Message from Michelle
Hope everyone had a fantastic Fourth of July. I had a wonderful weekend relaxing and boating. This year, I experienced a firework display as never before. We anchored the boat in Charleston Harbor and had an amazing opportunity to watch the fireworks right in front of the USS Yorktown, where the fireworks were launched.
This issue of S?mèr’s Secrets is about blog marketing and promotion. Too many people put up business blogs and neglect them. Or they frequently post but don’t do anything to interact with readers or other bloggers.
Having a successful blog requires more than simply posting on a regular basis. To be a successful blogger, you need to have readership, and you need to interact with the online community. Using a blog to its full potential means you’re marketing and promoting it online in a proper manner and writing posts that offer valuable industry tips, statistics, and information to readers.
Connect With Me Online at:
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/writtenbysumer
Facebook: www.facebook.com/michelle.salater
Blog: writtenbysumer.com/articles
How to Get the Most Out of Your Blog
Blogs are an excellent online platform to provide valuable industry news and tips to your target market, but they are also an integral part of marketing and promoting your business online. Blog posts that provide value to your readers help position you as an expert in your field and a credible source for viable information.
If you want a successful blog–one with a large readership and one that brings you customers–simply posting regularly isn’t enough. You need to market and promote your business blog. Setting aside an hour or two each week to market your blog will help increase readership, position you as an expert, and grow your client base. If you’re not using your blog properly and to its full potential, you are missing out on increasing website traffic and boosting sales.
Below are 9 steps to effectively market and promote your blog:
Step 1: Attach the RSS feed widget to your blog: RSS feed stands for Really Simple Syndication, which is a file containing a brief amount of information–a headline and synopsis–and a link to the full content on the blog. Voluntary subscribers to specific blog RSS feed will receive this information through their RSS readers. Search engines can detect if your blog is high quality based on how many people subscribe to your blog’s RSS feed. In addition, search engines can detect how many people visit your blog from their RSS readers and how many times they click through to your blog.
Step 2: Import blog posts into your social media sites: With a large concentration of companies and individuals using social media sites to communicate, it’s important to import your blog into social media sites. Nearly all social media sites allow you to import your blog into your profile, including some of the most popular social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Importing your blog allows your target market to post comments and share posts with friends. Whenever a comment is posted on your blog from a reader via Facebook, the comment is visible on the reader’s minifeed, which can be seen by all of the reader’s friends.
Step 3: Create a blog marketing and promotion schedule: Creating a strict marketing and promotion schedule ensures you will stay organized and current with its promotion. Each week, set aside time to comment on like-minded blogs, ask other bloggers if you can be a guest blogger, or ask others to guest blog for you, and request to be on like-minded blogrolls. Don’t forget to set aside time to track your blog posts and recycle posts into articles.
Step 4: Comment on like-minded blogs: One thing many bloggers don’t realize is the importance of commenting on other blogs. Commenting on like-minded blogs is a powerful networking tool and works to increase inbound links to your own blog. Your comments should be relevant to the blog topic, add value and your expertise to what is being said in the blog, give positive feedback, peak the interest of the author and other viewers, provide links to similar pieces you may have written about the subject, and have a link to your email and website below each comment.
Step 5: Approach popular, like-minded bloggers, and ask if you could be a guest blogger: Search engines look highly upon blogs mentioned on other blogs because it illustrates that your blog provides intellectual material that ignites curiosity and discussion in the online community. Aside from other blogs, if search engines find your blog’s URL on social media sites and social bookmarking sites, these social media sites consider this a positive indicator that your blog is high quality.
Step 6: Approach popular, like-minded bloggers, and ask if they would be a guest blogger on your blog: Requesting like-minded bloggers to be guest bloggers is the perfect way to build relationships online and increase exposure. The more people you can touch and build working relationships with, the more likely you are to successfully market and promote your blog. Having guest bloggers also shows you are interested in what others have to say and are striving to find the best possible industry information available.
Step 7: Request to be on popular, like-minded bloggers’ blogrolls: After commenting on other blogs and requesting to be a guest blogger–and vice versa–it’s time to request to be on those bloggers’ blogrolls. Since you have a basis of a relationship with most of these bloggers now, you are more likely to receive a yes to be on their blogroll. Being present on other blogrolls helps increase inbound links and drive targeted traffic to your blog and website.
Step 8: Track blog posts: Tracking the popularity of specific posts helps you see what topics are of interest to your readers. Regularly tracking your blog also helps you track key phrases people use to find your blog and the amount of click-throughs you receive.
Step 9: Recycle posts into articles: Recycling past blog posts into online articles helps to increase inbound links, position you as an expert in your field, and reach thousands of potential customers. Articles are the perfect way to recycle important and valuable information and share it with thousands of individuals who have never visited your blog before.
Tip of the Month
Although it is hard to judge how many blogs are created, Wordpress (a very popular blog platform) reported 2,906,086 new blogs created on just their platform in 2008.
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Google's Blog Ranking Criteria Revealed: Part I . . .
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Google’s Blog Ranking Criteria Revealed: Part II . . .
