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Yesterday I received an email thanking me for my comment on the sender’s blog and he asked:

Do you have any other suggestions for promoting my blog?

Time and time again I see people in forums say that if you write excellent content, people will come to read it. That isn’t entirely true. The readers need to know about your site first!

When you launch your blog, you can either wait for the search engines to index you or you can take matters into your own hands and get your blog seen; it really is about WHO you know. This is true for older, established blogs as well. Here are some great ways to network your blog!

Comment on other people’s blogs

If you want people to read your blogs, you need to read theirs and go one step further and COMMENT. I know I check out every blog of someone who comments on mine and if I like what I see I will possibly comment (if I have something to add) and even better I will subscribe to their feed and become a return reader! General interest bloggers have it a little bit easier because they don’t need to target any particular niche and can see a reward quicker than more niche bloggers. Niche bloggers, though, should spend their time reading blogs within or related to their niche. If you have a weight loss blog, while you are more than welcome to comment on a photography blog, they aren’t the ideal blogger you will want to network with. Instead focus on other weight loss blogs and fitness blogs as they will be the type of person who will probably come see what you have to offer.

When you make your comment, don’t make it spammy by inserting your link into your comment. Make a relevant comment to the post and just include your link in the appropriate place. Be sure you make it easy for your visitors to comment so they can return the favor.

Join a blog community

If you haven’t joined a blog community like MyBlogLog or Blog Catalog you really are missing out. These communities are places for bloggers to discover other blogs that they are interested in. They also provide this cool little widget that allows you to put a face (or avatar) to the people who are visiting your sites. You can see mine in the right-hand sidebar. I love seeing new faces and will always check out their profile and their blog (much like I do with people who comment). I don’t use BlogCatalog so can’t compare the two but have been very happy with MyBlogLog.

Participate in relevant forums

Forums are an EXCELLENT way to network with people. Forums for blogging are a great way to learn and also help each other out. As a bonus, the people who are active in the forum are bloggers themsleves and will most likely comment on your blog if they like what they see. TBE has it’s own Blog Forum but the next best one out there would probably be bloggeries. I would recommend all bloggers get active in forums like these. In addition to forums about blogging, you can get involved in forums related to your niche! This is a great way for people to see you are an authority on your topic and then go see what else you have to say on your blog.

There is a key to having forums work for you though. You can’t just join a forum and start posting your links, the members will reject you and you will likely get banned, thus ruining any chance you had! As soon as you join a forum, if you are allowed to create a signature, set that up right away and link to your blog with interesting keywords that will get people to click. Don’t just say, “My Blog”; be a little more creative. Get involved in the forum as soon as you can. Start answering questions and start topics of your own. Other members will check out your sig out of interest and be sure to check theirs out as well!

What are some things you have done to network your blog?

One question I see asked a lot is, “How long should my post be?”, and the answer to that is simple, “As long as it needs to be to get your point across.” Bloggers tend to feel that a post should be at least x number of words; that just isn’t the case.

I have seen a lot of potentially good posts ruined because the author wanted to add “words” to it just to try it make it fit some ideal length. My advice is to say what you have to say and end it. Don’t ruin a beautiful picture with unnecessary details.

Do you try to keep your posts to a minimum length? Have you seen good posts gone bad because the author rambled on?

How many blogs do you read that tend to talk about everything under the sun? I see this happen a lot with personal blogs, but occasionally I will see this also happen in more niche blogs. Something to be mindful of is that your blog, much like a business can actually outgrow itself!

What blog shouldn’t be split?

If you have a personal blog that you post to every week or so and you ramble on about whatever topic comes to mind, whether it’s sports, news, gossip, money, etc., you are probably better off keeping your one blog (because of your posting frequency) and just spending time growing it. If you are a niche blog (let’s say you focus on Football or Soccer) and every once in a while you publish something unrelated or something personal, I would say that is ok and there is no need to split the blog. Just make sure your unrelated posts aren’t very frequent.

Who is it right for?

A lot of blogs start out as personal blogs where the author writes about anything and everything! As time goes by though, they may find that a certain topic dominates their blog and it would be worthwhile to either take those posts (or the remaining posts) and move them to a different blog. This will all depend on the bloggers goals, but is definitely something to consider. Our football blogger would benefit from having an additional “personal” blog if they tend to post off-topic as often as they post on-topic.

