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.

1. Mr. Ploppy’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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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]
5. 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
6. Best blog promotion techniques
   SEO Blog offers another list of basics perfect for new bloggers.
7. My blog promotion advice for Ali in Kenya
   David Wallace has developed an acronym that makes the basics easy to remember.
8. Blog Promotion: What makes sense for you?
   Scot Herrick explains what to consider when choosing the promotional techniques most appropriate for our unique situations.
9. Offline Blog Promotion Ideas – It’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.
10. 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.
11. 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?
12. 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 blog’s readers to do something that will result in greater exposure for that blog.
13. 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
14. Blog Promotion 101
    Tristan from Blogopoly guest posts on problogger with 10 points to review.
15. Webmaster Forum > Blogging
    John Scott’s Webmaster Forum covers the topic from many angles
16. Blog Archive Promotion To-Do List
    One from me on how to use your archives to promote your blog.
17. Promotion, self-promotion and [insert ad here]
    Seth’s take on a variety of free ways to promote a blog.
18. 42 Methods for Blog Promotion???
    Web Analytics world sets the SEOmoz and Aviva suggestions side by side
19. 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.
20. 7 Great Ways to Connect with Other Bloggers While You’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.

Related
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The 5-Point Strategy to a Powerful Network
Money Strategy, a Dead Horse, and Folks
7 Great Ways to Connect to Bloggers While You Are Out Reading Blogs