Here is 17 useful blog marketing and optimization tips.This article focuses on the first very important things you need to get right with blog marketing before you can actually make money from it.
# 1. What are you going to blog about? This is the most important question you need to know before you do anything else.If you are thinking of starting a hobby blog, then you do not necessarily need to invest in a domain name and hosting, but if you are looking to build an online income you will need to do thorough keyword research in order to know if your keywords have potential or not.
You must know if people who search for a specific keyword are willing to spend money or not.Doing keyword research manually is possible, but very time consuming and you might make costly mistakes.You need to use a keyword research software that points out potential keywords you can use.Watch these 5 free videos to learn all you need about keyword research.
# 2.Now when you know what keywords to target, you need to pick a domain name that contains these keywords.It is very difficult to get a 2 word .com domain name in these days so you might have to put a “filler word” in the end of the domain name, like for instance yourkeywordspage.com.
Only pick a .com, .net or .org domain name.Choosing another domain extension like .info or .biz for instance will not work as well.It is of course possible to rank with these domain extensions but it will take a lot more work.A .com domain name costs around $10 per year at Godaddy.com.
# 3.Free hosting is not an option when you are marketing online, because with free hosting you will get someone else´s advertisements on your site and the bandwidth will be limited.This means that once the traffic you are allowed is used, your site will be offline.Instead, by investing $10 per month in a hosting account you can avoid all problems and your site will be up and running 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.Most marketing professionals have chosen a hosting company called Hostgator.They have great live support available as well if you need assistance.
# 4.When it comes to blog marketing, a clean and professional looking blog works best.No one likes a blog that is filled with banners and clutter.I highly recommend you start using WordPress.org as your blogging platform (it can be installed in the Hostgator admin area).Wordpress is the most customizable blog platform with hundreds of different plugins designed to help with customization, SEO, content management and marketing.Wordpress.org is the self hosted version that you will need if you are serious about marketing online and making money.The free version is meant for people who are just blogging as a hobby.
# 5.It is important to customize the blog to make it unique and stand out from the rest. WordPress has hundreds of free and premium themes to choose from.A clean and professional looking theme will make your blog look more “reliable” in the eyes of the visitors.No one likes a site that is full of banners and links leading everywhere.One of the best premium WordPress themes is called Thesis (this blog runs Thesis).
# 6.When you have installed your WordPress theme, then you need to install a few essential plugins.There are hundreds of WordPress plugins available, but you really only need to use 15 WordPress plugins to optimize your blog to help it rank in the search engines.
# 7.Enable automatic trackback, pinging and feed tracking.This will really increase your blog traffic.
# 8.Identify authorative blogs in your niche and take notice of how they write content, how they market their blogs, use advertising on their blogs and so on.Social media is a big thing these days and it is a good idea to learn how you can use it.The Authority Black Book (free) shares really useful social marketing tactics.I recommend you download it today and use the strategies to get a lot of traffic to your new blog.
# 9.Track what is happening on your blog by setting up a Google Analytics account.Monitor inbound links and traffic.What kind of content get the most views and comments? When you know that, you know exactly what kind of content people want to read.
# 10.Submit your RSS feed to RSS submission sites all over the internet.Do a search on Google to find them.
# 11.Start a link building campaign by commenting on related blogs, writing for Hubpages and joining the biggest social media sites.
# 12.Video marketing is here to stay.Make your own marketing videos (“how to” works best) and submit them to YouTube, Revver and other video sites.
# 13.If you have extra money, submit your blog URL to paid directories like Yahoo and BOTW (Best Of The Web).
# 14.Do a press release and distribute it on PRWeb.com.Here is a short “how to” video about writing the perfect press release.
# 15.Join The Warrior Forum and participate regularly, add a sig-file in your profile to get more links pointing to your blog.There are lots of forums in almost any market available.Do a Google search for “Powered by vBulletin Version” + “your keyword” to find them.Remember to participate and share your knowledge.Do not spam because this will get you banned.
# 16.Post great and helpful information on your blog regularly, this is perhaps the most important tip I can give you.The content has to be useful, add videos occasionally to keep people longer on your blog.I know it is difficult to come up with original content all the time, because there is so much else you need to do when it comes to running a successful marketing blog and there will be times when you get writer´s block and cannot come up with anything useful to write about.Utility Poster is a fantastic software you can use to make things a lot easier for your self, here is a free video showing how you can make high quality blog content quickly and easily.
# 17.When someone leaves a comment on your blog, always respond to it.This creates a conversation on your blog and gives you more content as well.
# 18.Allow guest posting on your blog.Give people the possibility to write a blog post and publish it on your blog.You will get fresh content and the writer will get a link back to their site and new readers as well.This works also the other way around.This is the best way to get new blogging friends and contacts.
More information: Click here to learn more about blog marketing (Free video)
What do you think? Leave a comment!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
The tips are really great, i will give that of guest posting a chance.
Thanks
Blogs are web site content management systems with additional functionality such as comments, trackbacks and RSS. So here all the tips are very helpful to improve the blog posting.SEO is the right place to expanding your business.the high standard of web design and SEO that major search engines demand like web design, search engine optimization, internet marketing and internet marketing management in major search engines such as Google, AltaVista, Ask and Yahoo.
Tom Lindstrom – Thank you for very useful articles and great blog. I am here first time, but not last time. I subscribed this blog.
I hope you will update content.
Best Regards,
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