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20 Blog Promotion Guides to Inform Your Strategy

June 27, 2007 by Liz

Strategy

Strategy, a solid plan that moves to a completed vision, doesn’t come on it’s own. Some folks appear to do it naturally. The part that is natural is that they are big picture thinkers. The part that doesn’t show is that they have done significant work. The two together is what makes it look easy to observers.

Strategy starts with knowing the territory. What Do the Other Guys Do?

20 Blog Promotion Guides

It’s silly to start from stratch to devise the unique promotion strategy for a business or a blog. That’s flying in the dark and re-inventing the wheel at the same time. Other folks do good things that work. It’s only efficient to know what folks who went before us did. Seeing their finished work can inform our choices in these ways.

We can see the standard approach.
We can imagine our version without producing it.
If we look as a customer would, we can see what to avoid.
We can notice the exceptions that work and determine whether they might work for us.
We can sense the depth, breadth, and repetition of the promotional noise.
Everything we see can be mashed into new ideas.

With those benefits in mind, I offer 20 links to review. Later we might choose to take a closer look at one or two of the approaches offered in this sampling.

Mr. PloppyÃ¢â¬â¢s Monday Tool List – Volume XXXIII – Weblog Promotion Tools
Last January, Mr. Poppy pulled together an organizaed list. It works well to frame research into the promotion playing field.

The Thinking Blog has an outstanding guide to promotion.
Ilker points out that it’s the posts that count not the blog itself. Ideally, the simple act of blogging in and of itself would attract enough traffic to please the author but there are cases in which more is better.

21 Ways to Promote Your Startup Business
This article on starting a business offers 21 venues for promotion, many of which are also useful in promoting a blog.

How to spend $1,000 promoting your established site.
TDavid has a wealth of information about growint readership, without and without investing cash. Now that the $1,000 is gone, there are still many little things you can do to promote your site that will cost you time, but not necessarily any out of pocket dollars. [via Newsome.org]

SEO Tips: Increase Page Rank By Revitalizing Your Old Posts
Writing at the Blog Herald, Lorelle explains how to Increase Pank Rank and Ad Vitality and Traffic Interest in Archieved Posts

Best blog promotion techniques
SEO Blog offers another list of basics perfect for new bloggers.

My blog promotion advice for Ali in Kenya
David Wallace has developed an acronym that makes the basics easy to remember.

Blog Promotion: What makes sense for you?
Scot Herrick explains what to consider when choosing the promotional techniques most appropriate for our unique situations.

Offline Blog Promotion Ideas – ItÃ¢â¬â¢s All About Branding
blogexposure.com offers a list of ways to get known in our home towns. While online should be where most of your promotion efforts should focus on, do not overlook the opportunity to do some promotions off line. When done correctly, they can be more effective than your online promotions.

Using Video to Promote Your Business
Zeppelin Media Blog explains the structure of using video to promote a business. Becky McCray from Small Biz Survival gave me the inspiration to extend the conversation she started over at her blog. Be sure to start there! [link follows] . . . Specifically, I wanted to mention some ideas for using video that would help any business or organization.

How to use video to promote your small business
Any small business could use simple online videos for promotion. Video builds relationships and can be very persuasive. You can make simple videos with just your digital camera and some free software. Need some inspiration for how to use it?

How To Use Community-Driven Blog Promotion For Your Blog
I Help You Blog suggests that we have our community help us too. Community-driven blog promotion is the term I use for describing any technique a blogger uses to promote his or her blog and that involves getting a blogÃ¢â¬â¢s readers to do something that will result in greater exposure for that blog.

10 Techniques I Used To Go From 0 To 12,000 RSS Subscribers In Seven Months – With No Ads Or Leverage
Trent Hamm explains how he did just that. I launched The Simple Dollar at the very end of October 2006. I had no pre-existing blog that I could use to drive early traffic, nor did I have any personal contacts that I could use. I also had zero advertising budget. But by June 2007, I had 12,000 RSS readers

Blog Promotion 101
Tristan from Blogopoly guest posts on problogger with 10 points to review.

Webmaster Forum > Blogging
John Scott’s Webmaster Forum covers the topic from many angles

Blog Archive Promotion To-Do List
One from me on how to use your archives to promote your blog.

Promotion, self-promotion and [insert ad here]
Seth’s take on a variety of free ways to promote a blog.

42 Methods for Blog Promotion???
Web Analytics world sets the SEOmoz and Aviva suggestions side by side

5 Surefire Steps To Increase Readership 300% (or more)
Ryan Caldwell gets right to it with a focus on increasing readership in ways that count.

7 Great Ways to Connect with Other Bloggers While YouÃ¢â¬â¢re Out Reading Blogs
One of my favorites from my own blog. The title says everything.

This list is a cross-section of what’s out there currently. My goal was to make the list representative of the techniques and strategies suggested at a range of levels. Please feel free to add to the list, if you find something missing.

Know the territory, then decide. It’s the bsst strategy for any plan.

(Wish I understood that before I dated a certain guy in college.)

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you find your strategy, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Bloggy Question 54: This Conversation Is NOT Bloggable

June 24, 2007 by Liz

Can’t I Talk to Bloggers Anymore?

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life question. . . .

You travel a lot and occasionally meet up with a blogger in the city where you are. The conversation and the company are always worth what little it might take to get across town to get together.

Last night was an event. This time you met not one, but three bloggers you read. Dinner was at a beautiful restaurant. Everyone sure hit it off. The conversation went from mutual blogging friends to ideas about what folks might do to improve their blogging style.

