Blogussion » commenting

Marketing the “You Know What” Out of Your Blog, Part 1

Big Girl Branding — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 04:00:04 +0000

Marketing a blog is pretty much like marketing anything else. It requires time and commitment. It also requires patience and consistency, and a willingness to use a bit of elbow grease.

The problem with most folks and seeing any kind of traction is that they give up too quickly. Often it’s just when a blogger is on the verge of a breakthrough that they quit. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve read that say that same thing, over and over.

I was getting these results, but it was too little so I quit.
I was seeing this kind of traffic, but it was taking forever so I quit.
I had a lot of visitors, but wasn’t making too many sales, so I quit.
I only had about 50 subscribers, so I thought I sucked and decided to quit.

Often this is in the 4-6 month range of blogging, and then again around the one year mark. Bloggers feel they aren’t seeing the results they should be seeing, and give up; chalking all their hard work up as a lost cause.

And fact of the matter is, they were likely this close to having a major breakthrough.

Moral of these little stories? Don’t freakin’ quit!

Duh!

I mean sure, if you’re just blogging to make a buck and you feel the niche you have chosen isn’t viable, then it might be better to move in another direction. But hopefully you’re blogging for more than just a buck, and actually have a passion for the things you blog about.

And if that’s the case, why quit doing something you love? Especially when you could very well be one blog post away from blowing up into blogging stardom or something?

I repeat… DON’T QUIT. Got it?

Now with that little pep talk out of the way, let’s talk about ways you can market the you know what out of your blog to drive up traffic, subscribers, and customer/client numbers.

At the end of the day, not only will you be loving your blogger life (bless your blogging little heart) you’ll also NEVER want to quit again.

Now as I said before, marketing a blog is pretty much like marketing anything else. So here is your game plan:

Create a Dedicated Marketing Schedule

That means set aside specific blocks of time where you focus 100% on promoting your blog. This little schedule will look different for everyone, but the point is to map out something consistent that you can stick to.

That might mean setting aside 1 full day a week to focus on nothing but promotion. Or perhaps that means setting aside 1 hour each day to promote. Maybe you prefer to set aside a half day early in the week, and a half day later in the week.

Whatever.

As long as you lay out a consistent promoting schedule, I really don’t care when or how long you do it. Capische?

Create a Dedicated Marketing Plan

Sounds similar to the schedule I know, but keep reading because it has some big differences.

A schedule is just for when you’re going to do your promoting. The plan is actually how you plan on doing your promoting. See the difference?

So you need to create a dedicated marketing plan that maps out exactly the processes you intend to use to promote your blog. We’ll talk more about a few exact methods you can use in a bit, but for now just know that you need a plan.

Ideally you will choose just a handful of promotional methods to focus on, at least at first. The reasoning behind this is too many irons in the fire means you become less effective at what you’re trying to accomplish.

So focus on just a handful of methods to start, and then you can always rotate your marketing plan on a weekly or monthly schedule, whichever appeals to you the most.

And don’t forget that you need to have goals you want your marketing plan to meet. Those goals may be more subscribers, more RSS readers, more customers or clients, or whatever. There is no plan without goals in mind.

Remember that all the traffic in the world doesn’t mean a thing if they’re not doing what you want them to do.

And there you have it… part 1 of this epic little saga. How about you? Think a marketing plan and a marketing schedule are important aspects to marketing your blog? Have questions? Drop your thoughts in the comments below.

How I Leaped from Pagerank 0 to 4 in 21 Days Without any Connections

Henri — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:41:29 +0000

Today, Henri Junttila shares his 21 day experience of blog marketing that resulted in the Pagerank increase from zero to four in only 21 days. Want to write for us too?

It’s amazing at what you can accomplish when you work hard. My blog is around 3 weeks old and it has gone from PageRank 0 to 4, from 0 subscribers to 155 and from no one commenting to being almost like a community.

