A lesson in marketing your weblog
October 16, 2006 in blogging, Tech Talk
Blogging can be as much about marketing your site as it is about putting out stories – just like the “real” news media. #
We had a good lesson about that truth this week after the launch of Innovation in College Media. My interview with James Patrick Gibson (see here) was listed among the “additional items” on Jim Romenesko’s Poynter Institute weblog (see “It’s a hard world out there for newsprint – college editor (IICM)”). Did the mention in Romenesko bring people to the weblog? You be the judge: #
My first submission to Romenesko was on the occasion of my interview with Len Witt about “open-source reinvention of the newspaper.” Witt suggested sending Romenesko a short e-mail. #
I’ve successfully sent link suggestions to several other weblog authors, with varying levels of success. It’s an inexact science, but one you need to learn if you’re going to start a weblog – even a weblog under the auspices of your college newspaper. The reason is that links drive people to read your site. If you aren’t linking to other people, or asking them to link to you, then you are a stagnant pool of writing in the blogosphere. #
As an example, say you write a weblog on state politics for your campus newspaper. Sure, there are going to be a number of people who come by because there’s a link on the front page of the campus newspaper web site, but the potential audience is much larger. Let’s say there’s a political weblog that covers the same topic you are covering, and that weblog has an audience all over the state. Imagine if you could get them to at least come by your weblog for a look? That’s the beauty of asking for a link. #
Here is the formula I used to get linked by Romenesko. I’m not saying it’s fool-proof, but it’s the formula that will probably work with any weblog author as well. #
1. Have an interesting story: Both of the interviews I was able to get Romenesko to link to had a unique twist. The Witt interview was the first he conducted after his paper was published at First Monday. The Gibson interview was a natural because this was the first college paper to stop print publication and go entirely online. #
2. Target the audience: Make sure your topic is of interest to the readers of the other weblog/site. Romenesko’s readers are sublimely interested in the state of the news media, so they should be interested in the topics I sent. If you’re sending a link to a weblog on technology, make sure your article/blog post has something to do with technology. #
3. Include a spicy quote: Again, at Witt’s suggestion, I included a quote from each interview that stood out and forced you to click and find out more. #
4. Include a link to your post: This should go without saying, but it bears repeating. It does no good to highlight a particularly interesting article/blog post you’ve written if you don’t include a hyperlink to the exact article/blog post. Don’t just send a link to the main page of your weblog and force them to find your article. There’s a big difference between http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog and http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog/2006/10/10/
reinventing-interview-james-patrick-gibson-ecsu/. Think of it this way: you probably get several e-mails a day from people asking you to respond to them. Imagine you get more than 100 e-mails a day from people pointing out something they think you should link to on your weblog. Everything that takes more time to investigate will decrease the chances of you getting a link. #
Even with these ingredients, there’s no guarantee a big-time blogger or Romanesko will link to you. Sometimes, there is more going on in the world than your weblog, and you get pushed out by the news cycle. Such is the harsh reality of marketing your weblog. #
So you’ve gotten a link from Romenesko, or some big-time blogger in your state/locality. Congratulations! Don’t expect the hits to keep coming. As you’ll notice from the graph above, our traffic dropped significantly the day after the mention in Romenesko. That’s the nature of weblogs. A few people may come back – if your topic area is interesting to them. But the long-term gains will be marginal. #
So why do it? Because it builds credibility for your weblog. Because it gets people to look at your site who might never have done so otherwise. Because it gives you experience “pitching” a story. Because it’s an incredible rush to see your web site statistics spike when people from all over the world are reading your words. #
And share the link love. When you get to a point where you’re getting lots of traffic and people send you items to mention on the weblog, remember where you came from. Blogging is not a zero-sum game. At least, it shouldn’t be. #
One final word of caution about “marketing” your weblog – do it sparingly. Don’t send out an e-mail every time you write something. If you do, you will fall victim to the “boy who cried ‘blog’” syndrome (I just made that phrase up) and your e-mail will likely end up in a spam blocker. But if you send e-mails when you have something of value, chances are the people who get those e-mails will recognize that and you’ll become a “trusted source.” #
[...] if you don’t make sure it gets in front of the right people (see my post about Romenesko here). You WANT people to read your weblog. The best way to do that is to tell people – especially other [...]
nice article! nice site. you're in my rss feed now
keep it up
your blog is great 283 gratz!
