PureBlogging

Because I live in San Francisco, I have used Craigslist for almost everything in my life. Searching through the classified ads on the site – or posting ads of my own – was how I got my apartment, my furniture and many of my friends. As a freelancer, Craigslist used to be one of the primary places I found my jobs. And Craigslist was also a tool that I used to drive a surprising amount of traffic to one of my main blogs.

Here are some of the ways that you can use Craigslist as a (free) tool for blog promotion:

• Community. The community section of the site, located in the top left corner of the main Craigslist screen, provides many opportunities for publicizing your blog. The blog that I was promoting was for artists, so I would post about once a week in the “artists” section of the community. I made sure to provide interesting information, usually about a local artist, with a link to the full article on my site. The “general” section was good for the same type of promotional posts and “local news” worked when I had something on my blog that was particularly newsworthy for the city. I also solicited guest bloggers for the site through the “volunteers” section here.

• Classes. This section can be found in the community area of the site but can also be reached through the calendar on the lefthand side of Craigslist. To use this as a blog promotion tool, I held an online class about a topic related to my blog. Using online conferencing tools, I invited people to attend a short twenty minute online class about my topic. I was surprised by the number of people who turned up to the online class and the surge of traffic that came to the site afterwards. I imagine that an in-person class or event would do even better. If you have enough knowledge on a topic to have a blog, you have enough to teach a short class.

• Barter. I posted in the barter section on several different occasions. A watered-down version of this post was something like: “I have a blog about xyz and am seeking someone to promote it for me in a creative way. Send me an email with your promotional idea and what you’d like in exchange.” I received many interesting responses and creative ideas that I would never have come up with on my own, including a musician who offered to host a party with my blog named on the fliers as the sponsor. What I exchanged for this was a series of blog posts about the event. Other barter posts that worked for me were link exchanges and other more direct blogger-to-blogger trades.

• Services. Advertising about my blog in the creative and computer services seemed to drive a moderate amount of traffic to the site. I used posts that offered the service of blog writing and listed my link as an example of my work. I also used posts about the service of my blog’s industry (services for artists that I do as a writing consultant) and pointed to my blog as a way to contact me. There are many services listed in this section so various blogs would be able to use different parts of this section of the site.

• Gigs. Writing and creative gigs is the section where I frequently found my initial freelance jobs. Sometimes these jobs included a byline that gave traffic to my blog. On occasion, I also posted asking for guest bloggers in these sections, offering either a byline or moderate pay in exchange for quality posting. The bloggers who were guests on my site always drove traffic my way.

• Forums. I never made use of the Craigslist forums myself. However, I am guessing that a creative blogger would have no trouble generating interesting conversations on the forums that could translate to blog traffic.

Craigslist is a staple of San Francisco life so it was easy for a blogger from the area to use the site for traffic. However, the potential for blog promotion through Craigslist isn’t limited to Bay Area bloggers. There are Craigslist sites for many cities throughout the country. And if your blog has nationwide appeal, you can post on one of the major city sites (like San Francisco or New York) to gain a new audience.

Be aware that there are rules that need to be followed on Craigslist to keep the community useful to everyone. You shouldn’t post your promotional materials in sections that don’t suit it. And you should use promotion in conjunction with offering services and information to make yourself useful to the community there. Being helpful and respectful are always the best ways to get good traffic to your blog through any community. Check out the Craigslist “help” section before posting to better understand the rules of the site.

Question of the Day: Do you have any other Craigslist blog promotion success stories to share?

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Not long ago the blogosphere was seeing a lot of posts about how Page Ranks were going down, apparently as a result of blogs using monetization techniques that conflicted with Google AdSense. Within a few days, there was an adjustment, and many of the blogs recovered their previous page ranking, it does make you wonder why it happened in the first place. It also makes me wonder, does Google reward blogs that use AdSense and/or punish blogs that don’t?

In many ways, and for a lot of reasons, Google rules the internet world. While it is possible to not do well on Google and still make money, it is a hard way to go, and I don’t recommend it. Ranking well on Google can send hundreds of paying customers to your blog on a regular basis. It’s hard to ignore that amount of trafic.