Things to consider

This isn’t something that should be taken lightly and there are a lot of things you need to consider before you decide to split your blog.

1. It takes time to set up a new blog! You need to choose your design and port over your old posts!
2. You now will have at least two blogs to market and try to get links to. You are losing any incoming links and page rank you previously had. You’re basically starting over in the eyes of the search engines.
3. Your audience is likely to split too!

Benefits

While there are negatives, there are also some benefits!

1. Cross-linking is a nice benefit. You can repeatedly reference your other blogs to help draw attention to them.
2. You will have the potential for larger audiences. You can definitely lose visitors to your blog because they were there to read about your dogs and you start posting about your car. By focusing your now two blogs, you really have the ability to market them individually. I always hated submitting to blog directories and choosing a category for my blog! This helps to eliminate that.
3. You’re giving your visitors what they want and that is what it all really comes down to. If they are there to read about your dogs, write about your dogs. That doesn’t mean you can’t write about your cars, just do it on your other blog!

At first glance it may seem that splitting your blog is not worth it when you look at the negatives but a little hard work can really overcome those negatives. If you wonder if your blog is a good candidate, I’ll be happy to tell you.

Have you ever split your blog or do you run more than one blog for the reasons I mentioned?

Two weeks ago I posted about BlogDay and my reasons for participating. If you want to participate, go check out that post and read the rules!

The blogs I have picked are somewhat varied, some large blogs and some small. I picked blogs that I subscribed to recently (within the last two months) and have enjoyed reading and hopefully you will too.

Community Spark - This blog is one of my favorites and after reading the first post I subscribed! Martin has really put together a great blog about creating and maintaining a community, whether you run a blog or a forum.

David Airey - David is a graphic designer who writes about the web with a little bit of life mixed in. What I liked about David’s blog was how concise his posts were. You could tell he really spent time researching his posts to make them as thorough as possible.

Blogging Tips - Kevin has done a great job with this blog and I look forward to his posts showing up in google reader. Kevin writes some great posts on blogging and many aspects that are related to the blogging world!

optiniche - optiniche is a blog I stumbled on and I just really was drawn to the design so I stayed to read and found that I liked what I saw. The blog’s title reads:

helping you optimize, monetize, and market your niche blog.

Search-This - I really couldn’t resist linking to search-this and it’s not because I write there, but because I think it’s a really good site. There are articles on blogging, SEO, CSS, and anything related to web development!

I really would like to know what are some of the lesser-known blogs that you like to read. I challenge you to show me something I haven’t seen before. Also, if you participated in Blog Day, feel free to link to your blog!

Last week I wrote a post about the pros and cons of being a guest blogger, but now I’d like to look at the positives and negatives of having a guest blogger on your site.

the good

• Exposure - If you have a guest blogger, chances are they will let their audience know they are blogging somewhere else which could lead to them coming to your blog to check it out. Hopefully your content is good enough to keep them there!
• A fresh perspective - The audience benefits from a fresh perspective. Once you’ve been blogging for a while and you have plenty of repeat visitors, your audience gets used to your style of blogging. Having a guest blogger can help shake things up and add some excitement to your blog.
• A helping hand - When you need a break or are just plum out of ideas, having someone make a guest post can take a weight off your shoulders. Also, let’s say you have a blog about apples. You want to write an article about Granny Smith apples but that isn’t your specialty, so having someone who knows more about the subject would be a great addition to your blog.
• Free content - Free content is wonderful. As bloggers, we try to have continuous and fresh content and it’s nice when someone writes it for us!

the bad

• It’s just not you - Over the past couple of months there have been plenty of people complaining about the amount of guest bloggers there are. People subscribe to your feed to read what YOU have to say, not what others have to say and that is the major complaint. Hopefully you know your audience and you know what would be acceptable with them. One way to help your audience accept the idea of a guest blogger is to introduce them and explain why you are having a guest blogger. Ask them to welcome the author!

I couldn’t really think of too many negatives to having a guest blogger and am curious to know what others think. For me the benefits definitely outweigh the negatives. There are a couple people I am considering to ask to write a guest post as they would cover a specific topic much better than I would! Have you ever had any guest bloggers on your blog?

Most blogs I read take the weekend off which is kind of disappointing. The ones that don’t take the weekends off post links of some sort (including this one). Something I try to post is a round-up of interesting or popular topics from the forums in hopes it will help get more participation and new sign ups so I hope it offers something more than just a set of external links, but maybe not.

