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25 Tips For Marketing Your Blogs

by Colleen Slater

With so many blogs being created every day, it's a mystery to many bloggers how to make their blogs stand out. It's simple. People want to read good content, and with good content comes ad revenue. Well, maybe it's not that easy...We've finally unleashed the secrets of successful blog marketing. Do note that these are not guaranteed to increase your click-through ratios and they will not bring good karma to you or your ads...If only...Nonetheless, these tips should benefit your blog and make it more user-friendly, more easily accessible, and more content-enabled.

There are many types of blogs or purposes for blogs and so only specific tactics are applicable to each one of them. Still, here is a short list of tips for marketing and optimizing a blog:

1. Decide on a stand-alone domain name (www.myblog.com) or directory of existing site (www.mysite.com/blog). Sub-domain is also an option (blog.mysite.com). Avoid hosted services that do not allow you to use your own domain name!

2. Obtain and install customizable blog software. WordPress and Moveable Type are my favorites.

3. Customize blog look with presentable templates. Not too fancy-looking or too plain-jane but must reflect your business niche/theme.

4. Research your niche keywords and develop a glossary using Keyword Discovery, WordTracker, SitePoint, SEOBook Keyword Research etc.

5. Optimize the blog:

* Template optimization - RSS subscription options, social bookmark links, HTML code, Unique title tags, URLs, Sitemap

* Add helper plugins specific to WordPress or MT

* Create keyword rich categories (reference your keyword glossary)

6. Enable automatic trackback and ping functionality.

7. Create Feedburner Pro account and enable feed tracking.

8. Setup Google acount for sitemap, validate and prep for future submission.

9. Identify authoritative blogs, websites and hubs for outbound resource links and blogroll.

10. Format archived posts, related posts.

11. Enable statistics for tracking—Performancing, Google Analytics, ClickTracks.

12. Submit RSS feed and blog URL to prominent RSS and blog directories.

13. Engage in an ongoing link building campaign.

14. If podcast or video content are available, submit to podcast and vlog directories.

15. Submit blog URL to paid directories with categories for blogs—Yahoo, BOTW, bCentral, WOW, JoeAnt.

16. Optimize and distribute a press release announcing blog.

17. Request feedback or reviews of your blog in relevant forums, discussion threads. If you have a resourceful post that will help others, point to it.

18. Research and comment on relevant industry related blogs and blogs with significant centers of influence.

19. Post regularly. If it's a news oriented blog, 3-5 times per day. If it's an authoritative blog, 3-5 times per week, but each post must be unique and high value.

20. Monitor inbound links, traffic, comments and mentions of your blog—Google Alerts, Technorati, Blogpulse, Yahoo News, Ask Blogs and Feeds.

21. Always respond to comments on your blog and when you detect a mention of your blog on another blog, thank that blogger in the comments of the post.

22. Make contact with related bloggers on AND offline if possible.

23. When making blog posts always cite the source with a link and don't be afraid to mention popular bloggers by name. Use keywords in the blog post title, in the body of the post and use anchor text when you link to previous posts you've made.

24. Use social networking services, forums and discussion threads to connect with other bloggers. If they like your stuff, they will link to you.

25. Remember when websites were a new concept and the sage advice was to print your web address along with your phone number on the business card? The same advice applies for your blog.

Colleen Slater is the creator of the "Blog Inferno" blogging system. She leaves no stones unturned when it comes to explaining backlinking, traffic generation, list-building, market research, sales conversion while using the blog as the main context.

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