That being said, it raises the dilemma of how to monetize your blog. While AdSense is very easy to use, it certainly isn’t the only option that is available. It is a great place to start, and some bloggers claim to have seen a lot of income from AdSense, but most bloggers will agree that it isn’t good business sense to put all of your eggs in one basket. Just like investing, diversity is the smart way to go. Chitika and Text Link Ads are two very good options that you can use to compliment your AdSense campaign. There are also other options like Amazon, or one of hundreds of affiliate programs you could sign up for. You could also make money off of your blog by selling your services as a consultant or by doing paid reviews. There are many different possibilities.

If you are using one of the different as choices, remember to keep a log of the changes you make to your advertising. Experiment not only with the types of programs you are using, but also with location on the page, color schemes, and size of the ad. When you make a change, log it and then track the results. Don’t just track your click through rate; also track what it does to your Page Rank and your position on the search engines. If your position begins to slip, you need to ask your self if the change is worth making. You may have a higher click through rate, but losing your position will result in less traffic, and lower profits.

For those of you that have already experimented with your advertising, I’d love to hear your opinion. Does the type of advertising you use affect your position on Google? What has worked for you? We could all benefit from your experience.

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Social networks can be very beneficial for your business. Social networks allow you to not only connect with other businesses, but they also let you interact with your customers and other business professionals, as well as share tips, discounts and special offers, gain knowledge from other business professionals, and much more. “Where do I find social networks for businesses,” you ask. One way is to search the Internet, but today I will reveal five social networks for businesses to save you a little time.

Apsense

This new social network for businesses offers you the opportunity to build your business while getting paid, and best of all: it’s free. Yes, that’s right: you’ll earn revenue from content you create as well as from content your contacts create! Some of the many benefits Apsense offers its members are as follows:

• Send and receive messages
• Join business groups that share your interests
• Vote on content written by fellow businesses
• Learn from business blogs and create a blog of your own

Ecademy

Ecademy, founded in 1998 by Penny Power, will enable you to connect with over 100,000 businesses. In addition to being able to network with others, you’ll also have the privilege of seeking support and advice, advertising your services, joining up with business networking groups that relate to your business, attend offline networking events and much more.

Ecademy has three memberships to choose from: Basic membership, which is free; a Power Networker membership for $5 a month; or for $100 month, you can enjoy all of Ecademy’s social networking features with a BlackStar membership.

Basic membership allows you to:

• Create a profile
• Search for contacts
• Learn from free networking guide
• Join clubs
• Respond to messages
• Attend networking events

As a Power Networker you can:

• Enjoy the same benefits as a Basic member
• Respond to and send unlimited messages
• Create your own clubs and events
• Post unlimited blogs
• Gain higher visibility on search engines
• Post unlimited adverts on Marketplace
• Save up to 10 searches and alerts

With a BlackStar membership, you’ll get:

• The same benefits as a Power Networker
• Automatic posts in the Marketplace as well as follow-up tools
• Unlimited saved searches and alerts
• Your company’s logo or banner placed on Ecademy’s pages
• Accelerated private networking in clubs, groups and exclusive events

LinkedIn

Join LinkedIn, a popular social network for businesses. As of this post, LinkedIn has over 7 million members! If you become a member of the LinkedIn social network, you’ll be able to connect with over 8 million businesses, ask and/or answer questions, share your expertise, request recommendations, create a profile and much more.

Merchant Circle

Would you like to gain more local customers? Then head to Merchant Circle www.merchantcircle.com. Merchant Circle, founded in 2005, was designed to connect small businesses with local customers. Through Merchant Circle you can create a blog for your business, send out coupon offers to potential customers, create newsletters, add photos and videos, increase your visibility in the search engines, create ads through Merchant Circle’s Ad Wizard, track what’s being said about your business, connect with other businesses to help your business grow, and more. Membership is free.

Xing

Xing, the first Web 2.0 company to go public, gives members the abilities to market their business and interact with other business professionals. They offer a free Basic membership and a Premium membership.

The above are a select few of the many social networks for businesses. If you’d like to discover more, Google “social networks for businesses” and “social network directories.”

