Open Book: Quick Ways to Get Your Blog Read

The writer…the teacher…the marketing guru in you emerges in a spanking  new blog.

I was told that if you write, the followers will come.  True to some degree; however, your success will be measurably better if you write coherently and have something interesting to share (your opinion or some newsworthy mention).   Well written blogs may not always be successful blogs.  It certainly helps, but writing skill needs more to get follower retention.

To increase your followers, here are easy ways to get the word out:

1.  Your blog address is now as important as your name and phone number  in your marketing materials.  Blog address should appear on everything from business cards, signature email address, and stationary — everything printed.

2.  Write as if you were talking to your best friend.  Your voice should be conversational, but to appeal to the widest spectrum of people, refrain from using street language.

3.  Write about something that interests you.  Blogging is not a sprint, but more like a cross country run.  Pace yourself.  Don’t start off with writing a blog daily, because you will burn out.  (If this is a journal or a record of your daily musings or your day job, this might not be such a chore.)  Writing about something your passionate about comes through in the writing.

4.  Be consistent about your blog entries.  Once a week?  Twice a week?   Just think about your followers.  Would you want to read a daily blog everyday, when so many other things compete with your time?  It is best to be consistent, say maybe on a Tuesday and or Thursday.  ( Mondays are horrible, because everyone starts Monday morning with a slew of emails from the weekend.)  Too much is annoying… too little and your followers may totally forget you. 

Bottom line: Post regularly.  Two a week is minimal to help establish an affinity to you.

Blogging Tip: If you love writing blogs, store your extra blog entries, because you may not have time or go on vacation or you will have a brain freeze one day.

5.  Boring blogs don’t attract readers. Interesting ones grow by word of mouth. 

6.  Your blog entries should be more than a litany of  other people’s links.  They want to know about you and what you know that can help them make their life easier…or humorous enough that for a split moment they forget their lives totally.

7.  Comment on other similar blogs, maybe referring to a blog you wrote on the topic.  From you blog, include links to them and ask them to link back to you.

8.  Register with blog directories, so that people searching for your topic will find you.  (ie. technorati.com)  Link to your facebook page, your twitter account.

9.  Bookmark your posts on digg.com, yahoo.com, del.icio.us.com, reddit.com and stumbleupon.com.

Okay, after reading this blog, I realize that it has taken me 15 minutes to collect my thoughts and notes, another 30 minutes to write it, and maybe another 30 minutes to promote the blog using my suggestions.  Just saying, if you want to get the most out of blogging, you will be investing about 2 hours give or take each time.

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Blogging

I have been blogging for a few months now and realizing that successful blogging is not successful without equal attention to all its parts.  Writing well and offering substantive content are certainly plusses.  However, there are other components…marketing related. 

A successsful blog includes reading other blogs and leaving messages.  Surfing the web to see what others wrote and their online presentation.  You are in a quasi competitive position.  You want people to read what you’ve written (otherwise why bother writing it in cyberspace), yet you never dreamed you would be competing for eyes.

To draw attention to your blog, you leave messages and add your blog address on other blogs.  Be sure to email all your friends, family and colleagues announcing that you have launched the best blog ever.  If they like it, they will pass your blog onto their friends. You offer contests. You link to other blogs.  You carefully select metatags and sign up with other search engines.  You join social networks and describe your blog on each of them.  Some examples of social networks are facebook and my space.  Others might be jigsaw.com, linked in, classmates, reunion, you get the idea?  You could run down the directory from your college or group membership.

One other thing that attracts readers.  That is if you have an edge to your writing. Maybe you write with humor?  Or maybe cynicism?  Your writing has to have bite.  You need to engage or incite people, so that it gets readers to think and revisit.  Or if you aren’t prepared to critique or write humor, try supplying straight fact or information. 

If you give a reason for people to visit, they will come and come back.