Market Yourself!

If you were like I was, the first time I published a post to my blog, I kept looking at it over and over again.  I beamed with pride at my first post, but later I started thinking that maybe I was the only one reading it - over and over again.  Wasn't the point of my blog to have others read what I had to say?  Since my blog was specialized, my goal was to reach people that were truly interested in the same thing I was or interested in what I had to say.  How do you find these people?  How do I find an audience? The best advice I can give is: promote - promote - promote!  Learn how to market yourself.  It means you will have to be pro-active, swallow some pride and take the initiative to reach out to people.  How else are you going to get the readership you want?  The blog fairy?

My blog is specialized so I searched the web to find who was the leading expert in this area of blogging.  I took the big step and reached out to that leading number one specialized blog in the world.  I boldly sent him an email and asked if he would consider adding my blog to his links.  He was either going to give me one of two answers or he would ignore me. Really - - what did I have to lose?    Guess what?  I am on his list of favorite blogs.  All you have to do is ask with a simple email and that is the beauty of the internet - no face to face. 

A while back a new blogger sent me an email letting me know that he has been reading my blog and it inspired him to start his own.  He asked me if I would give him a link.  His blog was still new, a few posts and needed some attention, but no way could I deny him that request.  I remembered what was done for me when I first started out and I needed to pay someone back. 

Promote-promote-promote!  If you blog about a specific individual or a business, it is important to let them know.  Send him/her an email and direct them to your blog.  It is one way to gain readership and sometimes that person will keep in touch with you about what's new in their life or business. One person in particular kept in touch with me and gave me new information about his business before the newspapers ever printed it.  I beat the press!

Spend some time doing homework.  Check out search engines to locate and review other blogs that may have  the same or similar content as yourself.  Find out if they belong to special associations, blog assistance sites, and who's their audience.  If you have a favorite blog, how does their blog look?  Do you like the look and is it something that you can achieve?  When trying to figure out what style, graphics, etc that I wanted for my blog, I looked at number one blogs to see what worked for them.  It's important to "get out" beyond your blog control panel and  keep ahead of what others like yourself are blogging about and what are people reading.  Send emails about a specific post that you think someone would enjoy.   Take some chances and comunicate with your fellow bloggers.  Blogs are growing in numbers and when it comes to readership  you can't just sit back and wait for them to come to you, so you need to be competitive for your own space in the blog world.  If you don't market yourself, nobody else is going to do it for you and besides, who else can do it better than you?  Market and promote yourself!