I recently read this great article on Posting low quality blog posts on the weekends and the author made some GREAT points!

Have you considered the first time visitor who may drop by? Do you really want them to come to your blog for the first time only to see an article that you consider to be of a lower quality than usual? Remember that you only have one chance to create a positive first impression

Martin has really given me something to think about here. How can I better better balance out my blog for my current readers and potential audience. I know I read blogs on weekends. I wanted to point this article out to everyone and get your opinions on it. I will also leave you with two questions:

1. Do you read blogs on the weekends?
2. Do you post on the weekends and if so, is it lower quality than your weekday posts?

Last week someone asked me if I would write a guest post on his blog. It didn’t take much consideration on my part as the topic of the blog is not something I normally write. Plus there are a lot of benefits to being a guest blogger!

The Good

• Exposure - Chances are the blog you are writing for has a different audience than yours so this is a great chance to reach out to new readers, grab their attention, and bring them back to your blog. Certainly they can fit one more blog into their daily routine! Most guest bloggers get to say a little something about themselves so this is your chance to entice the readers and make them want to read more!
• Free Link - I know, I know, you can get a free link from your neighborhood blog directory, but this is a targeted link from a blog which potentially has higher PR than you. Ahhh, feel the link love!
• Your writing is damn good - Have you ever had to bring a dish over to a potluck? I know when I do I typically pick my best meal or side dish and make sure it is absolutely delicious! I have gotten quite a reputation for being this amazing cook when in reality, I know how to cook 5 things well and my cooking isn’t stellar at home. I don’t spend hours slaving over dinner for my family (bad mom I know), but for other people I try to put my best foot forward! It is really the same when you guest blog. You aren’t going to go to someone’s house and bring microwaved leftovers and you also won’t go to someone’s blog and regurgitate the same crap floating around everywhere else! Instead you will try to really challenge yourself to think outside of the box and make your best effort to make a solid post. I guarantee you will proofread your post more than you would if you were writing it for your own blog!

The Bad

• Confinement - When you blog for someone else, you are typically given a pretty narrow scope or even a specific topic to cover. If you were blogging for yourself, you could cover whatever came to your mind but quite often the person who asked you to blog needs you to make a post about a very specific topic. You will have to conform to their timeline and if they want a specific word count, then that will be a consideration!
• Giving away content -As I mentioned in the Pros, you are probably trying your best to write some really great content…yet you go and give away your stellar post to another site. You could always ask permission to republish it on your blog at a later date if you would like, although I think it is better to leave it unique. This is a small sacrifice for the benefits you will get.
• It takes more time - You will probably spend more time writing this post than you would if you wrote it for your own blog. Let’s say you are writing a post for a video game blog. The blog author has asked you to write a post about a specific game, now, you may play video games but are only slightly familiar with this particular game, so it may take extra research on your part and the words may not flow as easily as if you could write about your own topic. It all adds up when you consider the extra time you put into the post to make sure you are writing your best in order to try and intrigue this new audience.

The Ugly

There really isn’t any ugly but I couldn’t resist adding this section!

The End

Hopefully you can see that the benefits to being a guest blogger typically outweigh the negatives. If someone wants you to be a guest bloggers, I say give it a shot! Brush your teeth, comb your hair, put on your Sunday best and wow charm with your ideas and wit!

P.S.

Ok, I’m getting carried away and having fun with this now. But I would like to know about your experiences as a guest blogger. Have you ever considered it? if you were asked to make a guest post would you do it?

The saying, “it is easier to get a repeat customer than a new customer” is very relevant in the world of blogging! It is much easier to keep return readers than to get a new one and you want to make sure you make it as easy as possible for them to return! This alone is a great reason to offer your readers an RSS feed. Having people subscribe to your blog is great because it increases the chance of them reading your content and returning to your blog. When I see a blog I like, I immediately subscribe so I don’t forget this blog because chances are, I will forget the URL of the blog and miss out on a blog I would have really enjoyed. Below are some ways to turn your readers into subscribers:

