PUBLICIZE YOUR CONTENT/POST

After Choosing the Platform and making your first Post, Here you are preparing to be discovered. So how exactly do people reach blogs? How can they reach your blog among the millions other? How soon can your content be discovered after you first post it? All these questions will be answered with explanations in the coming lines.

After posting your content, you want it to be discovered. Of course, The Internet is the widest platform for showcasing your content and its real time but is it really so? The answer is yes and no both. ‘Yes’ because your as soon as you press “POST” Button, your post is available on the Internet and ‘No’ because in spite being on the Web its not (exactly) yet discoverable. So the questions submerge to this: How does content becomes discoverable on Internet? The answer lies in another question “How do people discover things on Internet?” Here are few common ways in descending order of contribution (Again, This is based on my personal experience):

A.      Google Search Results and other Search Results

B.      Via your links in comments you gave on other Blogs/Websites (e.g. Blogrolls)

C.      Through Social Networking Sites (e.g. Facebook, Orkut etc) and Social Bookmarking Services (e.g. Digg, Yelp, Technorati, Stumble Upon, reddit, Bloglines)

D.      Via Email (e.g. email subscriptions, Newsletters etc)

E.       In Public Forums like Groups, Communities, mailing lists etc

F.       Personal recommendations (Twitter)

G.     Via Feeds (e.g. RSS, Atom, Google Reader, email subscriptions)

H.     Via Bookmarks on People’s Browsers (e.g. favorites, Speed Dial, Bookmarks)

I.        Others (e.g. media, advertising, gadgets etc)

So to make your content discoverable, you need to keep in mind the above ways of discovering content and then proceed. These points form the basic charter of Search Engine Optimizations and Product Branding.

GET DISCOVERED -

a.      Google Search Results and other Search Results:    You can submit your post to Google as soon as you publish it. Generally Google Spiders will index your Blog within 24 Hours, but to make this process faster you can always submit your Blog explicitly to Google for faster Indexing. You can also set the frequency of Google Bots’ Crawl of your Blog in Google’s Webmaster Central. The sooner Google know about your content, the sooner it will appear in related search results. Although, Page Rank plays a very important role in ranking and order of appearance of your blog in search result

b.      Via your links in comments you gave on other Blogs/Websites (e.g. Blogrolls): This is the most interesting way of being discovered where you control how you should be discovered.  By participating in comments/discussions in other Blogs and leaving your Blog Link, you attract the visitors of the other Site. This method works very well. E.g. Blog roll at the bottom of this page.

c.       Through Social Networking Sites (e.g. Facebook, Orkut etc) and Social Bookmarking Services (e.g. Digg, Yelp, Technorati, Stumble Upon, reddit, Bloglines): Today Social Networking has overshadowed most of the older methods of Information sharing. You can always update gTalk Status or Orkut Status with a link to your most recent post or blog itself. Facebook has an interesting way of Link sharing where you can enter the status, say a few words and give the link, Facebook will automatically insert a snapshot and a thumbnail of your Blog. Facebook can also get the RSS from your blogs and display it in its ‘Notes’ Section. LinkedIn has an application that can display the recent posts from your blogs. To be discovered you will have to make full use of all your social and professional networks.

d.      Via Email (e.g. email subscriptions, Newsletters etc): Email Branding is one of the oldest and most efficient ways of publicity. Your Email Subscriber denotes your most faithful readers and they must be given full attention. You can have mailing lists, Newsletters for distribution. Email Subscriptions are now powered by FeedBurner (acquired By Google).You can also make your blog available in PDF format and mail it to your subscriber for offline reference. E.g. Email Subscription forms in the sidebar. Email Branding is a vast topic and will be covered in later posts.

e.       In Public Forums like Groups, Communities, mailing lists etc: Orkut and Facebook communities are the best place to share relevant content. Here you have the benefit of exposing your content to an already interested audience. It’s a mode of targeted advertising. Keep a list of Communities and groups related to your topic and make a post in them as soon as you publish new content. Follow up matters a lot in Groups/Communities so be attentive to queries and concerns raised in group/community. E.g. the Weekly mailing list in Orkut Community : Books and Books

f.        Personal recommendations (Twitter): Google is the best example of ‘Word of Mouth’ advertising and promotion. There is nothing better than a personal recommendation about a blog or service. But for that you need to maintain goodwill in Blogging Community. There are many Blogger groups (like IndiBlogger etc) where you can register all your Blogs and interact with Bloggers like you. Bloggers themselves form the crème of audience.

