Many bloggers focus on content alone and just expect visitors to come to their blogs automatically. That is too passive, no one will know about your blog if you do not get out there and tell people about it. You must promote your blog.
I have already written about how I promote my blog via Twitter, how I get blog traffic from StumbleUpon and how I write comments on other blogs to get traffic. It is important for a blogger to experiment with the different platforms to find where the target audience is and what works best.
On the search for new promotional platforms
I still experiment with different platforms. Just recently I joined Bloggersbase, which is a new network for bloggers. Bloggers are my blog’s target audience, so it is perfect group for my blog. I haven’t received many clicks from Bloggersbase yet, but it seems to be a great place for emerging bloggers to be discovered and to get an audience. Even though I am new to the network I was able to get some 300 page views on average per article I have published there.
Bloggersbase makes it easy to publish articles automatically from your RSS feed, so you can easily publish posts you’ve already used on your personal blog. Also an email is sent out to all your friends when you publish a new article as default.
Experience from BloggersBase
I saw that David Leonhardt of http://www.seo-writer.com was a prominent user of Bloggersbase and as he is a reader of HowToMakeMyBlog.com he told me the following about his experience with BloggersBase:
I’ve seen only a few hits from BloggersBase on my SEO blog, although I am not tracking traffic headed elsewhere (I have posted articles on other topics, too).
I just noticed they are now NoFollowing the external links…this was not the case at start-up. But there is some interesting networking going on. My avatar post hit 28 Diggs last week. Yesterday, the BloggersBase version was submitted by someone and has hit 53 Diggs. Too bad we can’t combine them.
If you blog regularly and network well, and your blogs are top-notch, you can make an extra $40 a week from BloggersBase. But it’s a competition, so there is certainly no guarantee. However, if you just adapt a post from your own blog, there is little extra writing to do, and it is another place to get your content out. If you go more networking there than I do, it could help build relationships and drive pretty high-quality traffic (interested, committed readers) to a blog.
Get out there and find what works best for your blog
Do not be passive! If you want your blog to grow, if you want to increase your readership and your authority, get out there, find your target audience and help them out solving their problems.
Be it Twitter, StumbleUpon, BloggersBase or any other social networking site. Your audience will be somewhere and will like an expert to help them out with their questions and problems.
Find and help people one by one and soon your blog readership will grow. At one point you might not even need to promote your blog, as the readership will be so large that it will help spread the word about your blog for you.
Image by Kevin Dooley
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{ 18 comments }
Thanks for the information, I’ve been getting a little complacent as of late.
I can’t find a good use from StumbleUpon or Delicious. I’m going to give Bloggersbase a try, and let you know what I think. I posted an article of mine in Digg, and I got lots of thumbs up, but some of the serious Digg users do not like to see blog articles. They like to see real news from websites such as CNN and funny videos.
Thanks for the link to BloggersBase. I’ve been looking for a site like that for a while. Also, thanks for the tips. I’m looking forward to building a readership for my blog! Slowly, but surely, huh?
This is probably one of the reasons that I struggle to get traffic. I’m pretty good a the comment thing but it doesn’t seem to bring much traffic in. I also use Twitter but I find that since I can’t be on it all day due to limitations (both time and technical issues) I don’t have the opportunities to promote it as much as I’d like without becoming a spammer. I’m leery of multiple tweets of the same link but it seems that it is likely the best way to get things out there.
I’ve tried Digg and Delicious and I didn’t find much help in Digg and I’ve really used Delicious as more of a “portable bookmarks” tool rather than promoting my own stuff. I haven’t networked it yet. I’m slowly looking into LinkedIn and StumbledUpon but I just find that I don’t have enough time to actually write when I’m so busy promoting. I still have to work on getting a balance there.
It is certainly a learning process. Thanks for sharing and encouraging!
Thanks for all comments!
@LoneWolf – Definitely. Finding a balance between writing and promoting is very important. For me personally they are equally important and I try to spend just as much time on the one as the another.
@jan_geronimo – I am not sure how possibility of duplicate content can affect you posting your articles on other sites as well. With BloggersBase you can post links within article back to your site plus there is a reference URL that you can post that shows the place where the story originally was published.
Exactly you have to actively promote your blog. It’s not just enough to publish a great post. You have to put some eyeballs to the post. Twitter and SU and networking with other bloggers has been working great for me so far. Looking into some other things as well.
Thanks for the insightful post Marko
I’m agreeing with the above posters. I haven’t really tried out BloggersBase yet though thing I’m going to give it a shot. Thanks for another nudge to sign up to it!
Nice suggestion, but one thing is holding me back.
And it is this: you can submit articles you’ve already published in your blog or you can set up your RSS feed so it will be easily published in bloggersbase.
What about the problem of duplicate content?
I think the main reason why people resist promoting their content is that they feel embarrassed to do so. Self-promotion seems cheesy, and it’s usually frowned upon (or so we believe).
But as long as we’re offering content that’s of value (i.e. *we* personally believe that it’s of value), then we should help others find it. That usually means using the sites where people (traffic) can be found.
Although there are many ways to promote a site, I think it’s important to consider other factors, besides number of visitors. For example, I like leaving comments on other blogs because:
1- I get to contribute value
2- I participate in the discussion
3- I become part of a community
4- I target the people who are interested in what I have to offer
Even though other approaches can bring in more traffic (which is why they shouldn’t be neglected), they don’t always come with the same advantages.
Thank you for the great article!
@Haider – Thanks for the great comment! Definitely true. If you promote bad or unoriginal content, you may get a click once but that visitor will hardly ever come back and will see your future “promotion” as spam. On the other hand if you create value and help your visitors, then self-promotion has huge benefits as you actively seek, help and provide value to your target audience.
You are so right, blogging is a social activity and it requires interaction. I know some bloggers think all they have to do is post on their blog and that’s it. Some don’t even bother to post much, and then wonder why they don’t get traffic.
Thank you for the introduction to BloggersBase, and for David’s review of it. I think it looks like a promising site that I can use to repost popular blog posts.
I also think I shall also enjoy commenting on what other bloggers are posting.
Thanks, your posts have been very educational. I am new to blogging, so learning new tips and how to’s are greatly appreciated. Regards.
Well written. You’ve got many of the same points I have used to get more readers to my blog. I’ve recently wrote an article on How to get more visitors to your blog which shows how to attract more viewers for your blog.
Wow! Last night I followed your advice. I went to Twellow and searched for people doing what I do for a living… then I followed every last one of them, even if their last post was like a year ago. I doubled my followers on Twitter and doubled my blog traffic in ONE DAY, and I’ve only been blogging for two weeks! I’m proof that your advice is golden — thank you SO much!
@Lynette – Thanks for sharing your story. I am glad it worked out for you. Keep working on it consistently and you will see big changes.
Same thing sort of happened with me and WeFollow! Gotta check out Twellow!
This is really great information! Thanks for helping out, especially those of us who are just getting started.
@Helen Vatter – Thanks for the comment! Check some of my earlier Twitter articles on information on how you can brand yourself as an expert on Twitter. Personally I would recommend searching Twitter for your keywords. See what people are talking about, what questions they have. Then respond to that, write a blog article about it, provide some useful tips and ideas. And then tell them about it. Write what you feel is useful and valuable, write about your experience, what worked good for you, and spread it out there and then see the feedback. Learn, improve, and do it all over again.