#31WBGB: Promote a Blog Post

Welcome to Week 3 of 31 Weeks to a Better Genealogy Blog!  If you are just joining us, you can read the kick-off post here .

Week 3’s topic is promoting a blog post.  The assignment for this week is going to be a stretch for me, so I’m really interested in hearing what you have to say on this topic.

Darren Rowse of Problogger says that he often sees people promoting their blog as a whole, but that promoting individual posts is far more effective.  This e-book was written a couple of years ago, so I wonder if he still sees this as a problem?  My experience is that most genealogy bloggers promote individual posts via Twitter and Networked Blogs, but my perspective may be skewed, because almost everyone I read is on Twitter.  I saw a statistic a few weeks ago that only 10% of Americans use Twitter, (compared to 50% who use Facebook), so the people I read are probably more tech- and social networking-savvy than most.

Nevertheless, Darren offers us:

11 Ways to Promote a Blog Post

1. Pitch to other bloggers:  ask another blogger to consider linking to your post.  This gives me the heebie-jeebies.  I really don’t like asking people to do things for me.
2. Social Messaging: use Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks to promote your post.    Darren says “the key is not to incessantly spam your followers and your friends with your link.”
3. Social Bookmarking:  promote selective links on sites like Digg or StumbleUpon.
4. Internal Links:  what posts within your own site can you link to a given post?  Have you written on a topic before?  Are you writing a series?  Link them up.  Another way to do this is to use automatic apps, like a related-post plug-in if you are on WordPress, or a widget like LinkWithin, which I believe works on both WordPress and Blogger.  You can also add a section in your sidebar with “Latest posts,” “Popular posts,” “Featured posts,” etc.  WordPress makes this very easy to do; I’m not sure about Blogger.
5. Newsletters: shoot an email out to your newsletter list, if you have one.  (Does anyone do a newsletter?  I’d like to hear more about how often you do that, what kind of content you include, etc.)
6. Other Blog’s Comments Sections and Forums: leaving good-quality comments can help drive traffic to your site and leaving a link can be appropriate if it is germane to the discussion.  (Just a note here, I use a plug-in called CommentLuv that automatically inserts a link to each commenter’s last post, if they’ve signed up for the service. And since, I’m signed up, my links are left on other bloggers’ sites, if they use CommentLuv.)
7. Email signatures: Darren suggests including links to recent posts, instead of just your blog’s front page URL.
8. Follow-up posts:  write a new post that picks up where another left off, like a series, or adds new information to a previous post, then inter-link them.
9. Advertise Your post:  You might consider a small ad campaign for a post you are particularly proud of, using AdWords, StumbleUpon, or similar services.  This probably isn’t something most geneabloggers would consider, but it might be worthwhile for those who are professional genealogists.
10. Pitch Mainstream Media:  You might want to do this for a really interesting post.  Again, I think this would be more suitable for the pros.
11. Article Marketing:  Rewrite some key articles and submit them to article marketing sites.

Don’t do all of the above for every single post you write. For one thing, you wouldn’t have time to do anything else.  Pick one or two posts a week to promote.

Action Items

• Pick something from the above list that you’ve never done before and use it to promote one of your posts.
• Share your thoughts on some of these items.  What social networking sites do you use for blog promotion?  Have you ever used Digg or StumbleUpon?  Have you used any of the other ideas?  How have they worked for you?  Leave an answer in the comments or, if you write a post about it, come back and leave us a link.
• Lastly, don’t forget to come back and let us know which idea you tried for the first time and how it worked for you.

Prize (you know that’s why you’re here)

This week’s prize is a Legacy Family Tree Webinar on CD* called Sharing Genealogy Electronically. The description of this webinar from the Legacy site says:

Join Legacy Family Tree’s Geoff Rasmussen as he presents a live workshop to both 1) the West Valley Genealogical Society in Youngtown, Arizona and 2) to a live webinar audience. The class will teach methods of sharing your genealogy in the form of a printed book, print-on-demand publishing, websites, and shareable CDs. The class, being taught live at the West Valley Genealogical Society’s library, is part of a 4-week Advanced Legacy course. Teaching to both a live brick-and-mortar audience AND to a live online audience at the same time is something we have never tried before. Maybe it will work. Maybe it … well … we’ll be positive here and hope for the best.

If you’d like to enter for a chance to win this webinar (which retails for $9.95), leave a comment on this entry with your thoughts on blog post promotion. You must be a US resident to enter. The contest ends at 11:59pm on Saturday, July 23, 2011. Winner will be drawn randomly.

*And now for the disclosure.  I received this, and many other, Legacy Webinar CDs as a blogger gift at SCGS Jamboree (and intend to give them all away, so come back often).  I also use affiliate links to sell Legacy products.

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