It's really very informative, I appreciate that you are sharing this with all of us readers!
This is what I always wonder myself. Do my email subscribers actually read my posts or did they subscribe with a spam email and never bothered to unsubscribe.reply edit
I use to subscribe to RSS feeds of blogs but most of them keep on spamming new entries almost everyday, and some of them are just nonsense entries so it turned annoying rather than entertaining, but I'm really amazed with people who just send you emails if they know that they have a useful or very important entry in their blog that you should be informed.. and this are the most trusted people for me..
Very useful tips. Particularly in adding a quote. From a reader's perspective, it never fails to capture my enthusiasm and the intrigue urges me to follow through to know more behind it.In addition, deviating from the usual topics from time to time adds more variety, just keep in mind to make the content interesting, like in a large group like the emo and gothic subculture. Taking advantage of its popularity while extending your reach to their audiences is not a bad idea for expanding your network.
one of the most important part of any website is having a quality and interesting content, for quality content speaks for itself and attracts visitors, by the way you mentioned spicy quote.. can I borrow your line “boy who cried ‘blog’â€, so I can tell it to the bloggers who keep on spamming my email with useless post.. (just kidding)
You had post a wonderful and useful blog. I think I will gonna try this one.
One of the most important factor in marketing a blog is creating a quality content, not mainly focusing on self benefits but also ways on how to improve other people's lives as it will help us to gain trust and respect of our fellow bloggers.
It's not always SEO methods that we should rely on, still there are process and methods that don't involve SEO but can affect in driving traffic into our website, like what you covered.
I can say that email really is one of the most used process in marketing our websites, but still we need to be ethical and think first on how people will respond to our emails, I prefer not to spam them with useless and self benefited emails but with informational and helpful tips that will get their attention.
More encouraging words in this post..the tips to promote a web site is really useful and thanks..
Great post, really help me alot. Thanks.http://sain-web.com
there are many ways you can use now to market your blog especially now a days, more and more sites are giving cool features to attract more traffic to their sites, i think in order to survive in the world wide web you should make some tactics and useful strategies.
I lots with these about marketing ideas and techniques. Thanks for sharing, I hope you release another article like this. And I think this could really help us. The lesson the I learn form this is the importance of link in a blog.
I'm an email marketer by profession so i can attest to how great it can be to see that huge spike in traffic thanks to a good campaign. Building a list is the number one marketing strategy for me!
I used to have a blog, but it was a project for college and I didn't care so much about it. The topic was also about journalism and I had some colleagues following me, but that's about it, because I didn't know how I could get others from this area to read me, even though some of the articles were pretty good and interesting. I'm thinking of reviving my blog and using your post to do that. ______________________Gallagher Eli – What Is Blair Rewards
I used to have a blog, but it was a project for college and I didn't care so much about it. The topic was also about journalism and I had some colleagues following me, but that's about it, because I didn't know how I could get others from this area to read me, even though some of the articles were pretty good and interesting. I'm thinking of reviving my blog and using your post to do that. ______________________Gallagher Eli – What Is Blair Rewards
I used to have a blog, but it was a project for college and I didn't care so much about it. The topic was also about journalism and I had some colleagues following me, but that's about it, because I didn't know how I could get others from this area to read me, even though some of the articles were pretty good and interesting. I'm thinking of reviving my blog and using your post to do that.
______________________
Gallagher Eli – What Is Blair Rewards
I used to have a blog, but it was a project for college and I didn't care so much about it. The topic was also about journalism and I had some colleagues following me, but that's about it, because I didn't know how I could get others from this area to read me, even though some of the articles were pretty good and interesting. I'm thinking of reviving my blog and using your post to do that.
______________________
Gallagher Eli – What Is Blair Rewards