25 Free Tips for Marketing your Blog

With so many blogs being created every day, it’s a mystery to many bloggers how to make their blog stand out. It’s simple. People want to read good content, and with good content comes ad revenue. Well, maybe it’s not that easy… We’ve finally unleashed the secrets of successful blog marketing. Do note that these are not guaranteed to increase your click-through ratios and they will not bring good karma to you or your ads.. If only.. Nonetheless, these tips should benefit your blog and make it more user-friendly, more easily accessible, and more content-enabled.There are many types of blogs or purposes for blogs and a certain number of tactics are applicable to just about all of them, so here is a -short- list of tips for marketing and optimizing a blog:
1. Decide on a stand alone domain name www.myblog.com or directory of existing site www.mysite.com/blog. Sub domain is also an option blog.mysite.com. Avoid hosted services that do not allow you to use your own domain name!
2. Obtain and install customizable blog software - WordPress and Moveable Type are my favorites.
3. Customize blog look and feel templates - aka design.
4. Research keywords and develop a glossary - Keyword Discovery, WordTracker, SitePoint, SEOBook Keyword Research.
5. Optimize the blog:Template optimization - RSS subscription options, social bookmark links, HTML code, Unique title tags, URLs, SitemapAdd helper plugins specific to WordPress or MTCreate keyword rich categories (reference your keyword glossary)
6. Enable automatic trackback and ping functionality.
7. Create Feedburner Pro account and enable feed tracking.
8. Setup Google acount for Sitemap, validate and prep for future submission.
9. Identify authoritative blogs, web sites and hubs for outbound resource links and blogroll.
10. Format archived posts, related posts.
11. Enable statistics for tracking - Performancing, Google Analytics, ClickTracks.
12. Submit RSS feed and Blog URL to prominent RSS and Blog directories / search engines.
13. Engage in an ongoing link building campaign.
14. If podcast or video content are available, submit to Podcast and Vlog directories.
15. Submit blog url to paid directories with categories for blogs - Yahoo, BOTW, bCentral, WOW, JoeAnt.
16. Optimize and distribute a press release announcing blog.
17. Request feedback or reviews of your blog in relevant forums, discussion threads. If you have a resourceful post that will help others, point to it.
18. Research and comment on relevant industry related blogs and blogs with significant centers of influence.
19. Post regularly. If it’s a news oriented blog, 3-5 times per day. If it’s an authoritative blog, 3-5 times per week, but each post must be unique and high value.
20. Monitor inbound links, traffic, comments and mentions of your blog - Google Alerts, Technorati, Blogpulse, Yahoo News, Ask Blogs and Feeds.
21. Always respond to comments on your blog and when you detect a mention of your blog on another blog, thank that blogger in the comments of the post.
22. Make contact with related bloggers on AND offline if possible.
23. When making blog posts always cite the source with a link and don’t be afraid to mention popular bloggers by name. Use keywords in the blog post title, in the body of the post and use anchor text when you link to previous posts you’ve made.
24. Use social networking services (like MySpace Marketing), forums and discussion threads to connect with other bloggers. If they like your stuff, they will link to you.
25. Remember when web sites were a new concept and the sage advice to print your web address everywhere you print your phone number? The same advice applies for your blog.
These tips are tried and true, so give 'em a shot!
More marketing blogs can be found at the Free Stuff and Marketing Blog or you can check out MySpace Marketing tips. Article written by www.rygo.net
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Where Do I Blog Now That I Know What Blogging Is?