• Make your feed prominent - Make sure the subscribe link is very prominent on your blog. All too often I am seeing it hidden somewhere in the footer which is just not good. Now you don’t want a dancing RSS Icon floating across the screen; but make sure your link is noticable. The RSS icon is very well known so you may even be able to get away with just using that; I’m sure you can see mine just fine! It would probably be better for me to also include a text link in addition to the feed icon; but given my target audience are bloggers, the icon is pretty well known.
• Remind readers by email to subscribe - I use the Comment Relish plugin which sends an email to a visitor the first time they post and I recently modified it include a link to the rss feed. This is just another way to get your feed out there and another chance for that person to subscribe!
• Put a subscribe link at the top and bottom of each post - This is something I have seen done and am considering myself. I like the idea of giving them yet ANOTHER opportunity to respond, but I don’t want to suffocate them. Either way though, it is another option. I’d be interested to hear if anyone here does it.
• Make new readers aware of your feed - Install the What would seth Godin do? plugin. This is something I found out about in the Blog Forum and I thought it was a brilliant idea. The plugin shows vistors that are new to your blog a message that tells them about your feed. The message and style is completely configurable as well as the number of times a visitor has to visit before the message stops displaying. Here is what it looks like:

  

I’m interested to learn more ways to turn readers into subscribers. What do YOU do?

I was just reading about BlogDay on BloggingTips and it was a great reminder that it is just only 2 weeks away so mark you calendars!

For those that don’t know, BlogDay is

created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On that day Bloggers will recommend other blogs to their blog visitors.

The basic rules are as follows:

• Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting
• Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2007
• Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs
• Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st) and
• Add the BlogDay tag using this link:
  http://technorati.com/tag/BlogDay2007 and a link to the BlogDay web site at http://www.blogday.org

Ok, this is all great fun and its a great way to share some link love as well as get traffic to some well-deserved blogs, but what can this do for you as a blogger?

• This is another way to get personal and reveal a little bit more about yourself! By showing people what you recommend, you are also telling them something you like.
• Free Content! Well, let me elaborate a little bit. When I say free, I mean easy. This is like a freebie day for you. I guarantee finding 5 blogs that you like would be very easy so you can save your originally-scheduled post for another day. Count me in!
• You could be helping out your readers by pointing them to related blogs. If you have a niche blog, you can use this opportunity to share some great blogs that your readers will find useful

Have I convinced you to participate yet? I want to know….Seriously..I do. Tell me.

As bloggers, the best kind of visitors are return visitors. In the business world, it is much easier to keep a current customer than to get a new one. So how do we turn our new visitors into return ones? Well, we need to make them feel welcome!

When people come to our house for the first time, we go out of our way to make them feel welcome in our home. We offer them a drink or something to eat, clean up a little beforehand and when they leave, we thank them for coming. You really need to treat your commenters the same way. It’s a great thing when someone takes the time to first READ what you had to say much less make a comment, so when that happens we need to let them know we appreciate their time and encourage them to do it again. So how do we do that? There are plenty of ways!

• Respond! - When someone writes a comment, take the time to comment in return. You don’t need to respond after every comment, but at least thank everyone for commenting and if a comment requires some feedback from you, make sure you provide that!
• Send a thank you email - I know, I know. You have to comment AND send a thank you email? Well no, but sending a thank you email the first time someone comments on your blog is a really nice thing. There is a great Wordpress Plugin called Comment Relish that does just that. I don’t know if the other platforms have something similar, but the commenter will only get a thank you the first time they make a comment, so don’t worry, you aren’t spamming them. It’s just an added touch and when there are 1000s of other blogs out there that your commenter can read, you want to make sure that you stand out from the rest!
• Share the link love - Most blogging platforms have the nofollow tag in your comment section so the commenters don’t really benefit at all from your posting the comment. There are plenty of plugins out there that remove the nofollow tag from your comment links. There is a lot of controversy out there regarding this right now though because people think people are commenting JUST for the link or that it encourages spam comments. This is up for you to decide. I choose to thank my commenters by installing the Link Love plugin. What makes this plugin different from other dofollow plugins is it only removes the nofollow tag after someone makes 10 comments. This is modifiable and I have mine set to 3.
• Thank your top commenters - You can do this by periodically by either emailing them, making a post thanking them or there is a plugin that many people use called the Top Commentators plugin. This basically puts a link in your sidebar to your top commenters. I don’t use this one personally; I’d rather use one of the dofollow for all of my commenters; not just the ones that are extremely active.

Now, tell me, how do you reward your commenters?