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If the growth of your blog has stagnated you’ll need to focus on bringing in new visitors to the site. Developing a base of loyal, consistent readers is of course important, but attracting new readers is a requirement if you want to keep growing.

Here are some tips for attracting first-time visitors:

1. Comment on other blogs.

One of the most common methods of attracting new readers is to leave comments on other blogs. Leaving an intelligent, relevant comment on a post that gets decent traffic can help to give you some quality exposure. However, commenting on smaller blogs can be just as beneficial. When you comment and leave your URL at a blog that doesn’t receive a lot of comments the chances are very high that that blogger will visit your blog. If you comment on other blogs in your niche you can easily get some targeted traffic to your blog. The numbers of visitors you draw may not be huge, but it’s a great method for newer bloggers to start to get noticed. If you always comment on the same 3 or 4 blogs, expand a little bit and start commenting at some other blogs for the first time.

2. Social media.

Every day thousands of social media users visit websites and blogs they have never seen before. If one of your blog posts becomes popular with social media you’ll quickly reach a large audience of first-time readers. Yes, it’s difficult to convert a visitor from a social media site into a subscriber or regular reader, but it can be done. And if you’re looking to reach new visitors there is no faster, cheaper way. If you’re not currently a social media user, the easiest way to get started and attract some traffic is to sign up for StumbleUpon and start networking and making friends. With just a few thumbs up your pages could get hundreds or even thousands of visitors.

For more information, see Join Social Networking Sites to Promote Your Blog.

3. Participate in blog carnivals.

A blog carnival is a collection of links on a specific topic hosted on one blog. Other bloggers can submit a link to one of their posts to be included in the carnival. This is an easy way to get some inbound links and bring some new visitors to your site. While carnivals do not usually draw a lot of traffic, in just a few minutes you can submit your links to 5 or 10 carnivals. That could give you a handful of links each week that bring new visitors to your site and help your search engine rankings. Visit BlogCarnival.com to see a listing of upcoming carnivals and start participating.

4. Write guest posts for other blogs.

When I first started promoting my blog one of the most effective strategies I used was writing guest posts (and PureBlogging was one of the first blogs that I wrote for). By getting your articles published on other blogs you can get your writing in front of large audiences, start building name recognition, work on developing your network with fellow bloggers, and build links to your blog.

Many bloggers put off writing guest posts because it requires some extra work, and others think that it will be too hard to find blogs that are willing to publish their articles. Yes, it does take some extra work, but how else can you spend an hour to reach hundreds or thousands of targeted blog readers for free? And you may be surprised at how many blogs are willing to accept guest submissions. I think I’ve written for about 20 other blogs and I can only remember contacting one blogger that did not wind up publishing one of my posts. There are more than enough bloggers who are willing to take your quality articles.

I’m not the only PureBlogging author that has benefited from writing for other blogs, I know Michael Martine has as well. If you are interested in learning more about the subject, I’ve written a guide to promoting your blog through guest posts. For a list of some places to market your articles, see 9 Ways to Reach New Audiences With Your Articles.

5. Create linkbait.

Most experienced bloggers have realized at some point that inbound links from other websites and blogs are necessary to really grow. As a result, many have created some type of content intended specifically to draw new links. In most cases, linkbait is combined with social media marketing to get attention from potential linkers. With one great idea you can quickly get hundreds of inbound links.

For more information, see Andy Hagans’ Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and SMM.

6. Run a contest.

Many blogs have used contests and giveaways to gain some attention, links, and new readers. If you’re willing to spend some money on a prize and willing to put in some time for promotion, a contest can be very effective. Contests, however, are rarely the best method for a blogger to use, as many visitors will be more attracted by the potential prize than by the opportunity to find and read new content. My opinion is that a contest can be successful at attracting new visitors when the contest is just one of the methods used by the blogger, not the only method.

7. Participate in contests.

You don’t have to be the one running the contest to benefit. A few months ago I participated in two contests that included links to blog posts written by the participants. Everyone then read each other’s articles and I gained a number of new readers as a result. In this case you don’t even need to be the winner to get some valuable benefits.

8. Participate in forums.

There are a number of good forums for bloggers, including Authority Blogger and Bloggeries. This is a great way to meet other bloggers and start building a network. Many of the bloggers you meet there will visit your blog, and it’s always good to have other bloggers as visitors and readers. Most forums also provide a thread for you to introduce yourself and get some feedback on your blog from members.

