How to Promote Your Blog?

Jeremy Long Chia Teik

You have got your blog up and running on the internet. The next obvious thing to take care of will be to devise promotional strategies that will make your blog visible to others. This requires a certain extent of planning on what kind of tools that you want to apply to the formation of promotional strategies for your blog. These strategies should be given a fair amount of consideration before applying them.

Strategies for blog promotion are many. Nonetheless, what's listed below are proven strategies that should work effectively for your blog.

(1) Search engines and blog directoriesWeb directories such as Yahoo and search engines such as Google surfaced to catalog all new sites that are being created. Directories prominently used are Technorati , Blogwise , Blo.gs just to name a few. Send your newly created blog to such directories and search engines for indexing. Your blog will be made visible promptly.

(2) Apt description of your blog to your targeted audienceWrite a short and apt description of your blog ; the description must fit the type of audience that you have targeted. Whatever benefits that readers can get from reading your blog must be clearly pointed out. One of the strategies for blog promotion requires you to let your readers know the real reason why they should read your blog in the first instance. What's in your blog for them? You can support this strategy by using "tagging" which essentially is a subject or category description that you are attaching to your blog and to each individual blog post. This will make your blog more easily searchable by others. Tagging can be done with your posts on directories such as Technorati, for instance you can add tags like "London" and "shopping" to a particular post so that your blog will show up when others search for these topics in blog search engines.

(3) Make use of the "ping"The "pinging" action will enable you to automatically alert readers that you have written a new post on your blog. This action is executed through the various blog directories and other services that do publish blog updates. Upon publishing your latest post, you will "ping" directories and search engines. The latter will search for the new content on your blog. The "pinging" action will show your blog up in a list of recently updated blogs. To save you the time of "pinging" major search engines and directories separately, you can perform this action in one huge ping , by making use of BlogExplosion , Pingoat or Ping-O-Matic . It is important to remember that you need to "ping" only once. Take note that this "ping" act is one of the more important strategies for blog promotion that should not be neglected.

(4) Two-way commentsIf you want to get more traffic, one way is to post your comments on the blogs of others. You should also allow others to post their comments on your blog too. Your perceptions on your blog can be read by others. Posting your comments is in effect equivalent to your contribution to a discussion with other bloggers. Anything topic that is insightful and interesting will surely draw more readers to your blog. It is a door to the building up of your reputation as an expert in your industry. The provision and availability of good helpful resources and relevant links to the topic in question will please the readers and should help to add value to the discussion.

(5) Performing exchanging of links with othersLinking up with other blogs and getting linked back to your own blog is a proven strategy that is intrinsically perfect integration with the blogging model. Readers will be able to access more sources of information on your blog. Your blog will be able to capture more traffic as other blogs link up with your blog. Importantly, the incoming links to your blog should be absolutely relevant to the content of your blog. This is another vital strategy for blog promotion, simply because if the incoming links originate from relevant high-traffic sites, your blog's search engine ranking will be positively affected. Links can be placed within individual posts.

(6) Put "trackback" to full useIn blogging, you can use "trackback" to the list of other blogs that have linked to particular posts on your blog. You can locate these in the comments section under each post. With this feature enabled through your blog software, each time someone makes a link to a post on blog, you will be informed via an automated message from the other blog, and in return, your blog software will automatically add a link to the other blog below the post that is being referred to. You can use Haloscan where you can find free trackback tools to manage.

(7) Good quality contentWhat's needed most on your blog is content. Content must be of quality in order to attract readers. If you want to write real good content, you must ensure two things:(a) Information that you give on your blog must be unique. Give expert content from various perspectives.
(b) Keep yourself informed and abreast of latest developments in your industry. Be the one to make the first spin of news.

(8) Create repeat trafficReaders come and go. The solution to this scenario will be for you to write new post on new topic every day. It appears to be hard work, but there isn't much choice if traffic is to be repeated. Remember that the content must be great. This is a vital strategy for blog promotion, especially for the purpose of generating repeat traffic. Writing up a series of posts will help in getting repeat traffic as readers will come back for more revelation from the future post. You can even try to request from your readers their email addresses, so that you can notify them of your new updates. This is essentially building up an opt-in list that opens the door to numerous email marketing opportunities.