I know 155 subscribers doesn’t sound like much, but if I kept this rate up for a year, I would have well over 2,000 subscribers and that’s not bad now is it? You also have to consider that after a while you reach a breaking point where your blog starts to grow on its own, which means that you most likely will have close to 3,000 subscribers or a lot more in a year if you do things right.

I’ve never have a problem with working extremely hard, especially when I am passionate about something. I’ve been making a living online for a long time and I’ve discovered that working for yourself is a lot tougher than working for someone else.

Nobody tells you what to do. You have to figure everything out yourself. On top of it all, you have to manage your time and use the right tactics. In my opinion, I have come a long way in just three weeks and it is largely because I chose to focus on a few main points in building my audience and getting my name out there.

1. Blog Commenting

When I had my launch content ready – which consisted of 4-5 good posts and 5-day e-mail series – I started looking for blogs with good content that were somewhat related to what I was talking about. I currently have almost 100 blogs in my feedreader that I enjoy reading and try to comment on regularly.

Yes, commenting will take up a lot of your time (learn how to become a more productive commentator). It may not bring you huge amounts of traffic or link juice, but that isn’t the purpose. Getting traffic from commenting is a side-benefit. The main benefit is putting your face out there. Oh, before I forget, definitely make sure you have a good and friendly gravatar .

In just three weeks I’ve gotten people telling me that they’ve seen me everywhere. I didn’t even realize that it had such an impact. It seems to work like advertising. When you see 100 Kellogg’s commercials and you go to the store and see 5 unknown brands and Kellogg’s there’s a very high chance that you’ll pick Kellogg’s because it’s familiar. Commenting works the same way. That is, if you provide value in your comments.

2. Guest Posting

Guest posting is the number one tactic if you want to grow your readership and increase your authority in Google’s eyes. Take Blogussion for example – in two posts they earned 200 extra subscribers . I know you might be shy about asking bloggers about guest posting, but it isn’t that hard. Three weeks ago I didn’t know anyone in the blogosphere, and I mean by anyone I mean anyone, I didn’t even know the resident dust rat at Blogussion.

I’ve made a lot of good friends in a short amount of time because I started commenting, connecting and letting people know I appreciate what they are doing. It’s the law of reciprocity at work, which basically means that if you provide value for others, they will be more likely to provide value for you. Leave a mark on the other persons blog, and you will see some benefits.

This doesn’t mean that you should go into the whole thing with the mindset of getting something. On the contrary, I was so happy to be blogging about the subject I love that I enjoyed connecting with people and when I asked for a guest post pretty much everyone said yes.

If you really want to grow your blog, you have to guest post. I know that it can be scary. It is scary for me each time I submit a guest post, but fear is a part of life, it will always be there. The circumstances for guest posting will never be perfect, so start now.

The worst thing that can happen is that nothing changes. If you get rejected, ask them why, politely, so you can learn from the interaction and improve. Start with smaller blogs first and work your way up as you gain more and more momentum.

I have written around 10-15 guest posts during these 21 days and that is all it takes to really gain traction and go from PageRank 0 to 4. Aim for as authoritative blogs as possible, but don’t be afraid of connecting with the smaller ones.

3. Connecting and Helping

You have to care. If you don’t care about people and aren’t passionate about the subject you’re blogging about, chances are that people will notice and not want to stick around. Passion is contagious, because passion exudes positive, addictive energy and being around someone who is passionate feels awesome, even if it is in text.

So how do you connect with a blogging community?

There are many ways. The tools I use almost exclusively are Twitter and e-mail. I try to use as few tools as possible so I don’t overwhelm myself. Talk with people on twitter. Don’t tell them to visit your blog and sign-up, just talk and have fun.

People will naturally visit your blog and link to you if you are interesting and fun. Haven’t you noticed this yourself? If someone is making you laugh and in general helping you, aren’t you compelled to learn more about them?

The way I use e-mail is to let people know that I appreciate what they are doing. If I sincerely like something they are doing I want to tell them that. I’m not going to sell them anything or try to get them to link to me. How would you react if someone did that to you? You would probably delete the e-mail and make a note that the guy or girl sucks.

