As many of us know, Twitter is a great way to publicize blog posts. With this in mind, an efficient and convenient way to help spread word about your blog posts via this medium is by installing a service called TweetMeme. This is a site which acts like a social bookmarking niche for Twitter, but instead of the voting system, sites gain popularity by the method of retweeting.

TweetMeme is completely free, and can be added to your blog posts, so that you and/or other readers of your blog can retweet the subject and URL with just one click. With this service, you can see how many retweets the specific blog post has, along with other Twitter users that have retweeted it. As you can see, I have just added the service to this blog.

To install TweetMeme on your blog, I have provided a link to a quick tutorial from the W3CGallery Blog. WordPress users can add this as a plugin to their blog via the WordPress Plugin Directory and enabling it in the Plugins section of the admin panel.

This is a viral (and addictive) way of getting your blog (and blog posts) noticed on Twitter and the blogosphere!

Happy Blogging!

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One of the popular trends on the web right now is social media and/or social networking, and it looks like there is no stopping it in the near future. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit are among the many sites which are leading the way with social media, but is there a way for you to use social media to your advantage?

There are a few ways you can take advantage of social media for your blog. Sites such as cracked.com seem to be on Digg’s front page daily, and this success shows. Blogstorm.co.uk recently released a list of 100 sites based on how often they reach Digg’s front page. Cracked.com was ranked 26 on this list, and looking at Alexa’s stats is seems that it maybe a lot of where their visitors are coming from.

So, what advantages does social networking provide for blogs, and what are some ways to use them effectively? The most obvious advantage is traffic directed toward your site. From this traffic you can make some revenue, which is the goal for most sites. You can also build a loyal support base via social media. Looking at any of the social media sites, you can tell that they are very loyal to their brand. Just visiting any of the sites, you will notice arguments like Facebook is better than Myspace, or Reddit has a better user base then Digg, and so on. This loyalty is something that takes large companies years to build, but via social media you can do the same thing in less time.

In order to effectively use social media, you have to be part of the community. As we already stated, the communities are loyal for the most part, but they are not welcoming to outsiders. If you were to submit a blog entry to Reddit, or Digg, it will most likely get lost in the shuffle. If you were to only use Twitter to announce a new blog article, your chances of looking interesting to other users can be very low. So how do you break this trend? You have to become part of the community. This can require a lot of time. You will have to build a relationship with the users, and get to know them. This is a key feature that most people who use social media for advertising don’t fully understand. Most people are drawn to social media because it is a “free” way to advertise. Then they wonder why their plan doesn’t work, when they are not apart of the community. Some ways to start to fit into the community is simple, acknowledge the community. Comment on stories at Reddit, reply to tweets on Twitter, send personalized messages to people on Facebook. After you build a good network, then start linking to your blog, but continue to communicate in other ways. You can send a personal tweet or message telling a user that you thought they would be interested in an blog entry you posted, but only do it when you really mean it. After doing this, you have to remember not to “abuse” the community. After building friends, don’t send them links to every blog article you wrote. Respect the users of the service. Remember the saying “Respect is a two way street”, and in social media this is really the case. By not spamming the people on your friend’s list with every article you write, you are respecting them. When you actually do send them a link, they are more likely to read the link.

Don’t seem like you are in the community just for advertising. If you are using Twitter, make tweets about other subjects. On Digg, submit stories from other sites, which you truly find interesting. Making yourself not look like a person spamming just one site, will allow you to build friends also. A person may enjoy the article enough to look at your past submissions, and if they feel like there is something in common they may check out your profile more often.

Write about something the community will like on your blog. If you know that most of your followers on Twitter really like 80’s TV show, talk about those shows and be creative when doing so. Talk about how you think the MacGyver would respond to current events, or how a reality show would be if the A-Team was part of it. If people find your site interesting, and can connect to the content, they will be willing to look at what else you have to say. Posting an article on Digg about how to rebuild a car motor wouldn’t do as well as how to hack an electronic road sign. This is another aspect where being active in the community helps you understand what will do well on a social network site.