(9) Social bookmarking, blog awards, web ringJoin social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us that permits users to share their favorite web sites with one another. Just "tag" to your blog posts and readers will be able to bookmark your site in their Del.icio.us account. Another great social bookmarking is Digg. Blog awards are given out online. You can participate for the fun and traffic that it will potentially drive to your blog. You can also join a web ring where you can find many groups of like-minded people who may fall into your category of target audience. This will enable you to build your relationship with them on same platform.

To make your blog effective, you will have to work hard on your content. Using the above listed strategies for blog promotion, you will be able to drive traffic to your blog, as well as succeed in your creation of repeat traffic. So, put these strategies to good use and blow away your competition.

Search Engine Strategies (SES) Workshops Now Available Online

Marketers gain expert SEM advice at an economical price point
SES Workshop
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Search Engine Strategies announced today that it is bringing its popular Search Engine Optimization (SES) workshops online. Presented in tandem with Market Motive, these in-depth courses offer marketers the opportunity to learn about SEO tools for better ranking, paid search, advanced analytics, and more.

Internet marketing expert Andy Beal recently reviewed Market Motive online training. "Market Motive's media-consulting combination is effective and teaches online marketing in a way that works for the beginner or the experienced practitioner," said Beal, "I'm impressed, and the guys behind this are the best in the business."

For more than ten years, savvy marketers have converged at SES events around the world to glean the latest advice on new search engine marketing (SEM) trends and techniques. However, the slow economy and shrinking travel budgets make attendance a challenge for some marketing professionals. Search Engine Strategies’ new online workshops make it easy to interact with SEM experts at a lower price point. Spring/summer workshops include:
10 Ways to Attract People and Gain Rankings in the Search Engines

Tuesday, May 13, at 9-11am PDT, 12-2pm EDT: $395
This session teaches attendees how to create a user-friendly site that dominates the rankings. The first part of the session focuses on the technical requirements for search engines to properly “see” your website and all of the information necessary to be included in the rankings. The second half of the session will explain the common factors that are important to website visitors and rankings.

Paid Search 101, 201, 301, and 401, All in One Workshop
Thursday, June 5, at 9-11am PDT, 12-2pm EDT: $395

This three-part workshop covers:
The fundamentals of paid search, with a focus on practical steps and checks you can apply to your campaigns for immediate improvement: improving your term list, ad copy, and choice of landing pages.

Insider advice on match types, day-parting, economic bidding, and the role of your brand in paid search

Advanced topics, including how to determine how much to spend on advertising, multichannel strategy and tracking, conversion as the ultimate PPC weapon, and on-page testing
Advanced Analytics: Enlightenment through KPIs

Thursday, June 26, at 9-11am PDT, 12-2pm EDT: $395
If you log into your web analytics tool, and don't know what to do next, this class is for you. This session strips away the SEO buzzwords, enabling attendees to constructing key performance indicators that drive decisions. Participants will learn about the common factors that are important to website visitors and rankings.

SEO Tools for Better Ranking
Tuesday, July 22, at 9-11am PDT, 12-2pm EDT: $395
During this session, attendees will learn about the different types of information that are most important to a site's ranking, and how to identify them with a set of tools. This workshop will investigate tools for competitive analysis, on-page optimization, page level information, site level information, indexing information, and off-page information.

“There’s certainly been a demand for additional search engine marketing (SEO/SEM) training options,” said Kevin Ryan, VP and global content director for Search Engine Strategies and SearchEngineWatch.com, properties of Incisive Media. “Market Motive was the logical partnership; they’ve brought their expertise to the Search Engine Strategies shows and now our intensive online workshops give marketers yet another great resource to stay up to speed on these need-to-know techniques.”

To register for SES Online Workshops, please visit http://www.marketmotive.com/online-workshops.

About Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC -- A Division of Incisive Media PLC
Incisive Media PLC is a specialist business information provider, based in the UK with offices in North America, Hong Kong, India and Mainland China. The company's activities are currently built around ten core industry sectors - mortgages; marketing services; financial technology; retail investment; capital markets; risk management; insurance; legal services; private equity and photography. Information is provided via a wide range of channels--in print, in person and online. Funds advised by Apax Partners, a leading global private equity group, recently completed the successful de-listing of Incisive Media from the London Stock Exchange alongside the existing management.

Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC is the marketing services division of the company and incorporates leading websites Search Engine Watch, the ClickZ Network and their associated events series including Search Engine Strategies. These properties were acquired in 2005.