A few weeks ago, I wrote an article entitled 5 Steps to Jumpstart Your Website.
I was subsequently criticized for stating the obvious.
But the truth of the matter is that most bloggers don’t have the time or resources to implement 90% of the advice that you see in the “30 Effective Ways to Promote Your Blog” type articles. Fact of the matter is that 90% of those tips turn out to not really be that effective (or at least not for a simpleton like me).
This got me thinking. There’s a real need here. Or maybe it already exists and I just don’t know about it. But, the average blogger could really benefit from someone or some resource whose primary aim, rather than the creation of lots and lots of content, was to whittle down all the advice that’s out there into the simple rules that actually work for the average blogger, especially the beginning blogger.
In other words, if you’re like me, and you really only have 2-5 promotional methods and 2-5 ad monetization methods, what are they? How would you advise the new blogger to spend her precious time? Certainly not by wading through dozens upon dozens of “107 Keys to link building” articles.
You can take a look at my article above regarding site promotion. It’s about all I do for most of my sites, and for the time it involves, the payoff is tangible.
I know of one thing I’d add to the list that I’m not doing: participation in the comments section of similar sites.
3 thoughts on “Keeping Things Simple With Blog Promotion”
Brian, I agree, the advanced stuff is in short supply. No question, but don’t you also think that there’s too much filler in a lot of these lists? Don’t you think there’s room for “The essential list” or a distinction between “a few core strategies” and “if you’ve got the time try these too.”
My point here is just that just like most online visitors only go to something like 5-10 websites per day, I’m willing to bet that most probloggers have their “core” list of 2-5 things they do on a daily basis for promotion, and then maybe another 5-10 things they might do on a weekly or monthly basis.
Some things pay off way better than others. Many things that get “recommended” turn out to be completely worthless. All I’m saying is that it would be nice if there were an authoritative “daily core list” of promotional activities that work well and have tangible payoff.
Sort of like a standards board for SEO.
@Ryan: what Brian said plus, a lot of those “X ways” articles have been designed for browsing quickly by bloggers at any level. If you’re advanced, you gloss over the list. If you’re a beginner, the assumption is that you’d follow the link that a bullet provides so that you can learn more detail. (If there is no link, then ask, leave a comment.) If you’re in between, you gloss over what you know and study what you don’t.
How much simpler could it be? I’m going to piss off a lot of people but the real problem is that a lot of people don’t follow advice. There’s lots of it. Try one blogger’s advice. If it doesn’t work, try someone else’s. Or, read different opinions and formulate your own. Test your hypotheses by spending (precious) time trying different things. It really does take time to learn, to become a successful blogger, and most people are not willing to spend that time. That’ll be the difference between a blogger who succeeds and a blogger who doesn’t.
Your site, by the way, is probably being bombarded right now, as I can’t get it to come up. So I can’t see what you wrote (though I think I’ve already read it).
but there’s plenty of simple (simplistic?) advice out there for the taking. In fact, there’s not a shortage of it at all. It’s the advanced stuff that’s in short supply.
107 does not equal quality or advanced. It only equals 107.
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