Don’t Forget to Market Your Blog
People blog for different reasons. Some people have an idea for a blog and they want to turn that idea into a real moneymaker. There have been real successful bloggers who have done this, but most attempts that I have encountered have failed. They had an idea and turned their blog into a business model. Nothing at all wrong with that. How you can tell if a blog has failed is if you see it ranking well in the search engines and have not seen any new posts for months. I can’t tell you how many blogs I have seen, really great ones that get abandoned due to lack of advertisers or poor monetization strategy…that is another blog post topic all together. Others have taken a blog and used it as a marketing tool for a business. Is there a different strategy involved?
Yes. A blog as a business model is different than a blog as a marketing-tool model. But, in reality, both types of blogs require a marketing strategy all to themselves. The key is to drive targeted visitors to your blog from many different sources and which ever type of blog you have – business or marketing tool – you’ll need to market the blog. People often forget that a blog (especially a stand alone one) is a website that needs to be marketed.
There are a variety of ways to market a blog, but it all starts with the blog itself. The most basic form on online marketing is search engine optimization. This is the beginning. By optimizing your blog for search engine traffic you are giving your blog the basic building blocks to act as a business on its own or be used as a marketing tool for your existing business. In some cases, you can even do both. Without a solid SEO strategy for your blog, however, success at either will inevitably elude you. Don’t forget to SEO your blog.
Search engine optimization is one really good source for targeted visitors however there are many other great ways to drive targeted visitors to your blog, they include:
1. Search Engine Optimization – Make sure your blog has excellent content and is naturally optimized.
2. Online Publicity – Publish newsworthy press releases online to drive relevant visitors and good inbound links.
3. Social Networking – Become active in the top social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and talk about your blog.
4. Social Bookmarking – Submit your blog posts to good social bookmarking sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon.
5. Guest Blog Writing (on other blogs) - Over time develop your credibility in your niche and write for other related blogs.
6. Opt-In Email Marketing – Build a list through your blog and send out newsletters that drive people back to your blog.
The bottom line is blogging is a useful and long term approach that really works. If you are launching a business as a blog or using your blog to market your business, either way take the time to develop a long term marketing strategy. Believe me, it will be worth your time!
10 Responses to “Don’t Forget to Market Your Blog”
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I agree. The hardest part for most people is the very first step. The next hardest part is to keep walking. For those poor souls who heard it was a simple way to boost business, they were misinformed. It takes work, just like anything else with a reward. With some effort, it can be very worthwhile for either purpose.
Hi Mark,
You are right on the money, it does take work with of course the reward
Thanks for commenting and reading!
SEO is the hardest part of this because it is a long process to market your blog.You can use twitter to market blog it is a best tool that you can use for now.Now that google integrate twitter for there real time search I assure everyone that blog can be more easy to market.
Hi Andre,
Thanks for the comment. Great point, Twitter is a great tool to market your blog and build up a following…
Great tips Nick! It still amazes me how many small business owners don’t get how important it is to have and market a blog as a resource to their customers.
I personally have started creating only blogs for my web design clients. Once I explain how easy it is for them to maintain and add content, without having to return to me, they truly see the economical benefit of blogging. I offset the potential sales I’m missing (for repeat custom web updates) by focusing on the life-time value of my clients instead.
Hi Chase,
Thanks for reading and your additional thoughts. It is really amazing how people don’t get the true power of business blogging and I think it makes sense about focusing on life time value of your clients…thanks again for your comment!
Thanks for your very targetted and positive thoughts that I am sure help so many of us move forward with better understanding.
I’ve developed an exciting marketing tool I call ‘Slideo’ that contains many of the powerful ways you suggest a business can pass on information. It’s designed to inspire a website visitor to stay on a site and not to do the job of the website itself.
I just thought many of your followers may want to look at the idea and perhaps do something like it for themselves
Hi Henry,
Thanks for reading and your comment, I will take a look at your product, Slideo…
Yes you need more than just quality content. Love your idea about guest blogging.
Thanks! Glad the blog marketing recommendations helped!