1. Join
Technorati
Stumbleupon
Del.icio.us
MyBlogLog
Digg
Reddit
MySpace
Facebook
Linked In
and ALL OF THESE.
Be sure to be an active participant of each community and make lots of “friends”.
2. Make a Squidoo Lens about your blog.
You can then comment on other people’s Squidoo lenses about their blogs, thus driving more traffic to your site. Become an expert about your blog.
3. Comment on lots of other blogs.
Ideally, it is best if you only comment on blogs that are more popular than your own. Make sure that you leave “meaningful and relevant” comments so that you don’t look like a spammer. Rapidly become exhausted and outsource your commenting to India.
4. Participate in bulletin board discussions.
Include a link to all 23 of your blogs in your signature. Again, you don’t want to look like a spammer, so make certain to be present in the community on a regular basis, and leave “meaningful and relevant” messages. Perhaps your personal assistant in India can help you out with this one as well.
5. Submit your site to 55 Active RSS Directories
.
You know all that fun you’ve been wanting to have with your blog? Well this is it.
6. Monetize your site.
Readers really hate blank space. Fill it up with adsense and affiliate advertising. Blinking ads are especially fun as they keep your readers awake. Make sure that you also insert advertising into every post. Write about products and then “cleverly” insert an affiliate link. Do not write about or link to another blog unless they have paid you. This is especially good advice for people who have just began to post. Here are 22 affiliate networks to help you accomplish this goal.
7. Put a Flickr photo album on your site.
Pictures of Florida are cool, and people will be back for more. If you are hot, then don’t bother. You don’t need the harassment.
8. Write some really good stuff.
Detailed explanations about your house’s plumbing problems are good.
9. Have a contest.
Giving away money so that you will be popular always works. You can also give away your belongings, thus saving you the hassle of a yard sale. This also gives you the opportunity to buy iPods for people you don’t know. Doesn’t it feel good to do nice things for others?
If these tips fail, you can always move to Chad and be popular there.
Did I forget anything?
You are a riot. Just got here and read 3 posts. You made me chuckle. And whats your deal with the country Chad? haha
Great ideas.. I need all of the help I can get.
Great tips Michelle! Seems as though you are getting along great in the blogosphere!
I am doing number TWO now… Commenting!
(ps….nice site, and good advice here…thanks)
Having a KICK ASS blogroll is good too…
Good Advice, I’m starting with number 2 and working on the rest.
Bubs
Haha! I just finished a post about monetizing. I won’t post it until tomorrow afternoon though. I should be done outsourcing my commenting to India by then.
you could have broken these up into 9 posts. hehehe… great tips gf!
Hey Michelle-
Best looking blog I’ve seen in a while — and your advice is fantastic. We’re one month into a new movie commentary/community site, and we’ll be using these tips big time.
May I add a few more tips (even if they’re not working for us just yet…):
1) Know what you’re talking about. If you’re unsure of the facts, don’t guess and post.
2) Learn as much about search engine optimization as possible. Get those keywords into tags and fill your posts with meaty, come-and-get-it content.
3) Invite experts to provide content to your blog / site. Interviews are fun and add an extra voice aside from your own and your members.
I’m looking forward to joining your community. Thanks again.
-Norm Schrager
meetinthelobby.com
Goo advice mostly. I will disagree with #6 Monetize Your Site. Readers don’t hate open space, anything but. Readers hate clutter, especially if it’s affiliate clutter. Most people are here because it serves their interests somehow. And sometimes affiliate ads are ok but to me they look like total spam. Theres nothing worse than clicking a link because you want more information and you are redirect because it was an ad. Thanks for taking criticism and otherwise you have an excellent blog.
@ people 1-6 Thanks all for your comments! I feel appreciated.
@ms danielle: I considered it, but I need to think of a really good angle before I try that. I has sooo been done.
@Norm: Those are really good tips. The second one is driving me nuts. Also, can you recommend an expert in being a smartass?
@William: I was kidding.
Ohgawd, I hope this comment is meaningful and relevant…
Just wanted to tell you it brings me great joy to see that sarcasm is alive and well in America. No sarcasm there. Truly.
- Design an amazing looking website and then people will lap your shit up even if all you talk about is ‘xml parsing’
)
- Join something like 9rules
- Don’t be an Indian (who do I outsource to?
- Blog carnivals
- Search Engine Optimisation
- Be a Digg/Reddit whore
- Shiny widgets/rss-things that update your del.icio.us/last.fm/other blog posts/etc links
PS: Write a lot of good ‘5/9/10 tips’ posts
[:D]
@ Tarun (13): You’re quite right about that one.
I’ve been taking a lot of these under consideration, especially trying to be more involved in the community sites and posting comments on other blogs. I have a life away from blogging though (crazy, huh!?), so it’s kind of hard to go nuts and attack every one. I’m starting small and trying to work my way up I guess.
I can’t seem to get into the habit of submitting stuff to digg. Meh.
Great tips! I definitely will do the Squidoo thing, it looks mad kewls.
This is a really good list. I’m going to bookmark it for future reference.
oh wow! you got great things written here… These are really essential.. Thanks..
Hey! Great tips, I din know what squido was until I read ur post. Thanks A lot!
Hey! Great tips, I din know what squidoo was until I read ur post. Thanks A lot!
[...] I happened upon a blogger, who is also in this Lone Star State so famous for cowboys and redneck jokes. Bloggrrl.com is a sassy blog full of wisdom to share and complete with an alter ego as well who writes about blogging and gives you helpful tips to make it; like these “9 Absolute Essentials for a Popular Blog”. [...]
hey you are being to hard on us Indians, we can’t help it if you Americans are lazy & pay us to do easy work… (some of the ppl calling in to call centers are so stupid as well that they would score below 55 or something in an IQ test!!)