Promote Your Blog
Copyright 2005 Sharon Housley
Promote Your Blog
Well, you've joined the others and have created a blog. It
is time to tell the world about your online journal. Most
blog services generate an RSS feed. If your blogging
software does not create an RSS feed, consider using
software like FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com to
create an RSS feed. Like blogs, RSS is growing in
popularity and is a great way to spread the word about a
new blog.
Syndication is conceptually simple. It allows publishers to
distribute content that can be displayed in another
location or context. Using RSS, publishers are able to
easily create and disseminate content feeds that include
news headlines, blog summaries and related links. RSS is
the defined syndication standard that has become
mainstream. All types of information are now available in a
syndicated format.
1. Blog Submissions / RSS Submissions
There are a number of blog directories and blog search
engines where you can submit your blog. A large list of
sites allowing blog submission and RSS feed submissions can
be found in the left column at:
http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm
Similarly, there are RSS feed directories and search
engines like http://www.rss-network.com . Be sure to submit
the URL of your RSS feeds to the RSS search engines listed
on the RSS specifications website.
If you wish to automate your blog and RSS submissions
consider using Dummy Software's Blog and RSS Submit
Software http://www.dummysoftware.com .
Like a website, its important to select the appropriate
category for your blog. Use a clear title that contains
descriptive details but is not excessively long. The Blog
description should further expand on the purpose and
general theme of the blog. Incorporate important keywords
related to the blog's theme in both the title and
description. This will help bring targeted traffic that is
genuinely interested in the contents of the blog.
2. Post Press Releases to Online Resources
Write a press release announcing your blog to the world.
Keep it factual and submit the release to the free press
release directories. This will provide incoming links to
the new blog and get it started on its way to popularity.
There are a number that allow for press release posting
free of charge. The releases on these sites are
occasionally picked up by publications looking for
information or filler content. Another side-benefit to
these listings is increased link popularity, which helps
with search engine ranking. A list of sites that allow for
press release posting can be found under 'press release
posting' . A number are available at
http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/pressreleases.html
3. Post Announcement on Usenet
A number of Usenet groups allow for posting of
announcements or press releases. Most of the announce
groups in Usenet contain 'ann.' in the domain address. If
your blog is focused on a specific topic, search Usenet
newsgroups. To locate topic-specific announce groups,
consider searching http://www.newsguy.com to locate groups
specific to related topics.
4. Post to Forums
Forums also contain sections in which you can post
announcements. If the application is a niche product,
consider searching for topic-specific forums in addition to
the general software announce forums listed below. Be sure
to post any announcements in the appropriately marked
'announce forum' . The following are related blog forums,
some of which allow for posts.
Favorite Feeds -
http://www.feedforall.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=3
Your Blog Announcements -
http://www.forum4bloggers.com/viewforum.php?f=12
Got Blog -
http://www.blogomania.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=7
Announce Software, Blogs or Relationships -
http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/forum/viewforum.php
?f=5
5. Promote & Auto Detect Blog Feeds
It has become a standard that nearly all websites that have
RSS feeds available use colorful graphics to indicate the
presence of an RSS feed. The graphics were initially bright
orange rectangles, but as the popularity has grown,
webmasters have bent the rules a bit. NotePage has made a
free online RSS graphic tool available that allows users to
quickly customize buttons by selecting the text on the
button and the color scheme of the button. Once the color
and text is entered, a custom graphic is instantly created.
Webmasters can easily match the style of the RSS button to
a website's theme.
Graphics experience is not required. Simply select
alternative colors and insert text to personalize RSS feed
graphics. The RSS graphics tool can be used by clicking the
following URL
http://www.feedforall.com/public/rss-graphic-tool.htm or
choose ready made graphics from:
http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-graphics.htm .
Include information in the HTML code of a website so that
RSS Readers automatically detect that an RSS feed exists
for the material contained on the site. Aggregators will
automatically detect RSS on a website if you add a small
bit of code in the header field of an HTML page.
After publishing an RSS feed it is important to let
visitors know that the feed exists. Aggregators will
automatically detect RSS on a website if you add a small
bit of code in the header field of an HTML page. [link
rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS"
href="http://www.yourdomain.com/rss.xml"]
Be sure to replace http://www.yourdomain.com/rss.xml with
the URL to the RSS feed and replace the brackets with "<"
(less than) and ">" (greater than) symbols.
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com
software for creating, editing,
publishing RSS feeds and podcasts.
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