This is the second in a series of articles in which I hope to share with you my knowledge of how and why Technology Bloggers has been so successful, so fast. Learn more about this series by reading our Technology Bloggers success article.
They say that if your parents give you a good start in life, you will go far. It is of course possible to go far by yourself, but a good start significantly improves your chances of greatness.
I believe that you can apply this ethos to blogging too. A good start to a blog, usually (with exceptions of bloggers who lie/cheat etc.) helps towards guaranteeing the success of a blog.
For a blog to be given a good start, one key thing is needed: promotion. Promoting the blog can be done in various ways, as I am about to explain.
Social Media
10 years ago, blogging was in it’s infancy, and you could argue that social media didn’t even exist. Now social media is one of the most powerful tools that a blogger can have in his inventory.
I believe that social media played a part, (not a massive one, but a valid one all the same) in the initial success of Technology Bloggers, via helping promote the blog.
Technology Bloggers has a Facebook page. Now this would be a missed opportunity if I didn’t use this article to get a tiny plug for the page in, so here it is. Please like Technology Bloggers for updates straight to your feed. How? Click ‘like’ on our sidebar button, it really is that simple!
Anyway, we also have a Twitter and YouTube account. These all established the blog across the social web before the blog had even started posting.
At the time the number of people following our social media pages was relatively small, but, if just a few people are subscribed and visit the site, see the great content, cool design, dofollow links etc. and tell a few friends or even better, blog about the blog, then that’s a lot of traffic gained from a relatively small number of subscribers.
Social media only played a small part in our promotion though. This technology blog had a lot more than that to get it off the ground!
about.me and Technorati
When the blog launched, I registered Technology Bloggers with Technorati and about.me. These further advanced Technology Blogger out into the world wide web.
Again only a few people are likely to have initially found Technology Bloggers via our about.me profile, or our via searching for technology articles in Technorati and having our blog come up. Hoverer, again these few people all add up.
Friends Sites
The majority of our Technology Bloggers traffic initially came from referrals from sites that I regularly visited and commented on or guest blogged for. The importance of comments is very great.
Comments can help to generate you a lot of positive traffic, and valuable links. The people who’s blogs you comment on are likely to visit your blog, so too are the commenters of that blog, especially if it is one with a ‘tight community’.
Guest blogging is also a great way to get traffic quick. On behalf of Technology Bloggers I have guest blogged in an attempt to raise the blogs profile. Finding high traffic, good quality sites with large reader numbers, which allow guest posts is a gift.
Guest blogging is very very useful as it helps to get you known around the blogosphere to both bloggers and comments. It also helps you to get quality, keyword rich backlinks to your site. Guest blogging can also give you a new perspective on blogging and a sense of direction.
My Other Sites
If you are thinking of setting up a blog, website or forum you would be daft not to use your existing sites to help promote the newbie. I did exactly this for Technology Bloggers at it’s launch. I wrote about it and linked to it from my website (Christopher Roberts Website) my social blog, my philosophy blog and my (now archive) technology blog.
To sum up…
When starting a blog it is really important that you promote it in as many ways as possible. You could look at financial advertising, or simply just use social media, online profiles and links from your own site. Build yourself a reputation up and promote your blog in as many ways as you can think, and you are sure to have a smooth and fairly rapid launch.
If you are looking to start a blog, good luck. Also stay tuned to this series, as you may find some more useful info in next weeks article. Finally if you ever need any help, contact us via our contact page.
