One of the biggest misconceptions that new bloggers have about blogging is the balance between marketing and content. Many new bloggers, including myself back in 2010, think that writing tons and tons of content will lead to success. Back when I had my general technology blog, I was publishing up to 5 articles a day, but I wasn’t having success because my only marketing was using RSS Graffiti to publish the posts to Facebook and Twitter. On Omega Web, I write 1-2 articles a day, comment on other blogs, write guest posts, publish to Twitter and Facebook, and try to link to other blogs.
The best advice I can give about blog marketing is to promote each post differently. After you finish writing a blog post, scroll through your email contact list and Facebook friends to see who might be interested in your newly-published post. If you send links to your friends (within moderation), they are likely to visit your website and read the post if they are interested.
The next step is to find blogs to comment on. I comment on blogs that use all kinds of commenting services to gain variety, but my favorite is blogs that use dofollow comments, which will boost my SEO. Commenting on blogs lets Google know that you care about your blog marketing and it also gives everyone who visits the website you comment on a chance to visit your blog. If you find blogs that use CommentLuv (like Omega Web), you can actually leave an entire post below your comment.
The most successful way I market Omega Web is by the use of guest posting. Guest posting is the act of writing a blog post for another blog. There are many reasons guest posting will help you, but the most important thing is that you’re getting your name out there and people are visiting your blog from your guest post.
If you would like to learn more ways to promote your blog, I would suggest checking out 8 Valuable Blog Marketing Tactics over at Kikolani. Just remember to keep blogging, but market each post differently and you will be sure to have success.
I also agree with your argument that one has to spend time to market the content to make sure that it gets attention.”Build it and they will come” only works in movies.
I don’t even think that works in the movies… I think a lot of new bloggers think that Google will automatically send them tons of traffic without having to do anything.
I agree with your posts, for every business the importance is not only they maintain their business standards, and also they need to niche marketing along with seo.
Thanks for stopping by and putting in your input!
I completely agree with your posts. If people stumble upon your site from search engines or marketing, and then they do not like the content… they will obviously not spend any time on your site and will leave. Working on a site involves content work and then from that, visitors and search engine rankings will come with little marketing from your part as members like your site and share it.
Correct. Content is key, but if you don’t use up-to-date marketing tools your content will never be discovered.
Nice share Ian Eberle, i completely agree with you. They say content is king but most writers dont follow proper rules and algorithms while writing. Infact i am from south India, and some content writing services Coimbatore (my city) just simply rewrite the contents of other websites, while they can get away for the time being; this will not work well in the long run.. I wish those guys check your article once.
Content is key to a certain extent, but just writing content and leaving it at that won’t work. You have to write great content and then promote it the best you can.
I think the whole point of this article is that you need to have useful, original and unique content on your blog, that is a given. However, if you don’t spend enough time marketing and promoting your blog post, nobody will find. You can’t just rely on getting visitors via a google search anymore. Social media sharing, be it LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or Google+ in my experience has been very effective. What I typically do is after writing a blog post I will share it with my connection, but I space it out and don’t share on all 4 platforms at the same on the same day. For example, after writing a post, I would tweet about it in the morning, do an FB share in the evening, LinkedIn share the next day and Google+ share 3 days later. This provides more exposure, specially if you have common connection across social media platforms it increases the chances of an impression on the newsfeed.
That’s a really awesome way to promote blog posts… I will have to try that some time! I normally post to all of the same networks at the same time, but you’re right, if you have the same followers, they will see it all at once.
The outlook that people have towards businesses is different today. New-age technology enablers have changed the way business is done and it is more prominent is marketing. Social-media marketing and blog marketing have invaded the conventional marketing tools. I came across an analysis of how blog-marketing can be used as one of the weapons while marketing. Sharing the post with you.
http://smallbusinessindia.intuit.in/marketing/blog-marketing-new-age-tool/
Thank you for sharing that post!
Great post. It’s so true, it’s really important to get the balance right between providing great content, and marketing. I’ve only just discovered blogs that use dofollow comments and am interested to find out more. Seems to be a great way to find good quality blogs.
Dofollow comments help your SEO, Google PageRank, and allows people to see some of your work without having to discover your site… For example, I’m interested in reading your tips for writing a LindedIn profile.
Would you give a thumbs up to this statement Ian? “A blog SHOULD BE made of 100% content in the beginning and gradually 75% of it should be replaced by marketing”.
I would give two thumbs up to that statement because it’s 100% true!
No wonder blogging is losing the charm it used to have in the olden days. Since it has become a matter of money, marketing exploits are also popping up. This won’t do good for the future of blogging, as blogging as we know is slowly dying, because of such lust for popularity.
I agree. I hate bloggers who do nothing but SEO and marketing to make money. I base my blog around my content, but marketing is important to drive viewers to your site.
So true, many blogs are now used for marketing purposes only. Not many are purely about content, but I always try to find a balance between the two.
Blogging is still a hobby for me, so I always try to post my thoughts and mind in every post I write, not just for marketing purpose
When I build websites for clients such as tattoo shops or a bakery, I suggest for them to create a blog to feature their work to get traffic from Google Images. Blogs are a great source of marketing.
Completely agree with you Lan. Content and marketing both are very important for success. Thanks for sharing your experience. Every one will learn some good point after reading this point.
Thanks for stopping by!