Make your site social. Allowing the user to interact on your site via comments, or a forum will make the user feel part of the site. They will be able to voice their ideas about the blog entry, and in doing so it will start to build your own community. This also allows you to get feedback from the community. If you post an entry that you thought was great but the community says they thought it was horrible, then you know not to write similar articles in the future.

Just like wine, it takes time to get the best out of social media. If you are expecting that social media will make a large influx of traffic to your site over night, then you should not use social media as a mean to advertise your site. Social networking doesn’t make advertising easier, it just makes creates more of a level playing field for the small blogs. With hard work, social media can be part of a site’s success.

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If you are either a new blogger just getting introduced to the blogosphere, or you’ve been blogging for a long time and want to gain more visibility and attention to your blog, I have provided a few tips to give your site a better audience.

• Learn SEO – SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is key for the placement and appearance of your site on search engines. There are specific rules and guidelines to placing your blog higher within search engine results pages. Want to know more about SEO? WebProWorld is a great resource and forum for everything SEO-wise, and a great place to ask SEO-related questions.
• Social Media/Networking – If you are involved in social media/networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, these are great places to help promote and advertise your blog. A trend that I have been seeing on Facebook is that users have been syncing their blog posts to the Facebook Notes section of their profile, and adding applications to their profile page like Blog It!
• RSS Feeds – RSS feeds are always beneficial to add to your blog. These allow people who read a lot of blog posts to view and organize them all in one place. This helps keep the user interested in the content of your blog.
• Article Directories – Submitting your articles to various article directories will help the publicity of your blog, and compete with other writers as your articles will be placed by category. If you would like to submit to a vast amount of directories in a small amount of time, you will need to subscribe to a submission service (e.g. SubmitterBot) that will automatically submit your article to different article directories for you.

Happy Blogging!

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Big news from StumbleUpon today!

Not only has the social bookmarking site (or “personalized recommendation engine” as they call it) announced a new partnership program that will see sites implement internal stumblability, but they are rolling out a new design that will no longer require users to install the toolbar into their browsers.

What does this mean besides added convenience for users?

It means that many more people are likely to start using it, and that means a whole lot more content. It also means a whole lot more potential fuel for bloggers (as I mentioned, it’s one of my favorite tools for overcoming writer’s block).

I think both of these announcements are going to turn into something really big for StumbleUpon, and they are announcements that are long overdue (particularly the non-toolbar one).

For more about it, I wrote a piece on it for WebProNews this morning.

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It is not my intention to just link to my own articles on WebProNews everyday on this blog. It just so happens that I’ve been covering stuff that seems relevant here, so if the shoe fits…

Those of you out there who blog about current news topics might be interested to know that Yahoo! News has a redesign in the works that will feature a section where blogs covering news items can get some links.

To see the new design, you can go to any Yahoo! News article page and alter the URL slightly, replacing the “S” with “Story” in the following manner:

news.yahoo.com/s/…

news.yahoo.com/story/…

I have not heard anything about when Yahoo! intends to roll this new design out, but once they do, it should be a good way for bloggers to pick up some good promotion. Yahoo! News is pretty popular, so it should drive a good amount of traffic to the blogs it features.

For more on the topic, read my WebProNews piece.

I promise this blog won’t consist entirely of retreads of my own work as time goes on, but I don’t know how many of you are WebProNews readers anyway, and there’s some crossover in topics of interest.

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You’ve selected a great blog design, written some flagship posts, and left comments on other blogs. But your readership is still so low you dare not display your feed count for fear it will drive people away instead of serving as social proof.

What are you missing?

Networking. Last week my post here at PureBlogging was Smart Strategies for New Bloggers. If you haven’t read it, yet, you might want to because it will be excellent background for this post. Go ahead, you can click the back button when you’re done (and after you’ve left a comment). I’ll still be here.

You’re back? Good. So in that post I said that a beginning blogger should be spending two thirds of her time networking and one third writing. I also suggested that a blog pack was a great way to accomplish some of this. But a blog pack is only part of networking.

What is Blog Networking?

