You’ve taken the plunge and set-up a blog. Maybe you are writing about the world’s woes. Maybe you’re writing about what you had for dinner. Whatever it is, its important and you want it read by all. What now?
There are a lot of easy ways to market your blog. Some are arguably more effective than others. But I’m a firm believer that all exposure is good exposure and that no one can be “too pushy”. So, here is my do-it-yourself blog marketing kit. Let me know if you have any additions.
- Let Your Blog Socialize. List your blog in blog directories. This is a little passe, but I think that it couldn’t hurt. Here are a few to start with. Don’t waste your time posting to every directory because some are undeniably crap. Seek out the ones that make sense to you and submit.
- www.technorati.com
- http://blogsearch.google.com/
- http://www.blogcatalog.com/
- http://www.blogcatalog.com/
- http://www.blogged.com/
- http://www.blogoozle.com/
- http://dir.yahoo.com/news_and_media/blogs/
- http://www.blogher.com
- Allow Your Blog to Get Cozy with Twitter. Connect your blog to Twitter and auto-tweet your blog posts. I use WordPress as a blogging platform, so I use Twitter Tools. Some folks don’t like auto-posting in general, but I get a lot of traffic from my Twitter blog posts, so it works for me.
- Feed Your Blog. Cross-promote your blog on other communities. I use Simplaris Blogcast to feed my blog into Facebook. LinkedIn also has a couple of different apps for feeding your blog posts into your profile. You can use Feedburner just about anywhere to promote your blog.
- Share Your Blog with Your Friends and Colleagues. Include a link to your blog in all of your communications. Refer folks to blog posts when they have questions.
- Grow Your Blog. Nothing will organically grow your blog more than writing timely, interesting content. And writing often. If your readers know that you will be providing content that they enjoy on a regular basis, they will come back for more.
