Uphill Writing

Continued from Part 9

See the whole series starting with the first post

Question 8.  How will you advertise your Blog?

If you search the Internet for ideas about getting more traffic for your Blog, most of what you will find will be disappointing lists of things to do on your Blog after you’ve acquired a readership.  But wait, you say, that’s well and good if I already have readers, but how do I let people know I’m here in the first place?  What can I do to pull in readers?

That is the question we’ll deal with for this post.

Clearly having good topics, being colorful, encouraging comments, and such can help hold readers.  Your Blog’s design and purpose, your target audience, your style, all of it helps, but getting people to read in the beginning is a very different dance.

• First, email all of your friends to let them know what you’ve started.
• Add the URL of your Blog to your email signature block (Make it big and bright if possible).
• Post on Facebook, Tweet your Twitter contacts.
• Search Yahoo! Groups and other Forum hosts.  Get involved.  Be sure to add your URL to your signature.
• A Big One Here: visit other Blogs, comment thoughtfully.  Add your URL but avoid looking like you’re just there to advertise.
• Use Trackbacks (Pingbacks).  Quote from other Blogs and give them link credit.
• Add links to other Blogs to your Blogroll (list of links) and let the other Blogger know you’ve done it.  Often they will reciprocate.
• Register your blog to the search engines, for indexing.
• Keep your Blog active.  Post often and schedule your postings for around the same time each day.

When you think of it, this doesn’t seem like much to do.  It isn’t, really, but it is how to get the word out… to get started.

Once you’ve gotten the ball rolling, you’ve scheduled your postings, you’ve registered with the big three, Google, Yahoo! and Bing, and you’ve kept yourself busy Blogging, more and more people will find you.

I called getting people to read a dance.  Remember that once you’ve learned the steps, it’s a good idea to keep dancing all the time.

Later on we’ll discuss Special and Killer Posts.

Continued in Part 11

Filed under: Ideas and Inspiration, Innovation, Somebody Asked Me, Support for Writers, Technology | Tagged: Advertising, Bing, Contacts, Email, Facebook, Forums, Google, Promote, Promotion, Pulling in Readers, Signature file, Twitter, URL, Yahoo!