If you haven’t really done much of it before, networking might seem like a mystery. The word may conjure up images of business people in suits shaking hands, exchanging business cards, being phony, and sipping martinis. Not that there’s anything wrong with martinis, mind you, but for bloggers it’s not very much like that at all.

Here’s how I define blog networking: Making a concerted effort to make personal contact with people in order to find ways to help them and provide value to their lives.

How is Blog Networking Done?

There are a thousand ways to network with other bloggers, and some of them you probably already know, like leave great comments at other blogs. The best networking techniques are simple, honest, and personal. That’s why they’re so effective. Consider:

1. Email a blogger directly, especially if he has commented on a post you wrote. I do this from time to time. In the email I say something like: “I wanted to send a personal note to say hello and to thank you for…” and then I tell them whatever it is they’ve done for which I’m thankful. Maybe they wrote a great post that really resonated with me. Maybe I really appreciated a comment they left on my blog. People will nearly always reply, and now you’ve made contact. That’s networking.
2. Introduce members of your network to each other. Once you’ve added someone into your network, consider others in your network she should be introduced to. A real networker doesn’t just “collect people” for himself. He makes connections between others for everyone’s mutual benefit. It’s easy to send an email to both people at once in order to introduce two people to each other.
3. Provide value with every interaction. Always be looking out for the interests of others in your network. For example, if you have a real estate agent in your network and you happen on a real estate article online that would be relevant to her, why not send her the link with a note that says you thought of her when you saw the article? Actions like these create strong professional ties between people.
4. Go beyond text. Even stronger relationships are built when you go beyond email, instant messaging, or Twitter. Talk to people on the phone. This is why I use a service like Skype. I can make calls anywhere in the world and it’s dirt cheap. That makes it easy to keep in touch with others.
5. Go beyond voice. Meeting with others face to face is still the best kind of networking you can experience. Blog meetups cost very little to attend or to organize. There are many conferences you can attend in your industry or niche. There may be trade shows related to your subject or field. Yes, these cost money, but I have found that it is money well-spent. I think of it as an investment. I get a return. I get new business, connections, and opportunities through live events I would never have any other way. I actually make more money from the event than it costs to attend, so it’s a good decision. It’s not always so clear-cut. It may be difficult to put a dollar amount on an opportunity to gain exposure, for example. Oh… this is where you might actually be sipping a martini and exchanging business cards. But if you wore a suit to a blogging conference it would be weird, and if you were a phony you wouldn’t get any traction out of the event.

If you are a new blogger, the thought of attending a blogging conference (or something similar) may seem overwhelming. But if you want to do something more than languish with an unread new blog, meeting people in the flesh and establishing bonds with others is the best way to catapult your new blog onto the scene.

Networking and interacting with other people, instead of hiding behind your screen writing posts, will do more for your blog–and for your growth as a person–than you ever thought possible.

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Any blogger that is looking to gain exposure and build an audience has to consider how to go about reaching new readers. Some bloggers who view their work as a business are willing to pay for some exposure through banner ads, paid reviews, pay-per-click ads, etc. Those who are willing to invest some money into building their blog are obviously going to have some more opportunities to get in front of new readers, but in my opinion there is a method of advertising or self promotion that is more effective than any of these methods, and it’s free! Despite the combination of effectiveness and no cost, there are still plenty of opportunities for just about any blogger to use this method.

What is this “magical” form of promotion?

While it technically isn’t a form of advertising, writing guest posts for other blogs can be far more effective than traditional forms of advertising. Part of the problem with banner ads and sponsored reviews is that readers know that they are the subject of your advertisement. So in many cases, advertising is more effective when it’s really promotion and exposure rather than traditional advertising.

Why Guest Posting Works

Guest posting on other blogs in your niche is effective because it allows you to sell yourself by presenting your knowledge and putting it on display for readers. A banner ad cannot prove your worth to readers, but a guest post can.

How Guest Posting Differs from Traditional Advertising

Promoting yourself through guest posts is more subtle and less intrusive to readers than banner ads or sponsored reviews. Most readers are not interested in advertisements and they tune them out. But when they ignore advertisements, what are they directing their attention towards? The content of the blog. And when your guest post is the content that they are paying attention to, you have their focus and attention.

