I was surprised to find 84.2 million results for this topic. Nowadays, blog popularity is increasing at a dramatic rate.

Technorati claims it is currently tracking 97.3 million blogs.

So enough stats. Let’s talk about some ways to promote that blog of yours:

1 - Claim your blog at Technorati.

If you already have an account at Technorati, go into your account and claim your blog by clicking begin claim. Be sure to add in some relevant tags that describe the type of blogging that you do. Try to fave blogs that you like, and be sure to fave my blog while you’re there!

2 - Submit articles to some blog carnivals for extra exposure.

Know that your musings are good, but you just don’t have any kind of readership? Try a blog carnival. Some are more popular than others, so be sure to check out a few different ones on the topic you blog about. New blog carnivals are popping up all the time, and you can even create your own.

3 - Consider submitting your blog posts to article directories.

Places like Ezine make it possible for you to become an “expert author” and let you post articles of your choosing to their sites. I’ve heard mixed results on this particular strategy, but some people do quite well here. Any way you look at it - Ezine is a good way to get your name out there.

4 - Join blogging communities.

If you’ve been to my site before, you’ve probably noticed the avatars of other users on the sidebar from mybloglog. Be sure to register for this service too, also tagging relevant to your blog’s content.

5 - Once you’re in a community, actually DO SOMETHING.
time and time again, I see people join a service, spend 10 minutes on it, and never use it again, griping on how bad it was. Blogging, like many things in life will only be as good as what you put into it.

6 - Tell everyone you know about your site.
I’m not advocating spam here. What I am saying is to make your blog known to friends and family.

7 - Learn how to write for the web.
You may be a best selling author, and that doesn’t mean that you know how people read on the web. The world renowned usability expert Jakob Nielsen has much to say on this topic in terms of how you write for a blog, especially in his articles about how to write blog posts and the reading pattern of users on the web (referred to as the F pattern).

By no means is this a complete list - Seth Godin had a list of topics on his blog as well.

Any other suggestions? Please list some more out in the comments!

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed, or follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!

I think not. Much of this rumor mill was started on TechCrunch, and has grown to a debate all over the place on Digg, Sphinn, and even back to Netscape. While I’m usually a big fan of what TechCrunch has to say, this time, I have quite a few problems with the article.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been asked before how you know when your blog is successful. That question means different things to different people.

Here are my thoughts on how you can measure the success of your blog:

Others appreciate your posts. For me, the fact that someone found my blog and asked to think that means that my blog is successful.

Ability to share expertise in life / business experiences. Writing about something that you believe in and sticking with it may be enough for some. But to give that knowledge over to someone else is another level of success.

It makes you money. Making money online is a great thing, and making money writing about what you love in a blog can be incredibly satisfying. Unfortunately, the majority of blogs don’t make much money.

Pronet does a good job detailing out a study by the University of Texas and Chikita in showing that the top 50,000 blogs generate $500 million (according to 2006 data).

Popularity. Blogging doesn’t usually make you a celebrity, but it has before in certain cases. The Queen of Sky, Ellen Simonetti was thrown into the spotlight after her blog got her fired from Delta Airlines.

Stats. You could also measure popularity using several different metrics:

• How many hits you have. This number can come from the stats that are part of the blogging platform you are using, or a third party such as Sitemeter.
• Your blog authority rank in Technorati:
  View blog authority
• Number of subscribers you have on your Feedburner feed:
• Your Alexa ranking (note: widget won’t show if your rank is not among the top 100,000):

So you’ve started blogging and have several posts out there. It is good to have a mix in your content, but unless you have a specific topic in mind, it is likely that you won’t be able to hold your audience’s interest.

If you have any hope on running a successful blog (we’ll define what success on a blog is later), you must keep posting. The most important thing to keep in mind is to not get discouraged. If you see that you haven’t posted for a while and your stats are going down, don’t obsess about stats - it’s time to post!

Aliza Sherman Risdahl, author of The Everything Blogging Book makes several good points on the topic, including:

“Allotting an hour a day to your blog is helpful, but even if you can only spare thirty minutes, you can still make it work.“

---

I assure you. Everyone gets writer’s block. It happens to all writers at some point, so why not you?Here are a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing:

Stumbleupon. Go through some stumbles. Feel free to check out some of mine as well.
Keep up on the news regarding your topic. Google news and many other news sites will help you out here.
Read some popular blogs. Have a tech blog? Take a look at what Scoble and Techcrunch are talking about.

Read company blogs. Companies like to tell their users the latest and greatest on their product blogs. Alexa for instance, the company many use to search their traffic rankings, keeps users up to date on status, program updates and issues on their blog.

Check out social news. The Social news out there have changed the way news is disseminated. Sites like Netscape, Digg and Reddit allow an individual to publish news that is accessible to the world - so much so that there are times that traditional news sources actually use the individuals as sources to their own stories!

Ask me! While I’m certainly not an expert in any old thing you might be blogging about, I can usually speak intelligently on different topics (read: I’m not just a tech guy). Feel free to comment on this post to discuss ideas!

Looks like I’ve been tagged! While I’m not usually a big fan of these lists, this one appealed to me in particular as I’m in the middle of writing up a series of blogging tips.

—-Start Copy—-

It’s very simple. When this is passed on to you, copy the whole thing, skim the list and put a * star beside those that you like.

(Check out especially the * starred ones.) Add the next number (1. 2. 3. 4. 5., etc.) and write your own blogging tip for other

bloggers. Try to make your tip general. After that, tag up to 10 friends!

Here are the tips!

1. Look, read, and learn.
http://www.neonscent.com****

2. Be EXCELLENT to each other.
http://www.bushmackel.com*****

3. Don’t let money change ya!
http://www.therandomforest.info****

4. Always reply to your comments
http://chattiekat.com*****

5. Blog about what you know & love.
http://sugar-queens-dream.blogspot.com****

6. Don’t use filthy language-buy a dictionary.
http://shinade.blogspot.com**

7. Whenever possible, spread some positive thoughts and love. The world needs more of them.
http://ailema4ever.blogspot.com****

8. Write down from your heart or head. Either way asks yourself why you ever get started.
http://chocmintgirl.blogspot.com**

9. Try to make your template something unique and easy to look. Your template gives the blogger identity as much as the post content.
http://psychosomaticwit.blogspot.com*

10. Join some of the social network sites like MyBloglog and BlogCatalog.
http://manta57.blogspot.com *

11. Write for a reason and write often.
http://walksfarwoman.wordpress.com*

12. Listen to your regulars. People that love your site can really spread the word, so be sure to answer their comment and maybe even make some posts about their thoughts (with your own touch, but not selling out)*
http://www.nowsourcing.com/blog

—-End Copy—

I hope the following bloggers will take part but if you’d like to add traffic to your blog and increase your Technorati rating please copy this meme and start your own journey with it.

David Seah

LOTR Fanatic

Noheat.com

Veronica’s Lore

Yosef Dov

….to be added to.