As always, pictures were taken and blogger hugs given. It seemed a perfect evening complete with the champagne toast at the end. You wrote up your experience and uploaded two photographs. Then you did some work and went to sleep before an early client meeting.

You didn’t get a chance to read the blogs of the folks you dined with until after 5pm the next day. The first was a great reminder of the fun, as was the second. The third, however, was a critique of the entire dinner. That blogger trashed the restaurant, the service, the food, you and your other new-found blogger friends. Exact quotes, taken out of context, had been and used in the blog post. The quotes were word-for-word accurate, but as they stood they sounded mean and petty, not they way they were said or intended.

The blogger who wrote the critique says that the event was fun and funny. But the remarks he makes are snarky — fully at your expense and that of the other two at dinner. You’ve never seen this sort of behavior before . . . from him or from anyone.

The post has been up for 8 hours and there are no comments.

You check your own post. Some cold “thank yous” are there — from folks not mentioned in your post, but mentioned in the quotes taken out of context in the other blogger’s recap.

How do you respond?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Bloggy Question 53: What Kind of Home Is One Blog You Read?

June 21, 2007 by Liz

Blog, Sweet, Blog

Choose a blog you read. Imagine it as a home. What kind of home would it be?

I’ll go first.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Bloggy Question 52: They Read My Diary!

June 17, 2007 by Liz

The Family Business on the News

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life question. . . .

Someone you know has blogged for about two years. She uses her blog as an online diary. Most days what she writes is fairly harmless. She’s gotten savvy about writing her thoughts in ways that don’t reflect unkindly on people that she loves, but it’s too late for what she wrote in the early days.

Last night your blogger friend emailed you. Her family is hurt and angry. It seems her older sister did an ego search. Your friend’s blog came up. The sister landed on an archive post in which your blogger friend said hurtful things about her entire family.

The older sister read a while. Then she called their brother.

The entire family now has read the entire blog. Some neighbors have also been dragged into the story. Every person mentioned on her blog has heard about it and read as much as they wanted. The town is openly debating the situation. The blog has never had this kind of traffic.

Your blogger friend feels violated.

Her family feels the same way.

Her friends have disappeared.

She called you for advice.

How do you respond?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Link Anchor Text: SEO and Relationships

June 11, 2007 by Liz

Reach Out with Respect

When we code a link, anchor text is that part people click to get where the link goes. Well-written anchor text is one more way that people and spiders know why you made the link — the relevance between your post and where you are sending them. Link anchor text is another way to reach out with respect to bloggers who offer information we value.

Here’s an example of anchor text in link as code and as the reader sees.

This code:

<a href=“http://[URL goes here]”>Link Anchor Text</a >

would look like this to readers:

Link Anchor Text

Sometimes you’ll see the name of the blog or a post as anchor text. Sometimes you’ll words such as here or click here instead. The first is relevant and SEO friendly. It builds connections and relationships. The second does not. Who wants to be referred to as “click here”?

Relationships and SEO

Strong, descriptive anchor text is a sign that we know how spiders travel links and that we care about people read and write blogs.

Search engines pay attention to what you write in your anchor text. They notice all of the text around a link — key words and descriptions. Spiders use anchor text to determine relevance and authority as they follow links from post to post. Linking with keyword-rich anchor text forms strong links to posts both within your blog and with blogs you respect.

Think about relationships. Links connect blogs and connect the bloggers who write them. Great anchor text, descriptive of what the link is leading to, offers an opportunity to feature those relationships. Spiders read and match up relevant key words in the linking posts. Search engines highlight your anchor text when they index the reference. The blogger you link to sees your descriptive text as how you named his or her blog or blog post.

It only takes a few seconds — a few words inside a link . . . to make a difference in relevance and SEO, to let readers know where you suggest they go next, and to offer the blogger at the other end a few words of respect. That’s a great way to use links to reach out.

Go for the relationship at the same time that you’re following great SEO practices.

Anchor me.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz’s help with your business, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Bloggy Question 51: I Gave Him that Idea

June 10, 2007 by Liz

His Success Really Belongs to Me

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life question. . . .

Marty and Steve were best friends since childhood. They started their first business at age 8 — it was a lemonade stand. By the time they graduated from college, they owned two bicycle shops — a thriving business in the city.

Marty is out front, the cheerful guy that everyone loves . . . he handles sales, marketing, and vendor relations. Steve takes care of the back office, the guy who handles repairs, fulfillment, and the paperwork.

Steve, a certified CPA, has a side business as an accountant. His latest outstanding effort for that business was a marketing program. An image of an accountant on a bicycle made unnanounced appearances on blogs. He gave free tax advice to that blog’s readers for an entire day. The campaign was a hit and an immediate traffic bonus for the blogs that were visited by “Steve’s SuperCyberCycling Tax Man.”

With that win, you thought that everything was booming and wonderful for Marty and Steve.

Today you found out that Marty and Steve have ended their business relationship. Marty is running the bicycle shops. Steve is staying with his accounting practice.

Yesterday in a conversation with you, Marty called Steve a jerk and made sure you understood that the “SuperCyberCycling Tax Man” campaign was Marty’s idea, not Steve’s. It was obvious that Marty was unhappy that he given Steve the benefit of his thoughts and that he wished Steve had not had success in his accounting business.

This was a side of Marty you had never seen. Marty said he was going to blog about his part in making Steve a “cycling success.”

How do you respond?

–ME “Liz” Strauss