For more information, see Using Forums to Grow Your Blog.

9. Order a paid review.

If you’re willing to spend some money, ordering a paid review is another option. Services like PayPerPost match bloggers up with advertisers. As an advertiser you can pay someone else to write a review of your blog. If you choose to do this be sure that you’re prepared so that the review presents your blog in the best light possible.

10. Change your design.

Sometimes a new design can create a bit of a buzz. Other bloggers may write about it or review the new design. Additionally, a new design may make your blog more attractive to new visitors once they reach your site.

11. Advertising.

Another paid option is to buy some advertising spots on other websites or blogs. Advertising can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. Many smaller blogs sell ad space for very reasonable space. Obviously, the success of your advertising campaign will in part depend on the ad itself as well as the audience to whom you are advertising. Finding the right place to advertise is critical. If you are looking to advertise I believe David is accepting ad submissions here at PureBlogging.

What other ways have you been able to draw new visitors to your blog? What methods have worked or not worked for you?

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Did you know website promotion could take place on the road as well? Well it can, and the good news is it does not take a lot of effort.

• During your trip, you will probably stop at a few rest areas to stretch your legs and maybe use the restroom as well. Before you leave the restroom, place your business card in the stall and on the sink. I do this at every rest area when my husband and I travel. After all, you never know who might pick up your card and visit your website. In fact, not only have I left my own business cards in stalls and on the sinks, but I’ve discovered business cards left by others and placed them in my purse to check out later.

Alternatively, you could print out some brochures and staple your business card to the back of each one. This gives the potential taker more information about the website your promoting, and who knows, if they plan to be in the stall a while, they’ll have some reading material to occupy them.

• Another place to leave your business card or brochure is at restaurants. You can place the business card or brochure under the salt and pepper shaker when you leave, but don’t forget the tip.
• Design flyers to take with you on your trip as well. Then when you stop at the gas stations and convenient stores, ask the attendants if you can hang your flyer in their store. Many gas stations and convenient stores have bulletin boards for promotional materials, and some will tape the flyers to their door or window.
• Before you checkout of your hotel room, leave a brochure on the nightstand.
• If you’re traveling in your own car, place a bumper sticker promoting your website.

The above are just a few ways I utilize my website promotion when I’m on the road. This on the road website promotion allows me to reach thousands of other travelers, and you’d be surprised just how effective it really is. Go ahead and give it a try the next time you take a vacation… you have nothing to lose.

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Getting your name out there can be just as difficult as coming up with creative topics for your blog. There are not many things that are more damaging to a person’s psyche than constantly checking your blog’s visitor stats, only to find that no one cares. This can be depressing and humbling, but it’s easily fixable.

One solution to this problem has to do with social networking, blog style. These sites are just like networking giants MySpace and Facebook, but geared specifically to those in the blogging world.

When you join one of these sites, you can begin to establish a reputation (preferably good) that will keep readers coming back for more day in and day out. As your community grows, you will find that more people are reading your blog and commenting on it than ever before.

1. MyBlogLog is the original and probably still the best networking site for bloggers. It offers an easy avenue to promote your blog and an excellent opportunity to network with fellow bloggers. It also gives you a chance to discover blogs you might otherwise not come across.
2. BlogCatalog claims to be the “premiere social blog directory on the internet.” That may or may not be true but it certainly is one of the largest and most popular blog directories. After becoming a member and submitting your blog, you can begin joining groups, participating in discussions, and becoming friends with other members.
3. BUMPzee is another social networking site geared towards bloggers. It has many of the same features as MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog but focuses on specific communities instead of just free-for-all networking. I like it a lot but find it more difficult to use than some of the other sites.
4. BloggingZoom is the new kid on the block. The primary function of BloggingZoom is to provide a place for you to submit all of your blog posts and gain some additional exposure for your blog. It does have some limited social features that allow you to meet other bloggers who share similar interests. Still in the early stages of development but definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Whether you are just writing for fun or you are looking to make a career of blogging, these networking sites are great places promote your blog and grow your community.

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