An advertisement projects your message directly to readers. There’s very little interpretation on their part. You’re trying to convince them of something or grab their attention to draw a click. With a guest post you don’t have to grab their attention in the same way. You have an entire post to make your point, and if you do it well there is a small, subtle link to your own blog in the bio at the beginning or the end of the post. A guest post gives the reader freedom to choose to pursue your “advertisement” by clicking on the link in the bio.

I think many times one of the problems with banner ads is that readers are hesitant to click even if it’s something that might interest them. First, there might be some doubt as to where the link will take them or a lack of trust for an advertiser. This is rarely an issue with guest posts because you’ve had a better chance to earn their trust throughout the post, and you have a chance to clearly tell them where they’ll go when they click on your link. Second, I think some readers want to ignore banners because they think the ads will increase or become more intrusive if they actually click on them. There can be a resistance to paid ads because they may feel like as a reader they’re being sold.

With a paid advertisement or a sponsored review readers are told something about you or why they should click-through to your blog. With a guest post you’re just writing a useful, interesting post and if they want to find out more about you they can click-through. Rather than telling them why they should visit your blog, you’re proving that they should visit by demonstrating your knowledge of the subject at hand.

Human nature (especially in today’s commercial society) is to resist being sold on something. The guest post takes a more laid back approach that can be less off-putting to readers.

Guest Posting Isn’t Really Advertising

Despite the title of this post, I do realize that guest posting is not really advertising. However, it allows you to accomplish many of the same objectives that an advertisement would, and in most cases it’s even more effective.

Although your purpose in writing a guest post is to get something back, you shouldn’t directly sell yourself. Don’t abuse the platform that you’re being given to tell people about yourself and your blog. Instead, write the best post that you’re capable of, and use a brief two or three sentence bio that includes a link to your blog to tell readers more about you.

My Experience with Guest Posting

When I started my blog last summer, guest posting was one of the primary methods I used to promote myself and draw traffic back to my blog. Over a span of two or three months I had about 20 posts published on a number of different blogs. While none of these guest posts drew a huge response individually, the collective effort was one the biggest keys to getting my blog off the ground and building a solid base of subscribers.

Writing guest posts for other blogs gave me an excellent opportunity to network with other bloggers, many of whom I am still in contact with. It also led to paid writing positions on three different blogs, including PureBlogging.

A few months ago I launched a second blog of my own, and while I’ve had little time to this point to do much promotion for the blog, I have had very good success with a few guest posts, particularly two that I’ve written for ProBlogger.

How to Get Started

If you’re interested in taking some action and making the most of the guest posting opportunities that exist, here are some steps that you can take to get started.

1 – Find some blogs in your niche that accept guest posts

Not all bloggers are interested in publishing the work of others, but you may be surprised that most are more than willing. Take a look at some of the blogs that you read on a regular basis and pay attention to which ones publish posts from other writers. You’ll probably see a few right away that you know will be open to the idea of publishing your post. However, there are many others that would be willing to publish a guest post, but others simply don’t offer to write for them. Find some other blogs in your niche that you think target an audience that is very similar to yours. Don’t necessarily go for the largest blogs right away. I started by writing for many blogs with anywhere from 100 – 1,000 subscribers and this is enough to get some results. Once I felt more comfortable and more confident, I began to approach larger blogs.

2 – Approach the blog owner with a simple introduction and an offer to guest post

Once you’ve identified a few possibilities, take a few moments to write a personal message. It it’s not someone that already knows you, provide a brief introduction and simply ask if they are interested in receiving guest posts for their blog.

3 – Don’t hold back. Offer your best work

After you’ve had some positive responses about a willingness to publish your guest posts, make sure that you provide them with the best work that you are capable of. The common feeling from most bloggers is to hold their best work for their own blogs, and as a result the guest posts are of lower quality. If you want to get the most out of your guest posting opportunities, do the absolute best job that you can do. You’ll get more clicks from readers and more subscribers.

4 – Get involved in the comments

Once your post has been published, be sure to go back and participate in the comments with readers. This gives you another opportunity to interact and draw more visitors to your blog, plus it is essentially your responsibility as the writer to answer questions and respond to feedback.

