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The Key To Marketing With Blogs
I've spent months answering questions from marketers about blogs and blogging and how they fit into the marketing mix. Still, 99% don't understand the power of blogging. What most marketers don't seem to grasp is the "people element". People have wants and needs and a desire to fill them. People want to belong to something bigger - a group, an organization. They want to be recognized and respected by their peers, noticed by leaders in their group and looked up to by their followers. Social. Community. Acceptance. Fellowship. Trust. Key Marketing Concept: Fill people's wants and needs. Help them feel a sense of belonging, a sense of trust and they will spend their money. In other words, build a rapport with people. People. Not Traffic, not Visitors, not Prospects? People. Don't just post articles on your blogs, post "messages". Forget salesletters on your blog, post "reviews". If you want to include an affiliate link in a post, say so. How do YOU feel about the product or service you're blogging about? Are you passionate or confident, based on personal experience, that a product is all or more than it's cracked up to be? What's your real opinion on the product? Have any ideas or tips on how that product can be of even more use to your followers? Blog about it, honestly, passionately. And for heaven sakes enable your blogs commenting feature so you can discuss your views with your community. That's where the real power of blogs is - the personal interaction. Paul Short is a veteran internet marketer, professional blogging consultant and owns the popular blog directory http://www.getblogs.com For more information on blogging and marketing with blogs, check out Paul's site at http://www.bloglogic.net
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And of course, the dynamics of it are a little more complex than I've stated. But learn to use Trackback properly, and you won't need to beg for links to your site ever again. It's harder to estimate an exact number of visitors that come as a result of trackback links. But if you posted five days out of seven, and was able to get a trackback link to your site three times a week, by the end of the year you'd have almost 150 topical links back to your site, which are more valued by search engines than a typical link trade with an unrelated site. The most overlooked source of traffic for a blog is through article submission. To start with, turn your longer posts into articles and submitting them to ezines or directories. Look especially for directories that ask for the direct link to the article on your own site, and input the permanent link to the post on your blog. Make sure that your Auto-Discovery tag is in place and it can mean hundreds more prospects, links and subscribers. 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There are, of course, plenty of other ways you can leverage the content in your blog or RSS feed to increase the traffic to your site. The methods outlined here may be a bit outside the norm, but, as you'll soon find, that's part of the reason they are so effective.
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Comment by Frank O'Donnell
