25 Tips for Marketing Your Blog

With so many blogs being created every day, it’s a mystery to many bloggers how to make their blog stand out. There are many types of blogs or purposes for blogs and a certain number of tactics are applicable to just about all of them.Some companies choose to hire a blog consultant, but others like to try things internally. For those “DIY” companies and individuals interested in practical tips for marketing and optimizing a business blog, try out the following list of blog marketing and optimization tips:

*Decide on a stand alone domain name www.myblog.com or directory of existing site www.mysite.com/blog. Sub domain is also an option blog.mysite.com. Avoid hosted services that do not allow you to use your own domain name!
Obtain and install customizable blog software - WordPress and Moveable Type are my favorites.
*Customize blog look and feel templates - aka design.
*Research keywords and develop a glossary - Keyword Discovery, WordTracker, SitePoint, SEOBook Keyword Research.
*Optimize the blog:
*Template optimization - RSS subscription options, social bookmark links, HTML code, Unique title tags, URLs, Sitemap
*Add helper plugins specific to WordPress or MT
*Create keyword rich categories (reference your keyword glossary)
*Enable automatic trackback and ping functionality.
*Create Feedburner Pro account and enable feed tracking.
*Setup a Google account for Sitemap, validate and prep for future submission.
*Identify authoritative blogs, web sites and hubs for outbound resource links and blogroll.
*Format archived posts, related posts.
*Enable statistics for tracking - Google Analytics, ClickTracks.
*Submit RSS feed and Blog URL to prominent RSS and Blog directories / search engines.
*Engage in an ongoing link building campaign.
*If podcast or video content are available, submit to Podcast and Vlog directories.
*Submit blog url to paid directories with categories for blogs - Yahoo, BOTW, bCentral, WOW, JoeAnt.
*Optimize and distribute a press release announcing blog.
*Request feedback or reviews of your blog in relevant forums, discussion threads. If you have a resourceful post that will help others, point to it.
*Research and comment on relevant industry related blogs and blogs with significant centers of influence.
*Post regularly. If it’s a news oriented blog, 3-5 times per day. If it’s an authoritative blog, 3-5 times per week, but each post must be unique and high value.
*Monitor inbound links, traffic, comments and mentions of your blog - Google Alerts, Technorati, Blogpulse, Yahoo News, Ask Blogs and Feeds.
*Always respond to comments on your blog and when you detect a mention of your blog on another blog, thank that blogger in the comments of the post.
*Make contact with related bloggers on AND offline if possible.
*When making blog posts always cite the source with a link and don’t be afraid to mention popular bloggers by name. Use keywords in the blog post title, in the body of the post and use anchor text when you link to previous posts you’ve made.
*Use social networking services, forums and discussion threads to connect with other bloggers. If they like your stuff, they will link to you.
Remember when web sites were a new concept and the sage advice to print your web address everywhere you print your phone number? The same advice applies for your blog.
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If your blog’s goal is to promote you as an authority, interview other prominent bloggers in your industry. Your own credibility will improve by association.
Build out your online networks through services such as MyBlogLog, Twitter and Facebook and leverage them to promote particularly useful content on your blog.
Once your blog has 1000 or more subscribers, show your Feedburner badge
Host images with Flickr making sure to include an anchor text link in the image description back to the post where the image is used.
Use your blog to gain press/media credentials at relevant industry conferences and use the event to create content, connections and increase your knowledge.

Promote without SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is known as the fast way to get visitor, but it sometimes isn’t easy as it was said. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) needs time, energy and focus. How do you think about these other than SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ways? These ways also called another effective methods to get visitor to your blog.

Link to other blog

Usually the blog owner would like to visit your blog if you insert their link on your content. This way in some cases could help you to increase your traffic.

Active in a community

This way will spread your relatives and by time your readers will get the possibility to increase. It is recommended for you to give a good contribute to your community such as an useful tutorial, free template or so on other that just give a spam comment or other bad things. Forum, blog aggregator or mailing list are three examples of online community.

Get your niche

Choosing the interest topic for your blog will make it easier for you to build and update your content. So it isn’t a pressure for you to grow your blog, even releasing your stress. Isn’t it?

Interesting article

Have you got an idea on writing good article? Sometime it can be controversial topic or actual topic or other idea which many people will like to give comment or read it.

Regularly update

This one is important enough to get loyal visitor. You have to update your blog at least twice a week. That is why the interesting topic is essence for you, that you will get it much easier to update on your favorite topic.

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Making Your Blog to be Liked by Yahoo

Yahoo is one of the favorite search engines people often used. So it is quite important to understand how Yahoo works. What things they like and don’t. Here are some explanations on this along with short description of one’s experience in this case.

A blogger has an experience about Yahoo index. Someday he just checked his blog on Yahoo and shocked about the fact that his blog wasn’t exist in Yahoo result page. Fortunately after did some researches and corrections also contacted Yahoo’s help, he found his blog was exist again.

Here are some important things while working with Yahoo. These things are important enough to considered if you don’t want your blog loses from Yahoo’s index or located in latest position:

The page that influences the relevant or accurate result of search engine.

Many sites or pages with same content.

The page that contains many links or links to other sites, example: affilliation program.

The web with many virtual hostnames.

The large number of page that automatically created without valued contents (cookie-cutter pages).

The page that uses artificial method to get ranking.

The page that uses hidden link or text.

Cloaking or the page looks different within search engine and normal visitor (showing crawlers deceptive content about a site).

Too many links to other sites in order to make the main site becomes popular (link schemes).

The page that has main purpose for search engine with many keywords and not relevant.

Using a name or mark with no right.

Site with many pop-ups, install malware, spyware, virus, trojans or influences the user navigation.

The page that contains fraudulent.

Ping your blog:How to ping your blog to the top

When you publish one of your posts your blogging software should notify some ping services that you have added more content to your blog. There are numerous pinging services on the web.

Basically pinging works like this :

1. You publish a new post on your blog
2. Your blog notifies one or more pinging services
3. the pinging service then lets blog search engines know that there is new content on your blog
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http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://rpc.wpkeys.com
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.britblog.com
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://ping.fakapster.com/rpc
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://api.feedster.com/ping.php
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Blog Directories

You should not expect a lot of traffic from blog directories but submitting your blog to a few dozen can help give your blog a kickstart when it’s new. Hope you enjoy this list

* 5 Star Blogs
* Aviva Directory
* B4Blogs Directory
* Best Blogs
* Bigger Blogger
* Blawg
* BlogAdr
* Blogarama
* BlogBunch
* BlogCode
* Blog Directory
* Blog Dust
* Blogdup
* Bloggernity
* BlogFlux
* BlogHop
* Blog Point
* Blog Watch
* Bloggapedia
* BloggerNow
* Blogging Fusion
* BlogIntro
* Blog Listing
* BlogListing.net
* Blogoozle
* BlogPulse
* BlogRankings
* Blogs Collection
* BlogSearch
* BlogSweet
* Blog Top List
* Blog Universe
* Blogz
* Brit Blog
* Dmoz Open Directory Project
* Eaton Web Blog Directory
* FindingBlog
* GetBlogs
* Globe of Blogs
* I Blog Business
* IceRocket
* LS Blogs
* MyBlogDirectory
* Read A Blog
* Small Business Blog Directory
* SpillBean
* Strategic Board
* Super Blog Directory
* TailRank
* Technorati
* Top Blog Area

9 Easy Tips for Effective Business Blogging

Here are nine easy tips that will help you stay on top of your company blog:

Batch Update: Nothing looks worse for your company’s site than a dead blog. Unless you have a dedicated copywriter, you may have trouble regularly updating. The solution: batch updates. Write several articles in advance. One good rule is to get them all done at the beginning of the next unit or two of time up from your target posting frequency. That means that if you want to update daily, have seven articles ready by the end of the previous business week. If you update monthly, get all your articles done by the beginning of the quarter.

Chop It Up: If your article gets too long, consider how it would work as a series. Not only does this help you update on time, but it also generates ongoing reader interest. For example, this three part series on PPC advertising began as one article, but as it grew, I split it up. I got three weeks of content out of one idea.

Go Beyond the Site: One of the most common traps in business blogging is to regurgitate the company’s site content. This is especially common when a company has diverse interests; “It’s Tuesday, so it’s time to remind everyone that we do widget-wrangling.” You need to demonstrate that your company is aware and adaptable. Do it by researching news articles, other blogs and Wikipedia for relevant information. Tie it all to the theme of the post and don’t forget to give credit (and outgoing links) where it’s due.

Grammar and Spelling Count: Do we even need to say this? Looking at some of the blogs floating around out there, I’m afraid the answer is “yes.” Always edit for grammar. Even if it doesn’t set off alarms in the word processor it’s still a good idea to tweak it for style. It’s not always just about good and bad grammar, but good and better grammar. But grammar is partly subjective, so don’t be afraid to say something cool even when it might break a rule - like I just did in this sentence when I started it with a conjunction.

Guest Stars: Invite guests to your blog - and get invited to other people’s blogs. The mandatory, organic links you’ll get out of it are valuable. Guest blogging also demonstrates a high trust relationship: an important consideration in a blogosphere choked with spam, scraping and other reader-hostile setups.

Incorporate - Don’t Stuff: Search engines love smart keywords, but hate keyword stuffing. Unless you’re assigning tags, only use keywords as part of the article’s organic (human-written, human-read) content. Use them logically; If “red race cars” is a good keyword phrase for you, write an article about them. Don’t toss it into a post that’s really aimed at a different keyword unless you’re absolutely sure you can put both in a good bit of writing.

Learn Competition Keywords:Your company blog doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s a competition tool. Use it to stake a claim on the competition’s keywords. You don’t need to drill as deeply into them as your own target keywords, but make sure you build your niche and split competitive searches with your blog.

Kill Corpspeak: “Leveraging solutions for intelligent management in today’s information rich environment,” means nothing. I almost fell asleep writing it - so how do you think the readers will feel? Seriously though, corporate language is designed to convey thoroughness and gravity, because it’s used in critical, front-line negotiations and decision-making. Blogs are shorter, less formal - they’re “water cooler talk,” not “board meetings.” Readers want to feel comfortable and drawn in.

Shrink but don’t Delete: You probably already know that in blogging, brevity is the soul of wit, but it’s hard to keep an interesting piece down to your target of 250 to 500 words. Get savage with your writing; eliminate every redundant phrase and shrink those chubby sentences - but don’t permanently delete anything. You can always use the leftovers for another article, including a series (see “Chop It Up,” above).

Use these tips, and you’ll have a sophisticated, up to date blog that not only increases your search rank, but is actually readable.