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How to Avoid Bloggers’ Block
How to Get the Most Out of Your Blog
by Michelle Salater on July 10, 2009
Message from Michelle
Hope everyone had a fantastic Fourth of July. I had a wonderful weekend relaxing and boating. This year, I experienced a firework display as never before. We anchored the boat in Charleston Harbor and had an amazing opportunity to watch the fireworks right in front of the USS Yorktown, where the fireworks were launched.
This issue of S?mèr’s Secrets is about blog marketing and promotion. Too many people put up business blogs and neglect them. Or they frequently post but don’t do anything to interact with readers or other bloggers.
Having a successful blog requires more than simply posting on a regular basis. To be a successful blogger, you need to have readership, and you need to interact with the online community. Using a blog to its full potential means you’re marketing and promoting it online in a proper manner and writing posts that offer valuable industry tips, statistics, and information to readers.
Connect With Me Online at:
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/writtenbysumer
Facebook: www.facebook.com/michelle.salater
Blog: writtenbysumer.com/articles
How to Get the Most Out of Your Blog
Blogs are an excellent online platform to provide valuable industry news and tips to your target market, but they are also an integral part of marketing and promoting your business online. Blog posts that provide value to your readers help position you as an expert in your field and a credible source for viable information.
If you want a successful blog–one with a large readership and one that brings you customers–simply posting regularly isn’t enough. You need to market and promote your business blog. Setting aside an hour or two each week to market your blog will help increase readership, position you as an expert, and grow your client base. If you’re not using your blog properly and to its full potential, you are missing out on increasing website traffic and boosting sales.
Below are 9 steps to effectively market and promote your blog:
Step 1: Attach the RSS feed widget to your blog: RSS feed stands for Really Simple Syndication, which is a file containing a brief amount of information–a headline and synopsis–and a link to the full content on the blog. Voluntary subscribers to specific blog RSS feed will receive this information through their RSS readers. Search engines can detect if your blog is high quality based on how many people subscribe to your blog’s RSS feed. In addition, search engines can detect how many people visit your blog from their RSS readers and how many times they click through to your blog.
Step 2: Import blog posts into your social media sites: With a large concentration of companies and individuals using social media sites to communicate, it’s important to import your blog into social media sites. Nearly all social media sites allow you to import your blog into your profile, including some of the most popular social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Importing your blog allows your target market to post comments and share posts with friends. Whenever a comment is posted on your blog from a reader via Facebook, the comment is visible on the reader’s minifeed, which can be seen by all of the reader’s friends.
Step 3: Create a blog marketing and promotion schedule: Creating a strict marketing and promotion schedule ensures you will stay organized and current with its promotion. Each week, set aside time to comment on like-minded blogs, ask other bloggers if you can be a guest blogger, or ask others to guest blog for you, and request to be on like-minded blogrolls. Don’t forget to set aside time to track your blog posts and recycle posts into articles.
Step 4: Comment on like-minded blogs: One thing many bloggers don’t realize is the importance of commenting on other blogs. Commenting on like-minded blogs is a powerful networking tool and works to increase inbound links to your own blog. Your comments should be relevant to the blog topic, add value and your expertise to what is being said in the blog, give positive feedback, peak the interest of the author and other viewers, provide links to similar pieces you may have written about the subject, and have a link to your email and website below each comment.
Step 5: Approach popular, like-minded bloggers, and ask if you could be a guest blogger: Search engines look highly upon blogs mentioned on other blogs because it illustrates that your blog provides intellectual material that ignites curiosity and discussion in the online community. Aside from other blogs, if search engines find your blog’s URL on social media sites and social bookmarking sites, these social media sites consider this a positive indicator that your blog is high quality.
Step 6: Approach popular, like-minded bloggers, and ask if they would be a guest blogger on your blog: Requesting like-minded bloggers to be guest bloggers is the perfect way to build relationships online and increase exposure. The more people you can touch and build working relationships with, the more likely you are to successfully market and promote your blog. Having guest bloggers also shows you are interested in what others have to say and are striving to find the best possible industry information available.
Step 7: Request to be on popular, like-minded bloggers’ blogrolls: After commenting on other blogs and requesting to be a guest blogger–and vice versa–it’s time to request to be on those bloggers’ blogrolls. Since you have a basis of a relationship with most of these bloggers now, you are more likely to receive a yes to be on their blogroll. Being present on other blogrolls helps increase inbound links and drive targeted traffic to your blog and website.
Step 8: Track blog posts: Tracking the popularity of specific posts helps you see what topics are of interest to your readers. Regularly tracking your blog also helps you track key phrases people use to find your blog and the amount of click-throughs you receive.
Step 9: Recycle posts into articles: Recycling past blog posts into online articles helps to increase inbound links, position you as an expert in your field, and reach thousands of potential customers. Articles are the perfect way to recycle important and valuable information and share it with thousands of individuals who have never visited your blog before.
Tip of the Month
Although it is hard to judge how many blogs are created, Wordpress (a very popular blog platform) reported 2,906,086 new blogs created on just their platform in 2008.
If you like this post, you might also like: