How do I promote a blog?
October 11, 2005 6:06 PM Subscribe
I just opened my own post- moderated blog. Its kid of dead right now and I get 10-15 visitors a day and I am the only one who posts there. This is very depressing and I started to lose my motivation. Is there any place that I can draw more attention to it? Yes, I know about the ad sense but I cant really afford it. Thanks!
Yeah, it's shameless, but linking to blogs you like that aren't really well known will impress them so much they'll link back.
posted by phrontist at 6:29 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by phrontist at 6:29 PM on October 11, 2005
The statement that you just opened it kind of says it all. You can't expect people to flock to your site. There are millions of blogs out there, so give it time.
posted by meta87 at 6:32 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by meta87 at 6:32 PM on October 11, 2005
Are there message boards related to your blog content? Add your URL to your signature and then post on those boards. You may get a few bites.
posted by Miko at 6:32 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by Miko at 6:32 PM on October 11, 2005
Response by poster: The blog that I opened (maybe i am wrong) is kinda unique. Any registered user can post on the main page in real time, and than posts will be moderated. I dont see millions of those around. And forum signatures- I have 4 other sites already and i will look like a shameless spammer. Thanks for all replies.
posted by mrkredo at 6:37 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by mrkredo at 6:37 PM on October 11, 2005
Put it in your MeFi profile?
posted by Count Ziggurat at 6:42 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by Count Ziggurat at 6:42 PM on October 11, 2005
Best answer: Are you talking about the web site in your profile? That's a forum and not a blog.
Add on to that it is pretty useless. Try something else, would you like to systematically deconstruct it (don't take this personally)?
- A large city like NYC has various more popular outlets for everything you're trying to do. These are more defined and more in depth. You have a forum for practically everything, apartment hunting, sports (each with a separate forum), finding class mates. I can think of a myraid of web sites that do this more in depth, have actual expertise in the given field and are far more established. Craiglist, Facebook, Classmates.com and the list goes on...
- These type of template forums (there's a name for the original company that did this kind of layout, I forget it) only work if the interest is incredibly narrow or if absolutely nothing else exists to fit the niche. The interface sucks, the search sucks, it violates every usability guideline ever created.
This isn't 1995, things like this don't work anymore. For the better the Internet has become more corporate (best word I can think of). No longer is it a bunch of geeks going to whatever site will stay up and do the basic functionality. To start something of especially this magnitude, a destination site for everything NYC, you'll need people, designers and staffers full time. It takes money, time and experience. All the easy stuff is already done.
Also it's proper etiquette here to not bemoan your site statistics and put the site in your profile. It's kind of a catch-22, but you'll catch flack for it. I'm only giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're not using this site as a vehicle for advertising.
posted by geoff. at 6:44 PM on October 11, 2005
Add on to that it is pretty useless. Try something else, would you like to systematically deconstruct it (don't take this personally)?
- A large city like NYC has various more popular outlets for everything you're trying to do. These are more defined and more in depth. You have a forum for practically everything, apartment hunting, sports (each with a separate forum), finding class mates. I can think of a myraid of web sites that do this more in depth, have actual expertise in the given field and are far more established. Craiglist, Facebook, Classmates.com and the list goes on...
- These type of template forums (there's a name for the original company that did this kind of layout, I forget it) only work if the interest is incredibly narrow or if absolutely nothing else exists to fit the niche. The interface sucks, the search sucks, it violates every usability guideline ever created.
This isn't 1995, things like this don't work anymore. For the better the Internet has become more corporate (best word I can think of). No longer is it a bunch of geeks going to whatever site will stay up and do the basic functionality. To start something of especially this magnitude, a destination site for everything NYC, you'll need people, designers and staffers full time. It takes money, time and experience. All the easy stuff is already done.
Also it's proper etiquette here to not bemoan your site statistics and put the site in your profile. It's kind of a catch-22, but you'll catch flack for it. I'm only giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're not using this site as a vehicle for advertising.
posted by geoff. at 6:44 PM on October 11, 2005
Best answer: The blog that I opened (maybe i am wrong) is kinda unique. Any registered user can post on the main page in real time, and than posts will be moderated.
You mean Metafilter?
posted by geoff. at 6:47 PM on October 11, 2005
You mean Metafilter?
posted by geoff. at 6:47 PM on October 11, 2005
Response by poster: geoff: Its not the forum. Forum is just a toy/test wich became somewhat popular.
posted by mrkredo at 6:49 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by mrkredo at 6:49 PM on October 11, 2005
No, that's in bullet-time.
Is it the thing in your profile? That's not a blog, man, that's a board. And for a board, you gotta have a community. And for a community, you gotta have kinda a narrow shared interest and some personalities...
posted by klangklangston at 6:51 PM on October 11, 2005
Is it the thing in your profile? That's not a blog, man, that's a board. And for a board, you gotta have a community. And for a community, you gotta have kinda a narrow shared interest and some personalities...
posted by klangklangston at 6:51 PM on October 11, 2005
Response by poster: klangklangston: its not a forum :) Its something else.
posted by mrkredo at 6:53 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by mrkredo at 6:53 PM on October 11, 2005
Best answer: Sounds a lot like MeFi, BoingBoing, K5, Slashdot, Lesscode, OSNews, and a whole lot of other sites I can think of off the top of my head.
And not to sound like a prick, but having better English skills might help too...constantly leaving out apostrophes and the like isn't exactly going to make readers go "My, what an interesting, well-spoken young lad!" but instead "Meh, another shmuck who thinks he can blog...".
posted by cyrusdogstar at 6:55 PM on October 11, 2005
And not to sound like a prick, but having better English skills might help too...constantly leaving out apostrophes and the like isn't exactly going to make readers go "My, what an interesting, well-spoken young lad!" but instead "Meh, another shmuck who thinks he can blog...".
posted by cyrusdogstar at 6:55 PM on October 11, 2005
Best answer: cyrusdogstar: dirty.ru is awesome too. About my english- sorry, I am an alien :)
posted by mrkredo at 7:00 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by mrkredo at 7:00 PM on October 11, 2005
Well I still think my advice stands. Just give your site time. Keep adding quality content and people will eventually start to take notice. Websites have to pay their dues like everything else.
posted by meta87 at 7:21 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by meta87 at 7:21 PM on October 11, 2005
The Washington Post and Newsweek now use technorati to show blogs linking to articles on their sites. Assuming you are blogging about newsy stuff, it's a good way to generate traffic. I only discovered it when I started getting a shitload of traffic from Newsweek while blogging about the recent hurricanes.
Otherwise, engaging other bloggers on similar topics is by linking to them and commenting on their posts is a good way to generate some interest.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 7:27 PM on October 11, 2005
Otherwise, engaging other bloggers on similar topics is by linking to them and commenting on their posts is a good way to generate some interest.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 7:27 PM on October 11, 2005
Response by poster: meta87: Agree with you on time. Already been linked from The Presurfer. Just started to lose patience a little.
posted by mrkredo at 7:27 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by mrkredo at 7:27 PM on October 11, 2005
Response by poster: monju_bosatsu: Is that technorati addon?
posted by mrkredo at 7:34 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by mrkredo at 7:34 PM on October 11, 2005
mrkredo, will you email me a link to the site? I'd enjoy a peek.
posted by meta87 at 7:47 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by meta87 at 7:47 PM on October 11, 2005
Response by poster: meta87: Done deal, please check your email.
posted by mrkredo at 7:58 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by mrkredo at 7:58 PM on October 11, 2005
Nope, at least not if I take your meaning correctly. See, for example, this article. In the right sidebar, there is a box called "Who's Blogging?," that links back to blogs which link to the article. All you need to do is link to the article, and technorati will find you--assuming that your blog software is configured to ping technorati.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 8:12 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by monju_bosatsu at 8:12 PM on October 11, 2005
Response by poster: monju_bosatsu: Yeah, I see it now. You can also give tag inside the anchor tag , I believe. Next step is to check if my script can ping technorati geeks.
posted by mrkredo at 8:18 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by mrkredo at 8:18 PM on October 11, 2005
Best answer: I created a collaborative blog in August 2004, so it's now 14 months old. Growth has been slow, and I too became somewhat gloomy over something that I thought was about to fade away...but over the months, membership did increase, and the number of daily visits has slowly but steadily increased. Less than I hoped for, but better than realistically expected. Time, man...just time.
ALSO: I'd like a look at your site, too -- shoot me the link at davidmsc @ gmail.com.
posted by davidmsc at 8:38 PM on October 11, 2005
ALSO: I'd like a look at your site, too -- shoot me the link at davidmsc @ gmail.com.
posted by davidmsc at 8:38 PM on October 11, 2005
Best answer: There are plenty of services that give you the opportunity to discover new blogs and give other people the opportunity to discover you - a sort of blog surfing exchange. The one I'm familiar with is BlogExplosion.
posted by srah at 10:00 PM on October 11, 2005
posted by srah at 10:00 PM on October 11, 2005
Best answer: Use Blogexplosion, to get confirmed traffic, Get slashdotted if you have some great post to drive thousands of readers or try these 16 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
posted by webmeta at 12:11 AM on October 12, 2005
posted by webmeta at 12:11 AM on October 12, 2005
I hope this doesn't come off as too pithe, but why not try putting something useful on the site? Something that can't already be found somewhere else? I realize this is Obviousness 101, but a lot of people tend to forget the reasons they themselves visit web sites. This usually involves stepping away from the computer for a bit, doing something interesting, documenting it, then posting it. I think you'll find that if you never step away from the computer, you'll never have anything unique to show the world that would make them want to visit your site in the first place (unless you're a programmer).
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 8:01 AM on October 12, 2005
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 8:01 AM on October 12, 2005
It's hard to say without knowing anything about your weblog, but I found that being involved in the communities around similar weblogs - leaving comments, emailing folk with questions, linking to/trackbacking posts you find interesting etc. - works organically to get you more than that first handful of readers (after four years, I now have at least a handful and a half!).
Obviously, this only works if you're genuinely interested in the topic at hand, and have genuine comments to make or questions to ask - don't try leaving worthless comments at every semi-related site you find, as people will assume you're a spamming knobhead.
Also, do as much as you can to make search engines like your site - write clear titles for posts, use good valid markup, etc. - you'd be surprised how many folk who find you via a random search end up becoming regular readers.
Finally, just stop caring about how many readers you have and concentrate on the content - there's no way you'll suddenly get a huge following if your main priority is getting a huge following! (Or, on preview, what C_D said.)
posted by jack_mo at 8:31 AM on October 12, 2005
Obviously, this only works if you're genuinely interested in the topic at hand, and have genuine comments to make or questions to ask - don't try leaving worthless comments at every semi-related site you find, as people will assume you're a spamming knobhead.
Also, do as much as you can to make search engines like your site - write clear titles for posts, use good valid markup, etc. - you'd be surprised how many folk who find you via a random search end up becoming regular readers.
Finally, just stop caring about how many readers you have and concentrate on the content - there's no way you'll suddenly get a huge following if your main priority is getting a huge following! (Or, on preview, what C_D said.)
posted by jack_mo at 8:31 AM on October 12, 2005
What I did when I started my blog was to send emails to proprietors of blogs that I liked telling them that i was linking them to my blog. I DID NOT ask to be linked back, yet 75% of the time it happened.
Develop a rapport with other bloggers and write about what you talk about.
Trackback on blogs with HaloScan comments. Some of the most popular sites have this feature. I still ge a steady stream of traffic from one trackback I did on Zach Braff's blog over nine months ago.
Above all: BRING SOMETHING TO THE TABLE.
posted by UncleHornHead at 8:52 AM on October 12, 2005
Develop a rapport with other bloggers and write about what you talk about.
Trackback on blogs with HaloScan comments. Some of the most popular sites have this feature. I still ge a steady stream of traffic from one trackback I did on Zach Braff's blog over nine months ago.
Above all: BRING SOMETHING TO THE TABLE.
posted by UncleHornHead at 8:52 AM on October 12, 2005
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:25 PM on October 11, 2005 [1 favorite]