Promoting a Blog

[djschwab]

I have recently started my own blog on Blogger.com. While I enjoy posting weekly topics relevant to my business, I am also looking for ways to promote myself and my blog. Does anyone have any easy suggestions to build traffic to my blog?

[Gurdit]

Well, for starters, I suggest you start blogging a little more frequently, perhaps twice or thrice a week would be a good idea. Log on to high traffic blogs and post comments, the linkbacks would improve your blog ranking. Apart from that, exchange links with other blogs that share your topic or theme. And finally, love your blog.

[Lisaa]

Promoting a blog is much like promoting anything else over the Internet.  You have to get yourself out there and exposed to your niche market (after research of course). 

The best online marketing can be done simply through social networking, classified ads, article (ezines), press releases ... etc.  However I've found the faster way is with Google PPC (pay per click).  If you grab a book (Google Perry Marshall) called Definitive Guide to Google Adwords by Perry Marshall, you'll find great facts on how to go about this without going broke.

I have a blog and the initial stream of traffic came from a forum I participated in regularly.  After that I ventured on to Internet marketing as stated above. 

The best advice is to get to know who you are marketing to first before you go spending time and money on advertising.

[webo]

I do not look at blog promotion any different than promoting any website.  It is all the same, if you have a blog, a forum, a directory or just a regular old html website you would promote any of these the same way.

The best answer is to promote it any and all ways that you can think of. 

Here are some suggestions to get your creative juices flowing:

• Submit to web directories
  
• Submit your site to social sites like digg.com and stumbleupon.com
  
• Write articles with good content and add a link back to your website in the signature at the bottom of the articles, submit these articles at free sites everywhere
  
• Focus on writing good content on your site.  Many say this is the single most important thing to do, if you have good quality content, visitors will naturally follow.
  
• Word of mouth, meaning, tell everybody you know about your web site and ask them to do the same.
  
• Trade links with webmasters that have similar sites.  You can do this by searching google for sites like yours and then come up with a email template and start mailing away!
  
• Traffic Exchanges are also a great way to get new visitors to your site each day at no out of pocket cost.  Just search google for free traffic exchanges and you will find a bunch.
  

This is just a starter there are hundreds of sites out there that dedicate there focus to finding better ways to get new visitors to there sites.  If you would like more info on this topic please pm me from within this very forum or email at the email address shown below.

Thanks for reading my response.

Hear from you soon,

Nick

[taylorjay22]

I would try and submit your blogs to as many directories as you can.  This way you can increase your SEO on your blogs and go up in search engine rankings by creating more incoming links to them.  You then have a ton of free organic traffic from top search engines, and you don't have to do a thing!

[strata]

My brother has a blog he's promoting and according to him, joining entrecard is a good way to build traffic. Other people drop cards on your blog and you can drop cards on other people's cards as well. Some people also link your blog to their blog. RSS feeds are a great help too. Goodluck with your blog!

[moon]

I agree with the above poster's suggestions.

Probably the most challenging thing about a blog is keeping it up and keeping it interesting so people want to come back and read.  Also if all one is going to do is write for advertisers, you will not get a lot of come back readers.

Also post in other's blogs and leave your link.  post in forums where you are allowed a link in your signature.

And lastly, pick a hot news topic! 

People will come!

[clickprincess]

I recommend trying to create some Squidoo lenses and/or HubPages related to your topic and linking back to your blog.  Both of those sites get quite a lot of Google love which can help your rankings plus you can get traffic directly from them.  Also, try joining forums in your nice with the link to your blog in your signature file.  If you post helpful, timely information, people will often click through to your site.