17 Ways to Get Readers to Your Blog - Eyeballs are Everything!!

It can be discouraging to put your heart and soul into starting a blog with shiny new content, only to find that it has been viewed by three people and two of them are you! There are many avenues to generating traffic to your blog. Here are a few for you to start.

1. Use Twitter to announce your blog post. You can schedule a few tweets about it, spacing them out over a couple of days. www.hootsuite.com is a great utility to do that.
2. Post your blog entries on your Facebook page - both personal page and business page. You can schedule automatic postings to both Twitter and Facebook with Twitterfeed.
3. Find blog or online business directories for your industry and join. Most have basic listings that are free.
4. Join social and professional networking sites relative to your industry. They will always provide opportunities for you to post your blog.
5. Join blog rings - do a search on Google and see how they work.
6. Put your blog URL in your email signature to everyone.
7. Start a business/store e-newsletter and always add your blog.
8. Join forums specific to your industry to network with others and always put your blog URL in your signature and profiles.
9. Every place that you join has a profile – photo sites, social networking, professional networking, directories, etc. Don't forget your blog URL.
10. Give-away something small of value on your blog and use those who leave comments as your drawing base - promote this give-away on your forums, boards, and e-newsletter.
11. If you purchase online advertising, be sure to add your blog URL.
12. Volunteer for industry calls for a variety of things, such as designing a page for a calendar, give-aways, or co-promotions. Always include your blog URL.
13. Your blog URL should always be on your business cards.
14. Do you have business brochures? Add your blog URL.
15. Promote your blog on your own web site.
16. Ask other web site owners that you know to post your blog on their web site and you do the same for theirs.
17. If you qualify, take advantage of blog owners who put out calls for features. Often blog owners will ask for interested parties in forums and on boards.

This is not an exhaustive list but is a list of things you can do NOW. Remember, a journey of 1000 miles begins with one step. Make this your first step to your online future!

Blog Interviews: A Great Way to be Seen

One of my tips for getting blog readers to your blog is to pursue being featured in the blogs of others.

This could be a collaborative effort, such as "I feature you and you feature me," or it could be a response by you to the many calls for blog content in your forums or boards, or it could be that a blogger notices you and writes about you. Any way is a good way. Just do it.

Recently, Dancing Monkey Jewelry owner, Martha, was looking for artists for her "Artist of the Week" feature. Not one to let moss grow under her feet when it comes to free promotion for my handcrafted jewelry business (GalleriaLinda), I accepted and Martha and I had a great time working on this interview.

Now you can see how it works!

Read my interview on Martha's blog, Dancing Monkey Chronicles, and read about other artists that she reviews.

Martha (aka Dancing Monkey Jewelry) writes fabulous "Artist of the Week" interviews about the great handcrafted items that artists make. Martha has a special eye for sleek designs that delight and is a jewelry artist in her own right.

Then, Edward and Lilly's blog picks up on Dancing Monkey's articles and mentions my business name too. And so on...and so on.... What will tomorrow bring from this article? We will see!

See the recipircal links I provide back to these blogs too? I linked my interview to my web site, Facebook, YourHandcraft.ning.com, EtsyLove.ning.com, WebJam, and will soon put it on LinkedIn, and Flickr.

This is really a great way to get your services or products seen.

Leave a comment on this blog if this tactic has worked for you! Tell us how you got your blog interview or feature.

Blogging: Quick and Easy!

 I don't know what to write......*help!*

Is this YOU? Help is here! With all content development, writing style is king.

We write differently for press releases, for company brochures, for product sheets, for client proposals, for bank requests, for grant submissions, for award nominations, for advertising, and for blogs. Then, comes in the industry writing styles. Content for industries, such as banking, entertainment, technical, crafting, and others are very different from each other. Same type of content, same type of subject, but a different writing style.

Here is an idea!! Dig out one of EVERY marketing asset you have. That includes printed materials, brochures, business cards, client proposals, biographies, company histories, web site content, even audio content if you have scripts for TV ads and radio. This is your goldmine that can fuel your blog posts for a long time!

Pick through them like you are looking for that lost needle in a haystack. Find tiny aspects that can be re-purposed and expanded with glorious and exciting information.

Check out these resources: 
About.com: Small Business Information Business Blog FAQ
BloggingTips
ProBlogger

The KEY is to keep it an interesting, but short, conversation that will engage your readers!

Blogging: Free Marketing for You

Do you hunt for free marketing treasure like I do? Looking for free marketing opportunities is well worth the time. I hate to say it (because you are thinking you cannot do this) but a professional blog is one of the easiest and most valuable assets you could have in your marketing treasure chest. With the right process and content, you can point clients, prospects, professional peers, and others to really find out what you are all about and what you do.

There are many free blog sites, such as Blogger and Wordpress for you to join - just do a Google search.

Aw...you say...I can't write, I don't write, I have no time to write. Then, I have to mess around with figuring out the blog templates and process.

Me too! I find that writing posts for my blogs are often pushed aside and I never "get to it." One of the road blocks is the process of having to go on the Internet to my blog site, sign in, and use the template. The template sometimes goes goofy on me and I have to redo my work, then once posted I have to edit again and again to get it tweaked. It gets frustrating!

Maybe this will help me and perhaps you!! I discovered Windows Live Writer. You can write your posts offline and use it like any other software on your own computer. No glitches and no slow Internet connections. The choice to publish immediately or to schedule your post is very useful.

This is my first post offline for this blog and to be published through Windows Live Writer! Tell me how it looks!

In the next few posts we will work through how you can use your existing content for your blog and how to market your blog online. Stay tuned!