Blog Promotion Tips

Blog Directories, Forums & Resources

When promoting your blog, there is a number of really simple things you can do to help boost traffic coming into it. Unlike promoting your websites, where submitting directories, to a degree, has gone the way of the dinosaur, Blog Directories currently seem to be a legitimate source of decent, quality traffic. These directories also help you boost your inbound link count, too, as the links coming from some of the directories would be considered “relevant” sources.

In researching blog directories for this last of the three installments on Blog Promotion, I found a lot of the directories work in a similar fashion. Some of these blog directories require reciprocal links back, some do not, and some pose restrictions on blog types or how old the blog is.

Understanding that everyone is looking for traffic and promotion of their services, and carefully choosing which directories you really want to reciprocate links with is ideal. The list below is not in any preference, basically its in alphabetical order with a few notes onto the type of restrictions the directory may have.

Blog Directories

Blog Forums
There’s a few forums out there dedicated to blogging. Some search engine forums also have special sections of their forums dedicate to blogging in general, but the Blogging forums really break out and expand all of the different topics that come up with blogging. If you are not only looking to promote your blog, but are looking for fresh new ideas, answers to questions, to chat it up with fellow bloggers or even looking to exchange links, get registered with the Blogging forums.

Blogger Forum – This forum is probably the best resource out there currently for Bloggers. It has an extensive list of forum topics and is very active as well as being moderated for spam postings. Blogger Forum also has an area for newbies, great place to ask questions, get advice and even critiques on your blog.

Blogger Talk Forum – This forum has been around since 2003. It’s a lot like Blogger Forum, where it is dedicated to the blogging community and has various forum sections dedicated to specific issues that Bloggers face day in and day out. Although not as extensive in topics as Blogger Forums, Blogger Talk is still a great resource for new, middling and professional bloggers looking for new information or ideas for their blogs.

Forum4Bloggers – Just like the other forums, Forum4Bloggers is specifically dedicated to Bloggers and their blogging needs. This forum has 4 sections with different subtitles, not too much emphasis on the newbie side, but still another great resource for bloggers.

Other forums like HighRankings, Search Engine Watch, Webmaster World and Cre8asite Forums all have sections that members can post blogging questions too, but again, they are not totally dedicated to the Blogosphere, and usually more geared toward Search Engine Marketing or Website Design.

Other Blog Promotion Resources
Finally to wrap this three part segment up I’m just going to briefly touch upon some of the more known “must haves” in blog promotion. These are resources that help you monitor, promote and keep track of what’s going on with your blog.

Technorati – If there was just one thing that you could do to promote and keep track of your blog, Technorati should be it. Fortunately we don’t live in that kind of world, but still the point is made. Technorati is the “recognized authority on what's going on in the world of weblogs. We help people search for, surface, and organize bloggers and their daily posts”. This is the best way to find out who’s linking to your blogs, you can set up “watches” on particular postings you make and it can be a very indispensable tool in your ever day blogging.

Feedburner – If you could do just two things – add Feedburner to the list with Technorati. Feedburner is another indispensable tool that can help you promote your blog through RSS syndication methods. It can also give you valuable information about which news readers are picking up your feeds, how many subscribers you have and a ton more of information. Feedburner assists you with providing your feed in many different formats for different readers to pick up – best of all, its free.

Sitemeter - If you are looking for a free way to monitor the traffic coming in and out of your site, beyond the basics you blogging provider gives, check out Sitemeter. Sitemeter is a nice basic web analytics package, if you are just concerned about the traffic and where its coming from. For a fee you can upgrade your account to get more specifics about your traffic, but what comes with the basic account, really can help you understand where people are coming from to get to your blog.

Ping-o-Matic – Last but not least is Ping-o-Matic. This service is free, and is a nice little tool that lets other news reader sites know your blog has been updated. Blogging services like Typepad, Blogger, etc. hit the “big sites” like Technorati, but smaller sites like IceRocket won’t know about your blog and its updated information unless you Ping them, or they stumble upon your blog. What’s great about Ping-o-Matic is that once you configure the ping, you can bookmark it, and then just come back to the bookmark whenever you update your Blog.

Related Pages

How To Make Money Blogging - Awesome 15-minute video shows step-by-step methods for making real money with your blog - Blogging tips so good you can't afford not to watch this video.

Automatic Authority Links - Great video on dominating your niche by getting hundreds of Web 2.0 authority site links every time you post to your blog. Awesome stuff!

Long Tail Keywords - Great video on how to use long tail keyword phrases to drive incredibly profitable traffic to your web site or affiliate programs.

Find Link Partners - Free tool helps you quickly find 400+ link exchange partners in your niche - Increase your search engine rankings with relevant backlinks to your site.

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