Be friendly, always provide value and help people. Give before you take. If someone e-mails you, make sure you reply as soon as possible. You want to engage your audience. One person may not seem to matter, but think about it. If you make one person happy and they tell five people, you then make those five happy, they tell five people. Do you see the potential?

What you put out there will come back to you many times over.

What works for you?

With all that said, I challenge you to share at least one blogging tip that worked for growing traffic and readership to your blog!

The Best User is the Biggest Winner

Seth — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:45:30 +0000

Blog owners get a lot from having an active community. For some bloggers they pay the bills from the purchases and clicks of their readers. So of course blog owners try to build a blog with an active community they can build trust on.

What might be surprising is the users who are the most active can often gain more from their efforts then the blog owners.

An Example

To explain this I am going to use Blogussion’s User of the Week from our last newsletter, Rob Rammuny. Now if you did not get our newsletter you are really missing out because we share some very valuable tips. Last week we shared some of our plans for Blogussion’s future exclusively with our subscribers. [Sign up for our free weekly email by clicking on "Newsletter" in the sidebar]

Our newsletter also posted a brief introduction to Rob, his contact information, and why we chose him as a “User of the Week”. Here is part of what we said in our email:

Rob wrote an amazing guest post about Twitter Marketing, a variety of guest posts on Unique Blog, and promoted our posts excellently. Rob set himself apart by going out of his way to promote our content throughout the week with Stumbles, Tweets, and Diggs. You can also find a comment from Rob on most of the recent posts.

Look at the reasons we chose Rob for our feature in the newsletter. He was helpful in providing us with great content, promoting our work, and connecting with other readers. For blog owners, that is a big deal. For Rob, its an even bigger deal.

Active Presence Has Its Perks

Being active has its perks for users. These perks are important as the blog you participate on grows in traffic and authority. If you stay consistent your activity will include a few of these benefits:

Trust - As blog owners we trust those that take part in contributing to our blog. We see your efforts to work hard and build your own blog and often we respect that and help you in your efforts.
Links -We link to your articles if we know who you are and what you are writing about. For example, in our Weekend Wire post we linked to a lot of our readers. Many of the links were to readers that contribute regularly to our blog by commenting, stumbling, or writing.
Projects - When we undertake a new project often our closest community members get first dibs on seeing the new projects results and a chance to communicate with us personally. In other occasions we might even outsource to you, invite you into a partnership, or ask your advice. Being active on our blog and others could get you some very unique results.
Partnerships - Rob’s active presence eventually led us to invite him to be an author on Unique Blog. He posts short articles whenever he wants and can link to his own articles pretty freely. Its a great thing for him and he even gets a link and a picture in Blogussion’s footer.

Promotion Always Pays

Readers who promote the blog’s they read to others through Stumbleupon, Twitter, Digg or Delicious almost always get the favor returned. It is not uncommon for Alex or I to get an email asking for a favor from someone who regularly promotes our content. We then promote their work and hope to build traffic to the posts they ask for help with. You see what you give you usually get.

When it comes to being active you usually get more than you put into it. If you already read the articles here, drop a quick line in the comment box and we will not only remember your name, but respond. Often our responses lead to personal emails and a quick look at your most recent posts. If we like what we see we spread the wealth by promoting your content and linking to it.

Kindness Always Pays

This phrase works for blog owners too, but kindness always pays for readers. Most bloggers read blogs that get more traffic then they do. Many bloggers use there comments to drive traffic. There is no better way to make your presence known and get some promotional help then by connecting with the Blog Owners you read by connecting over a variety of mediums.

Here is What I Do for Other Bloggers:

Comment Regularly
Stumble Their Posts
Digg Posts
Bookmark Posts on Delicious
Twitter Their Posts
Ask a Question on Twitter

After spending no more than 5-10 minutes doing these tasks you have suddenly become a very trustworthy reader the blog owner is going to like and connect with. If you spend only 10 minutes a day doing this for a blog owner you will find your network of bloggers growing, your relationships increasing, and your traffic going through the roof!