What is social networking doing in the marketing world? Social Networking on sites such as Myspace, FaceBook and Multiply were originally intended as a way for us to network with friends, create new ones and catch up with old ones. So why all the fuss in the marketing world over it? Social Networking has become a valuable marketing tool for any business whether marketing a product or service. Here are some tips that should be followed in order to get the most out of your marketing opportunities in this venue. !br>A. ProfileMany business ventures that attempt to go into the social networking sites do not take the time to fill out a profile. This is a huge mistake. Profiles are one the best ways to introduce yourself or your company to the world. It is important to include links to your website for further information but just as important is a short bio listed here. Tell potential clients about you and your company. Make them feel as though they know you as a friend. Why? To become for example "The source you can trust" you must build that trust somewhere. B. Allow everyone who requests to be added to your network be added. You never know where your next client may come from. It is sort of like when a consumer walks into a brick and mortar store and they bring a friend who brings a friend who brings a friend. You get the idea. C. Comments - allow both those on your list and those just visiting to leave comments. Even more important, every time someone leaves you a comment, reply. This builds communication between yourself and your consumers. Again building trust. D. Blogs - This is a great way for you to self promote your service or product. The key here is not to use it as an advertisement. Let`s say that you sell strawberries. A great blog would be recipes that use strawberries. Your signature box will one more time have your website address on it so they will know where to go buy the strawberries. Let`s say your service is writing business plans. Why not write a blog on the importance of competitive analysis. Blogging is a free way to draw attention to your clients. By ensuring that key words are inserted into your blogs, they will become search able by potential consumers. E. Groups and Forums - Every social networking site has a group or forum section on it. Join the groups or forums that are relative to your product or service. Post intelligently in either of these and often. See how quickly you will become an authority in your field. The person whom people look to as "a source they can trust". A few key reminders:Write intelligently Include keywords in all content to ensure search engines will find you Update daily or at very least weekly to keep your name fresh Be sure your web site link is in all signature boxes Happy networking. By: AshiraEdited By: Bruce A. Tucker
About the Author:Ashira is a Free Lance Writer registered with the Florida Free Lance Writers and wrote this article for www.Indocquent.com, an online resource that allows businesses and individuals to post their products and services for sale on over 20,000 blogs.Ashira can be contacted at ashirarhapsody@yahoo.com or visit her at www.ashira.ws.
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How Much Money You Can Make From Blog Marketing

The amount of money you can make from blog marketing is actually determined by you. You decide how much work and effort you want to put into your blog, and therefore in charge of how much money you can earn from your blog. And of course, the more you work on your blog, the more money you can possibly earn. Blog marketing basically involved 3 steps. First you set up a blog to talk about your favorite topic, update your blog with quality content and then promote it so that people who are interested to your content can find it and read it.The great things about blog marketing are you don't need a lot of money to start and operate a blog; and the income potential of blog marketing is pretty high. The more you market and promote your blog, the more visitors you'll get and the better your chances of making more money from blogging. Lets say you already created a blog. You are promoting some affiliate products through your blog and making a nice little effortless income. Well you want your blog to generate more income. What will you do? You put more effort on blog promotion to get more people to visit your blog. Maybe you can start spending money to get your blog listed in paid blog directories and pay-per-click (PPC) search engines. Investing part of the money you earned is a great idea, especially if you want to boost your blog revenue. However, there are also a number of free methods and techniques you can use to promote and market your blog. Blog owners generally have a comment section that allows visitors to leave a comment on every blog post they have published in their blog. The comment section can be a great tool to get free visitors for your blog. For example, lets take a topic like sport cars. You own a blog that talks about sport cars, and you want people to visit your blog. Well, the first thing you need to do is to find several popular blogs that are about sport cars from search engines and social bookmarking sites. Once you have found them, you can start posting comment on a regular basis. Leaving quality comments with a link back to your blog will give those visitors that read the popular sport car blogs a way to get to yours. If they like your blog posts, they may even bookmark it and come back to your blog often to read your latest blog entry. One thing that is important to your blog marketing success is content updating. You should update your blog with new and unique content on a regular basis. Doing so will attract your visitors keep coming back to your blog and allow your readers who have subscribed to your blog feed know when they can visit your blog again for new content. Let them know how often you update your blog, and stick to it. If you promise your readers you will be publishing a new article every two day, do so. Or you might be ending up with readers that will not follow you because they can not rely on you to give the content that they are searching for; new fresh content.When you are making money online using blog marketing, the sky is the limit. The revenue you can earn is solely decided by you. The more time, effort and patience you willing to put into your blog marketing business, the more money you will make from it.Whether you are blogging about your favorite things, or someone else’s, do it with a passion for the best results.
Alan Liew is a self-employed e-entrepreneur that has working on Internet marketing industry for more than a year. He has set up a website called Online4income.com for people to learn how to make money online. He also set up a blog to record down the latest free resources to earn money online.
Article Source: http://freewebcontents.com