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After more than 2 years of blogging, I can say that I am still far from being an expert. However, I think I can already share some of my knowledge and experience on how to promote a blog especially for beginners. This is also with the help of the blogs I read as well as from the Darren Rowse’ Problogger Book which I won from a contest.

But I must remind you that promoting a blog effectively does not necessary mean that you will make good money, not unless you treat your blog as a business. Nevertheless, most high traffic blogs are making good money from advertisers and Google Adsense.

Since this topic is very wide, I decided to make it a 3-part post and here is Part One. This post might be long for you but I will try to explain each item as simple as possible.


First of all, I will assume that you already have a chosen topic or niche for your blog. But in case you haven’t, I strongly suggest that you choose the one that’s closest to your heart. I emphasized this on my previous post as one of the Important Things to Know Before starting a Blog.

If you choose a popular topic that you don’t really like, you will be finding it hard to win readers no matter how hard you promote it. You should therefore choose a topic that you can dominate whether the competition is high or not. A blog about your daily life is fine, but don’t expect to have tons of readers unless you have a superstar effect for that matter.

Now, here are some ways how to promote a blog especially for beginners. Hope you find them useful.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization or SEO looks scary to beginners because they think it’s complicated. Actually, it really is but understanding its principle will help you make it look simple. For example, if someone search the phrase how to promote a blog at Google, the first blog that will appear means that it is well optimized for that phrase or keywords. This can be achieved through keyword optimization and link building. Keyword optimization is an art of choosing the right keywords for your post so that search engines can easily find it. But of course, these keywords should not be overused. The title of your post is very important as well. However, using special characters in the post title like exclamation point, period, and dash is not advisable. For link building, some strategies will be explained in the latter part of this post. For more effective SEO tips, I highly recommend Aaron Wall’s SEO Book.com since it is mostly being visited by webmasters and bloggers.

Forum Signature

Being a forum member is usually free, and allows you to have a signature wherein a link to your blog will appear for every post. There are forums that also allows your recent blog post. You can also include a link to your blog post if you think it’s necessary, and it is a good way of link building. You can also ask a question or share some tips, but it’s better if you search first to avoid being suspected as a spammer. For webmasters and bloggers, DigitalPoint and Sitepoint are among the best. However, there are other forums that are exclusively designed for a particular niche and I am sure you can find one. Nevertheless, the key here is to be useful to the community and never be engaged in word war. I used to be active in different forums but I am now focus on myLot since there are a lot of different categories, and I somehow make money from posting.

Leaving comments on blogs

Most beginners are using this, since it is also a way to meet fellow bloggers and to have new friends. There are blogs that also show your recent blog post which is very useful to promote your blog. Just like in forums, you can also include a link to your blog post if you think it’s necessary. However, you must ask permission from the blogger and be kind to fellow commentators. Of course, it is better if you leave comments on blogs that has the same niche as yours. But more importantly, never leave a comment just to promote your blog, or else your comment might be disapproved. Instead, be useful as you can so that readers will be attracted to visit your blog.

Guest blogging

This will be a very big help to beginners especially if the blog that you will provide a guest post has already established a good reputation, and has a lot of followers. The key here is to be able to convince the blogger to allow you as his guest blogger, and one way to do it is to be among his loyal followers. Make sure that your guest post is original, well-written and related to his blog topic; as well as yours. Then be polite when you ask him, and make sure you are available when he replies. Always remember that you are only a guest, so don’t try to steal his followers. But then, monitor its status and reply to comments to your guest post.

Submit articles to article directories

Although there are a lot of article directories to choose from, Ezine Articles is still the best for me and probably will always be. The technique here is almost the same as guest blogging but the article should be a bit more formal, but avoid it to look like a sales pitch. The usual visitors of article directories are coming from search engines so you must also optimize your keywords. It will also help if you use your best post or the one related to your article as the link in your signature, instead of your homepage. By doing this, your readers will not find it hard to get what they want. Incidentally, I met an Indonesian blogger who has an article directory named Article Highlight. If your article caught his attention and find it very interesting, he may post in on his Article Specialist Blog Network which is another good way to promote your blog.

Unfortunately, I have to end here. I just hope beginners now have few ideas on how to promote their blogs. Meanwhile, I am inviting you to watch out for Part Two and Three of this post since I will also be including some blogs that you can visit and use as reference.

Related posts:
How to Promote a Blog for Beginners: Part Two
How to convince Blog Owners that you are a Good Guest Blogger
What Makes a Blogger Quit
How to use Kaizen to improve your Blog
What it takes to be a Ratatouille Blogger
How to Choose the Top Bloggers you must Socialize with
What Bloggers can learn from the 2008 US Presidential Election

By the way, I am inviting you to download the Free Ebook: The Ultimate Super Tip. It is not just an ordinary ebook that will teach you how to make money from your blog, as you can actually make money from it if you will only discover the magic. But before doing so, you may want to read my review about it – The Ultimate Super Tip: A Free E-book Review.

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