g.      Via Feeds (e.g. RSS, Atom, Google Reader, email subscriptions):  RSS feeds have developed as a means to take your Blog to new places. Earlier people used to come to site/blog to read content, but now the content reaches the interested people in the form they want. Thanks to RSS (Really Simple Syndication)! You can configure RSS in FeedBurner account. Blogger & Wordpress both support feeds. Most of the new web browser support RSS. Google Reader  provides means to add, manage and share your feeds with the world. More about Feeds/RSS later.

h.      Via Bookmarks on People’s Browsers (e.g. favorites, Speed Dial, Bookmarks):  Most people won’t remember you Blog address as it is. Its very convenient for the user to have a bookmark on you site. You can do so by providing a BOOKMARK link at the bottom of your post or in Blog sidebar.

i.        Others (e.g. media, advertising, gadgets etc):  Besides these methods, there are conventional methods too. 

                                                              i.      You can have a Google Adwords account for advertising your Blog.

                                                            ii.      You can ask your Blogger friends to showcase your Blog on their sidebar.

                                                          iii.      If you are a developer you can design gadgets, Themes etc with your link in it.

                                                           iv.      File Sharing (e.g. Rapidshare and Esnips ) sites also provide good means where you can upload your blog as a PDF and publicize it.

These were some of the general methods to publicize your post. These should be kept in mind. However, if you want to automate it, here is the checklist.

CHECKLIST AFTER PUBLISHING CONTENT -

1.       Publish your Content.

2.       Go to Autopinger and enter your Blog URL. This will ping major Search engines.

3.       Go to Google’s Submit URL and submit your link along with tags.

4.       Find a service to tweet your Blog automatically as soon as you publish content. E.g. FriendFeed.

5.       Have FeedBurner’s Ping Service activated and set 5 top Ping Servers of your choice.

6.       If you a mail list/Community/Group, post a link there.

7.       If you want you can update your status on gTalk and Facebook.

8.       If you use Windows Live Writer, You can ping 56 Ping Servers at a time. Find the List of Ping Servers here.

9.       Participate in discussions related to your content on other Blogs/Forums.

10.   Keep your content updated with recent data and acknowledge contributions, if any!

These 10 points will help you in publicizing your content. But it’s very different than Branding. For Branding, you need a more focused approach. If you want, I will write a tutorial on Branding too.I hope this assists you in your endeavor.

As always, feel free to clarify any doubts or ask questions.

Happy Blogging!

Related Posts:                  

·         10 Tips for a Better Post| START BLOGGING

·         Choice of Platform | Blogger or Wordpress?

·         How to Become a Blogger | Introduction | About Us

Next Post:

                In my next post, we will try to acquaint ourselves with design aspect of the Blog. We will go through various effective blog designs with respect to blog content.


NOTE: Google is experimenting with PubSubHubbub which is a simple, open, web-hook-based pubsub (publish/subscribe) protocol. Find more about it here. It aims to update the feeds in real time with content updations

You can meet me here:

Twitter                                    Facebook

Orkut                                                   LinkedIn

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10 Tips for a Better Post | START BLOGGING

Now that you have decided on Blogging Platform (Blogger or Wordpress), you can start Blogging!

I will be using the term “Blog” for both Blogger and Wordpress blogs. Wherever I need to mention any specific detail about the provider (Blogger or Wordpress), I will do so explicitly. This post onwards, I will be embedding SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tips within the post. So if you are just starting blogging, you need not worry about optimizations. However, there will be further separate posts on this wide topic.

START BLOGGING –

                After logging in to your account for the first time you ask yourself – What do I do now? What is it that I see? What to do first? Post or Customize setting?

                The first interface you see after logging into your Blog Admin Area is called “DASHBOARD”. It’s your link to each and every aspect of your Blog. Dashboard is generally organized into various categories to make it self explanatory. Blogger divides its Dashboard into four parts namely –

1.       Posting

2.       Setting

3.       Layout

4.       Monetize

Wordpress also has a similar categorization but all the important links and stats are visible in the dashboard only. Wordpress’ Dashboard is filled with news, top blogs, admin links, stat link etc following ‘everything on a single page’ ideology while Blogger gives a hierarchical structure to its links following ‘Simplicity’. You will get used to both over the time. . Wordpress does not have Monetize Link as it does not allow advertising. Monetize on Blogger connects your blog to your Adsense Account and provides options for serving ads.

POST TITLE –

You can make a new post using CREATE POST option (obviously!). Just have a catchy heading and interesting content. A Heading should be:

1.       Short and simple

2.       Catchy and Witty

3.       Raise Curiosity

4.       Innovative

5.       Descriptive - Able to summarize the content.

E.g. the title of this post: 10 Tips for a Better Post| START BLOGGING

People love Bullets and especially Numbering. Use Numbers, Sections to organize your content. It would also be easier for audience to refer to a particular point rather a paragraph while posting comment.

