Blogging for Dollars Blog

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One of blogging’s many benefits is that it lifts your profile and presence. How else could you display your expertise to millions of people?

Disruptive Telephony: My new employer is… reports: “Then I got this email from a CEO of a company I’d never really heard of who said he’d found my blog posts and that it so happened that they were looking for someone doing essentially the roles that I outlined in one of my posts. As they were growing strongly they were looking to expand their ‘Office of the CTO’ and add to their capabilities. I looked at their website and initially wasn’t too sure about what I saw. But as I dug in a bit more I was pretty blown away by what I started to see… and got back in touch.”

(Via How a blog can help you get that job).

Another example of how bloggers go on to bigger and better things because they blog.

You never know where your blog will lead you, but you do have to blog first. Blogging is a wonderful journey, so why not start your own blog?

The Web is built on links. If you can get a link from a blog which has high traffic, your blog will get a boost, not only immediately, but more importantly long term, because links from high traffic blogs give your blog legitimacy and visibility.

“Link-building” is an art form. A decade ago, you got a link by asking for it - placing a link to a site on your own site, and asking for a link in return. This sometimes worked. However, it doesn’t work today.

How to get links to your blog

1. Create a unique, valuable piece of content on your blog to which other blogs link naturally. This is the best way to get links, but of course it takes a lot of thought and effort;

2. Create a blog roll of blogs you admire, and which are relevant to your audience. Don’t ask for any links in return. Some of the other blogs may link to yours, but most won’t. However, a good blog roll adds value to your blog for your audience, and some of the blogs to which you link will check out your blog because they’re curious about where their traffic is coming from;

3. Write a press release and post it on one of the many online PR sites;

4. Write articles for article directories. This strategy no longer works as well as it did a couple of years ago. However, you can get links in this way, and these links do help to create a profile for your blog. If you provide a great article, other sites will pick it up, gaining you many more links.

Tip: don’t create a mass of junk articles. The article directories are filled with nonsense articles: many site owners no longer both to visit them to scan for content that’s worth republishing because there’s so much utter junk - adding more garbage to a garbage pile won’t help your blog;

5. Write unique articles for other blogs. Every blog owner’s hungry for good content. Offering a free, valuable blog post is gold, and you’ll get grateful acceptances;

6. Comment on other blogs - but make your contents useful, and add to the conversation when you do. Posting “I agree” or “Great blog!” will get your comment deleted. You’ll also annoy the blog owner;

7. Trackback from your own blog, to blogs you reference;

8. Offer to guest blog on another blog, but wait until you have several months’ worth of content on your own blog.

So there you go: eight ways to build links to your blog. Link-building is a long term effort. Every link you get is valuable, and getting a link from a high-traffic blog is a gold mine - you’ll get a constant stream of traffic.

New to blogging? Read this blog’s ebook manual, Blogging for Dollars, to get up to speed on blogging fast.

Technorati Tags: links, traffic, blogs, publicity, PR

A blog works great as an extended media campaign, or as a simple promotional tool. This blog, for example, is a promotional tool for my pro blogging ebook.

When I discuss using blogs as a marketing tool in this way - for PR - I usually get blank looks, closely followed by “Yes, but - ” and a long explanation of why it won’t work for a specific need.

To which I always reply: “Of course you can use a blog to (fill in your specific marketing task.)”

You can use a blog to get a job, sell a house, develop a career, promote a company, sell a book to a publisher, promote your forthcoming (you hope) bestseller, promote a good cause, persuade other people to your point of view, propaganda, disinformation, promote your hobby, amusement, create a REAL Web site (yes, a blog is a Web site), etc. You can use a blog for just about any marketing or other purpose.

A blog is flexible. A blog is what YOU want it to be, and what you say it is. Unless you’re a 16 year old girl, a blog is not an online journal. Although it can be.

I’m a writer, so the ways in which writers use blogs fascinate me. (The ways in which some writers and publishers resist blogging also fascinates me.)

Blogging PR for books - get known, sell a book or sell more copies

There’s a long, long list of books which started out as a blog. There’s even a name for these book/ blogs - “blooks”. So if you’re a writer, working on a book, create a blog.

Kate Mosse spent six years writing Labyrinth, which has now sold a million copies in US editions alone. From her site:

My name is Kate Mosse, creator and writer in residence of www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk. This website is an archive of a 6-year on-line experiment to see if it was possible, using the internet, to share the process of writing a historical novel - Labyrinth - and to encourage new directions in our on-line visitors’ reading and creative writing. I work with my husband, writer and educator Greg Mosse.

Labyrinth is a wonderful read, BTW, I was sorry to finish it because I become totally involved in it.

Penny C. Sansevieri’s book, “Red Hot Internet Publicity, An Insider’s Guide To Marketing Your Book On The Internet” provides a soup to nuts outline of the book marketing process. It’s an easy read, and if you’re promoting a book, it’s a sensible investment so you know what to do at all stages of the process.

So, what do YOU want to promote? Whatever your goals, a blog is a perfect tool for PR.

Technorati Tags: blogs, blogging, PR, publicity, sell a book, blooks, writers, Internet publicity