The Foundation of Blogging Success – Part 2: Marketing Your Blog

Here is part 2 of my comments on a really good post from ProBlogger written by Tony Hung of DeepJiveInterests about what he calls “the five prerequisites for having a successful blog.” Today we’ll look at being Willing to Market The Blog.

Even if you're willing to put in the time and energy to blog, and blog consistently, it will do you no good if you're not willing to market your blog. There's no question that blogging in the oblivion of anonymity can be hard; but you are deluding yourself if you're stuck in the “if I build it, they will come” mentality. There's no question that Google or other Search Engines might find you, but to grow your blog at any kind of velocity will require you to not only write for your blog, but spend some (more) time promoting it. There is no shortage of articles on this (and I will be contributing to Darren's own body of work in the next few days), but to create a successful blog, you've got to willing to put the effort into making sure people know about your blog.

And I find the most basic strategies are actually the best. Sure, there's all kinds of other methods, such as blog carnivals, getting your blog Dugg and so on, but if blogging is about conversations, you've got to be willing to participate in those conversations yourself. Get involved in the comments section of other bloggers. Respond on your own blog. Link like mad to other bloggers and their posts. Putting in the time to do these basic kinds of “marketing” methods for your blog can pay huge dividends, as all blogging communities are in a state of flux, with older bloggers leaving, and newer bloggers joining in the conversation. And that next one just might be you!

So true. Your blog is no different than you static, business website…you have to ‘work’ at getting traffic to your site. Sure, it can be much easier with a blog than with a static website because of all the advantages afforded to blogs (community, rss, search engines, tags, trackbacks, etc.). And these advantages don’t allow you to just sit back and wait to be deluged with visitors.

Blogging offers an amazing, and proven, opportunity for viral marketing. But how do get something to go viral? First, you have to get the word out. Yet you have the get the word out to people who know you, trust you and love what you have to say. Only then will your posts be picked up and spread like wildfire. But you have to have built a ‘community’ of bloggers and clients/customers who will actively spread your message for you. That comes through participating in the blogosphere.