#31WBGB ~ Week 3 ~ Promote a Blog Post


Welcome to Week 3 of 31 Weeks to a Better Genealogy Blog!  If you are just joining us, you can read the kick-off post here at Tonia's Root's .

Nevertheless, Darren Rowse of Problogger offers us:

11 Ways to Promote a Blog Post

1.                   Pitch to other bloggers:  ask another blogger to consider linking to your post.  This gives me the heebie-jeebies.  Tonia says," I really don’t like asking people to do things for me." Neither can I Tonia!
2.                  Social Messaging: use Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks to promote your post.  Darren says “the key is not to incessantly spam your followers and your friends with your link.”
3.                  Social Bookmarking:  promote selective links on sites like Digg or StumbleUpon.
4.                  Internal Links:  what posts within your own site can you link to a given post?  Have you written on a topic before?  Are you writing a series?  Link them up.  Another way to do this is to use automatic apps, like a related-post plug-in if you are on WordPress, or a widget like LinkWithin, which I believe works on both WordPress and Blogger.  You can also add a section in your sidebar with “Latest posts,” “Popular posts,” “Featured posts,” etc.  WordPress makes this very easy to do; I’m not sure about Blogger.
5.                  Newsletters: shoot an email out to your newsletter list, if you have one.  (Tonia-Does anyone do a newsletter?  I’d like to hear more about how often you do that, what kind of content you include, etc.)
6.                  Other Blog’s Comments Sections and Forums: leaving good-quality comments can help drive traffic to your site and leaving a link can be appropriate if it is germane to the discussion.  (Tonia-Just a note here, I use a plug-in called CommentLuv that automatically inserts a link to each commenter’s last post, if they’ve signed up for the service. And since, I’m signed up, my links are left on other bloggers’ sites, if they use CommentLuv.)
7.                  Email signatures: Darren suggests including links to recent posts, instead of just your blog’s front page URL.
8.                  Follow-up posts:  write a new post that picks up where another left off, like a series, or adds new information to a previous post, then inter-link them.
9.                  Advertise Your post:  You might consider a small ad campaign for a post you are particularly proud of, using AdWords, StumbleUpon, or similar services.  This probably isn’t something most geneabloggers would consider, but it might be worthwhile for those who are professional genealogists.
10.              Pitch Mainstream Media:  You might want to do this for a really interesting post.  Again, I think this would be more suitable for the pros.

Article Marketing:  Rewrite some key articles and submit them to article marketing sites.

Action Items

1. Pick something from the above list that you’ve never done before and use it to promote one of your posts.
2. Share your thoughts on some of these items.  What social networking sites do you use for blog promotion?  Have you ever used Digg or StumbleUpon?  Have you used any of the other ideas?  How have they worked for you?  Leave an answer in the comments or, if you write a post about it, come back and leave us a link.
3. Lastly, don’t forget to come back and let us know which idea you tried for the first time and how it worked for you.


1. I plan to try adding links in my email for a specific blog post.
2. I use Facebook and Twitter generally to advertize my posts. I have never used Digg or StumbleUpon, I suppose they are things I should look into. I have been happy using Facebook and Twitter or I wouldn't have continued using them. I have had at one point some links in the side bar to my most popular posts, but I am not sure they were very successful in bringing people to those posts.
3. I will try to remember to so this! Thank you Tonya!


Thanks for stopping by!

Wishing you success in all of your genealogical treasure hunts!





Copyright © 2011 By Cheryl Palmer All Rights Reserved

Comments

  1. As someone who would be interested in genealogy, but hasn't found the effort to even start, this sure sounds like a lot of effort, but what a great list and points of ideas for those who are working to improve. Great core article!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glad you enjoyed the article. Wondering how you stumbled on my blog....??

    ReplyDelete

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