POST CONTENT (10 Tips for a Better Post) --

The content depends on your choice of topic. Along with quality content, you might want to give the following 10 tips a try for SEO and good user experience:

A Post should have:

1.      1)  “A Related Post” clause followed by related links from your own blog and other relevant websites.

2.      

3.       2.) Have Social Bookmarking Links at the bottom of every post so that your readers can share the post with others using all means. This can be done using a custom HTML template which you can edit to include current post link and name (hard way for both Blogger and Wordpress) or by using Java Script embedded in Blog Template (only for Blogger).

4.       3.) Google Spiders love links so the more relevant links you have in your post, the more spiders get to feed on. The more time the spiders spend on your blog feeding on links, the more relevantly your blog gets indexed on Google’s Database. This leads to enhanced search results pertaining to the tags you use. To see how your Blog looks to a Google Spider, You can use the open source, text based command line Browser - Lynx.

5.      4.)  Stress on the “YOU” rather than “MY” aspect of the content.

6.       5.) Justify yourself with quotes and reason and don’t assume the obvious outcome.

7.      6.)  When making any assertion justify with ‘Because’.  It’s more effective.

8.       7.) TAGGING: This is perhaps the most important part that completely depends on Author. A tag is your way to describe your post with a set of words/phrases. It’s mapped to keywords that people search on Google to reach your page. An Author can choose to adapt different type of Tagging Styles. Some styles that I discovered (these are names given by me and are not standard) are:

a.       Extensive Tagging: In this mode, the author tags his post with all possible tags (within word limit of 200 for Blogger and unlimited for Wordpress). This technique is useful for Media Blogs, News Blog which need instant audience and includes a vast majority of topics. E.g. : Tarun Reflex | Personal, Political and Technical

b.      Selective Tagging: This works well for personal Blogs, Travelogues where you have selective audience. In this, you select Tags carefully in order to convey the best possible meaning.  E.g. : 1000 Awesome Things about India

c.       Association Tags: This technique is a smart approach to organize your blog and post. By planning tags and having a relationship between them, you can do wonders in Content Management. You can define your own rule and have content displayed in your order rather than predefined Archives or Category format. It will be useful in future when you will display a list of Related Posts in sidebar or within post. You can simply refer to a group of posts using a ‘Smart Tag’. E.g. Blogging Confessions (this blog)

                                                               i.      SMART TAGS: it’s a superset of tags that conveys a special meaning. e.g. I have a post ‘x’ tagged with “India”  about India, another post ‘y’ tagged with “Travel” about London and a post ‘z’ tagged with “Taj Mahal” about Taj Mahal. Now I can tag the last Post ‘z’ with “Travel India” (combining the former two tags) as well as “India” and “Travel”. Now I can refer to all posts (about Taj Mahal and London here) related to “Travel” and have ‘y’ and ‘z’ in the list using tag “travel”, or refer to all post related to “India” and have ‘x’ and ‘y’ in the list using tag “India” or refer to all posts related to “Travel in India” and have ‘z’ in the list using “Travel India” tag.

                                                             ii.      NOTE: Wordpress has Tags as well as categories, Association tags are Blogger ‘s way of having Categories as well as Tags.

9.       8.) Avoid using extraneous “Tags”. Some authors use many manipulated tags just to drive audience to their Blog without having appropriate content. This might work for sometime but in the long run it’s very harmful not only for the author but also for the audience and honest Blogs.  

 If 9.) If you tend to use or refer to Current Events, Try to have a link to a reliable source (e.g. Wikipedia, News Agencies etc).

10.   10.) Respect your Audience: This is the most important step towards having a regular audience. Always respond to the comments. No response is the worst response. Accept if you made any mistake or clarify the issue. Provide different means to your audience to reach you and your content. Email, Comments, tweets, SMS (using Google Channel), Feeds etc are few of the most popular ways. I will be covering each of them in detail in further Posts.

Points to Ponder:

• ·         Provide a link to the current post below every post so that your audience can save it, bookmark it or forward it. You can use FeedFlare in FeedBurner to customize the links below every post and feed. More about it ,later.
• ·         Keep your audience interested in your Blog by telling them about your Future Posts and plan so that they know what to expect.

As always, feel free to clarify any doubts or ask questions.

Related Posts:

·         Choice of Platform

·         How to Become a Blogger | Introduction | About Us

Next Post:

                In my next post we will try to acquaint ourselves with different ways to make our new post discoverable on World Wide Web.

You can meet me here:

Twitter                                    Facebook

Orkut                                                   LinkedIn

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