5 – Promote your article with social media

It’s in your best interest to get as much exposure to your guest post as possible. In theory, the more people that see your post, the more people will click-through to your blog. One of the best, and easiest, things you can do is to promote the post with social media. Give it a thumbs up with StumbleUpon or submit it to other social media sites. You may want to share it with some of your friends to request a vote

What’s Your Experience?

Have you written guest posts for other blogs? How has it helped you to build your name recognition and gain subscribers?

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As we approach the beginning of the Major League Baseball season I thought it was appropriate to drag out at least one baseball analogy to mark the occasion: Are you a singles hitter, or do you go for the home run?

What I’m referring to is, how do you decide which keyword phrases to target when writing your posts?  Do you go after the lesser searched phrases that will send a smaller stream of traffic to your site, or do you go after the keyword phrases that will send thousands of visitors daily.  On the one hand, going after less popular phrases will make it easier to rank higher on Google, but your return will be much smaller.  Your #1 ranking may only result in new 30 to 40 visitors a day.  On the other hand, the most searched keywords can direct thousands of new visitors to the #1 ranked site.  However, there is more than likely over 1 million sites competing for that top spot.  It’s not easy to reach, and it’s even harder to hold.

Is one strategy better than the other?  That really depends on your abilities and the resources (both time and money) you have to devote toward achieving your goal.

Sticking to the baseball analogy, not every player is a home run threat.  We all know about the Hank Aaron’s and Barry Bonds’ of the league (steroid argument aside, the guy could crush the ball), but we don’t pay much attention to the players that day in and day out hit for average and consistently scored runs.  And the players without the ability to hit home runs at will usually got out when they went to the plate looking for the homer.  For the average player the long ball came as a result of taking a good swing at a pitch that they could handle.

For many successful bloggers, that is how they go about blogging.  Day in and day out they post solid content that is either aimed at a lesser searched keyword phrase, or that answers specific questions for their readers.  They don’t necessarily worry about how Google will look at them on the major search phrases.  They go to the plate to hit for average.

Along the way, something the write may make solid contact, they get noticed, and the ball goes over the fence for a score.  Even though their strategy wasn’t to try to take on the big hitters, they manage to rank high and see a huge influx in traffic, even if just for a little while.

What that means for you is, start off smaller.  Learn to hit the ball well before you start swinging for the fences.  Learn how to get your site ranked well on the lesser searched keywords, then start moving up into the more competitive terms.  As you become more skilled at marketing your blog, you can take on more and more competitive terms.  As your skill and your content grow, Google will start to notice.  For now, don’t worry about the long ball; hit for average and continue to score runs.

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In order to make money off of your blog, you need to make sure that people are reading your blog. The more traffic that you have on each post, the more income you are likely to be able to make from blogging. That means that you need to be doing everything that you can in order to drive people to your blog posts.

Here are ten basic promotion tools that you should be using to drive people to your blog:

1. Craigslist. There are many different ways that you can use Craigslist to get people to land on your blog posts. Whether you’re creating online blogging events that you promote through the site or simply advertising a great post in the “general” section, this tool always snags a new audience for your work.

2. Link to yourself. In every post that you write, you should be directing people to other posts that you’ve written. You can do this through “related links” at the end of your post or you can do it simply through direct text links. Don’t just link to posts within one blog but cross-link to promote your blog’s work on the other blogs and websites that you write for (as appropriate to the terms of your blogging contracts, of course).

3. Email signature. Your email signature should have a link to your blog. It should also have a second link to a specific favorite article that you believe a majority of people that you email would be interested in reading.

4. Business cards. Most bloggers don’t carry business cards but every blogger should. These should be handed out whenever you get the chance. They can be placed at coffee shops and added to media kits. Yes, bloggers should have media kits.

5. Social bookmarking sites. You should be active on at least one of the major social bookmarking sites (Mixx, Digg, etc.) You may also want to be active on a social networking site (LinkedIn, Facebook) where you can have a link to your blog. Make sure to regularly promote your own blog posts through these sites to continually attract a bigger audience for your work.

