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Part 3e - Blog Marketing - Promoting Your Blog

Let's revisit one of the primary goals we stated about business blogs (and business websites in general). You want to create the kind of blog that is so incredibly useful, insightful, entertaining or engaging, that people sing its praises without having to be asked. When that's the case, people will promote your blog for you!

But it takes time to achieve such success. So in the early days of blogging, you will have to promote your business blog yourself. Here are some blog marketing techniques you can use to get the word out:

• First, make sure you have plenty of great content on your blog
• Send out a press release about your new blog
• Notify industry publications and journalists about your blog
• Send an email blast to your current customers
• Tell your business colleagues about it, and explain why it's useful
• Publish some articles online with links to your blog
• Sign up for professional networking websites such as LinkedIn.com
• Submit your blog to blog directories (discussed below)

We will cover some of these blog marketing topics in more detail later on, such as press release and article publishing. In fact, each of these topics has its own chapter in this book. So for now, let me talk a little bit about blog directories.

Adding Your Blog to Directories

A directory is basically a big catalog of websites (or in this case, blogs) that's edited and managed by people. With a blog directory, human editors review blogs for quality and relevance, and then add them to the proper category of the directory's database.

This "human intervention" is what makes a directory different from a search engine. Search engines also add websites and blogs to their databases, but they do it automatically and without much human intervention.

Every time a blog directory adds your business blog to its list, you gain another inbound link (from the directory to your website). If the blog directory is a niche directory focused on your particular industry, it's even better because now the inbound link is relevant to your blog. The more inbound links you have, the better your search engine visibility. The higher your search engine ranking for key phrases, the more traffic you'll get.

So in this regard, submitting your blog to directories is more of a long-term marketing and promotion strategy, as opposed to the immediate benefits you get from sending a press release or an email blast about the blog. But blog directories can drive a lot of traffic and increase your search engine ranking at the same time, so they are certainly worth using as a blog marketing tool.

Here are some blog directories to get you started (the first one is actually a list of blog directories ... a link worth saving in your favorites!)

• http://www.toprankresults.com/blog-submit-list.htm
• Our business blog directory
• http://blogs.botw.org/
• http://dir.blogflux.com
• http://www.blogtoplist.com/business/

Like I said, we will examine the online press release and article-publishing strategies in more detail later on. So let's move on to another important topic related to blog promotion — earning subscribers!

How to Earn Blog Subscribers

Publishing a blog without subscribers is like smiling in the dark. You know you're doing it, but nobody else does. In the beginning, you'll be doing exactly that — blogging to an audience of one. But the goal is to attract readers and earn subscribers over time, and that's the element of blog marketing we will cover next.

Notice I said you have to "earn" subscribers. The notion of "build it and they will come" does not apply to business blogs, or blogs in general for that matter. There are millions of blogs on the Internet, but the really good ones are harder to come by. You want to put your blog into this "quality minority" so you can earn the most subscribers possible.

Here are three steps to doing just that:

Blog Marketing Step 1 - Create a Blog Worth Visiting

The first step in gaining blog subscribers is to create a blog worth joining in the first place. Have I said that before? Well, here it is again. Focus on creating a useful and interesting blog. Don't just shovel content onto your blog from other sources, as I often see people do. Give it some thought. Give your blog its own purpose and personality.

Strive to make your blog a "must-read" for your target audience. Ask yourself, "Who am I writing for, and what kind of content do they want and need?" Your marketing will practically run itself if you focus on developing a unique and useful blog.

Blog Marketing Step 2 - Make it Easy to Subscribe

RSS stands for really simple syndication. All blogs create RSS feeds automatically, right out of "the box." Normally, the RSS feed can be found by adding "/rss" to the blog's web address.

For example, here are some of the RSS feeds from my blogs:

• http://www.ceoblogwatch.com/rss
• http://www.armingyourfarming.com/realestatemarketing/rss

Every time I publish new content onto these blogs, the RSS feeds automatically self-update. Thus, an RSS feed is an easy way for readers to subscribe to a blog. You can make this process even simpler by creating RSS subscription buttons (commonly referred to as "chiclets").

For instance, if your blog visitors have a "My Yahoo" page, they can simply click the "Add to Yahoo" button on your blog, and presto ... your blog's RSS feed will be added to their My Yahoo page. Anytime you update your blog, it automatically updates the subscriber's Yahoo page (or MSN page, or RSS reader, etc.). That's the beauty of RSS, and it's an essential part of your blog marketing campaign.

Creating RSS Buttons
Here's an easy way to create six of the most commonly used RSS buttons in one easy step. Visit the "Chiclet Generator" at the link below, enter the URL for your RSS feed, click the "Generate" button and you're done.

Chiclet generator: www.kbcafe.com/rss/chicklet.aspx

The FeedBurner Option
If you don't want all those little buttons on your blog, you can use FeedBurner instead. This will simplify things into a single button, but subscribers will still be able to choose their RSS reader. With FeedBurner, you also have the benefit of knowing how many subscribers you have.

FeedBurner: www.feedburner.com

RSS to Email
Some people don't yet understand the whole RSS thing, but they still might want to keep up with your business blog (especially if you're providing quality information on a regular basis). For these people, you can offer an RSS-to-email subscription option.

With this approach, the visitor signs up with their email address (instead of grabbing your RSS feed). Each time you post to your blog, it will be sent in text format to the subscriber's email address. You can even determine the frequency of emails — daily, weekly, every time you publish, etc. Neat, huh?

There are several RSS-to-email services. For a good overview, read this article.

Blog Marketing Step 3 - Post Often with Quality Content

The most important step in building a successful business blog is a step that never really ends. If you want people to find your blog useful (and, ideally, subscribe to it), you'll need to keep the blog current. You'll also want to make it as useful as possible.

Publish things your target audience really wants — tutorials, product overviews, supporting images, industry news, insightful articles and the like. Keep them informed. Make yours the go-to blog for information related to your industry. "Want to know the latest news about purple widgets? Check out the Purple Widget Blog!"

Make yours a blog they can't live without, and they'll want to stay connected.

So up to this point, we have talked about planning your business blog, launching it, writing content, and marketing the blog to increase traffic. Now let's look at some tips for maintaining your blog.