubt guessed from the name, these competitions look at content you've already produced. It's time to show off your best work.
Challenge : these competitions are for newly-created content only. They pose a challenge, which is generally something posted on your site after the competition start date.
A few personal favourites :
For more writing competitions head over to
Competizione (thanks
Liz).
Photo competitions
Similarly, if you're handy with a camera, photographic competitions are often the way to go. As with writing competitions, these fall into two main categories.
From the archives : the photos you really want to show the world may be the ones you took a while ago, and a number of competitions allow for this 'best of' approach.
Challenge : regardless of whether you're looking at a weekly photographic meme or a competition from a monthly magazine, a photographic challenge takes the same format. A topic or theme is stated, and the best photographs to be submitted (matching that theme) are published.
A couple of personal favourites :
For more, head over to the
Photo Competitions site.
5. Does Google know who you are?
Search for
your own name (in quotes) on Google. Make a note of the sites listed above yours. Also make a note of which of your own sites ranks highest.
One of your long-term goals is to take over the first page of results. Ideally, everyone searching for you by name should see your best work before everyone else's. The ways to do this will be discussed separately, but just keep this goal in mind for now.
6. Comment on other blogs
In addition to the 'sites above yours' list you just created, jot down a few sites which you find interesting, and which have more traffic than yours. Try to keep this list to sites which are related to yours in some way.
The next part is simple. For both lists (the 'sites above yours' and 'interesting sites'), go through and open them all up. Add the feeds (if available) to your favourite feed reader (
I still can't go past Google Reader, largely because I love the
keyboard shortcuts) and read a few posts from each site. Leave comments on them. This will often encourage the owners of those sites to look at yours, starting with your most recent post (if you're quick, this will be the one you're proud of). Google will like the links, and you'll like the traffic.
7. Keep doing it
In order to continually grow your traffic (and feedback, and income), keep performing the above steps. Keep producing great content, keep submitting entries to competitions and blog carnivals, and keep commenting on other blogs.
You'll be well rewarded.
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