6. Comments on others’ blogs. Hopefully you already know that this is one of the most important tools that you can use for bringing new traffic to your blog. Most basic comment sections include a place for you to add your blog link – and you should.

7. Ping Technorati. Many bloggers are failing to make use of Technorati which is a great site for getting some basic traffic based on keywords. Claim your blog on the site so that it will be regularly updated every time that you add a new post. Then make sure to use Technorati tags at the end of your post.

8. Blog links on your resume. Many people neglect to include links on their resumes which is unfortunate since most resumes are sent through the Internet. Add a direct link to your blog as part of your contact information at the header of the resume. Also include links to specific posts that highlight the skills that you are emphasizing throughout the resume. Even if you don’t get the job, you might get a new reader for your blog.

9. Add your blog to your bio. You probably have to publish your author’s bio on a semi-regular basis. Make sure that it has a direct link to your blog so that people who are interested in who you are can make their way to your blog to find out.

10. Boasting. Most bloggers diminish what they do when they are asked about it. They say they blog, but they kind of laugh it off. Or they vaguely say that they write for the web. Word-of-mouth is the single biggest tool that you have at your disposal in terms of promoting your blog. You should be taking pride in what you do and spreading the word with confidence every chance that you get.

You probably didn’t get into the business of blogging because you have a passion for marketing. In spite of this, you need to get a grasp on great promotion in order to draw people to your blog. Using these basic tools is a good start but you should also be regularly using new creative approaches to boost your blog promotion.

Question of the Day: What other promotion tools are a must for bloggers to be using?

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In my surfing to various blogs on the internet, and there are a lot of them out there, it strikes me that there are three different types of monetized blogs.  This has nothing to do with style or subject matter.  This has to do with how they handle the “business” of blogging.

The first type I’ll call the “Good Writer.”  The Good Writer has a ton of writing talent.  As you read their blog you can almost feel the passion they feel for their topic.  Their posts are well thought out, insightful, and well written.  They show you what they want you to see without a great deal of wandering about.

Despite their obvious talent and passion the Good Writer labors away in near obscurity.  They feel frustrated that they diligently post post to their blog, but their readership never seems to grow.  They may have a small group of loyal readers, but they can’t seem to grow enough for their efforts to be profitable.  They work very hard at the art of blogging, but without a better understanding of the marketing side, they will remain starving artists.

The second type of blogger is the one who has mastered the art of marketing their blog.  They understand how to work the system, and they have a knack for driving traffic to their sites.  They write content well enough to be able to get their keywords in, but their posts are either long, rambling articles with no rhyme of reason, or they are short, shallow pieces that are only written for the purpose of getting their keywords in enough times to catch Google’s attention.

The downside of the second blogger is, because of the weak content, they never build a loyal readership.  Although they can continue to draw traffic to their site because of their marketing efforts, their visitors do not return, and they never enjoy the word of mouth advertising that could push their blog over the top with readers.

The third type of blogger is the one who has enjoyed some degree of success with their blog.  These are the ones who see the whole picture.  They understand that although great content is essential to the long-term success of a blog, content alone is not enough.  It takes a combination of great content and a solid marketing effort that will ultimately make a blog successful.

Too often bloggers will ignore the need to market their blogs.  You may have the best product in town, but if people don’t know you exist, you will never see the type of success you want.  Yes, you may get lucky and have someone accidently find your site and Digg it, but the more likely scenario is that you won’t ever see much more than a small trickle of traffic.

If you are just starting out with blogging, don’t worry about getting 1,000 visitors a day.  Start out concentrating on building content.  Every legitimate blog advice article will tell you the same thing (assuming you already have your topic or niche defined).  Market your blog using Web 2.0 techniques; commenting, submitting to directories and blog carnivals, link building, and social bookmarking.  Over time your traffic will grow.  Be patient, but be tireless in your efforts.  If you are looking at blogging as a get-rich-quick tool, look somewhere else.  It takes time, and it takes work.

If you are good at what you do, you will see some success.  Give it time, it will happen.

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