Now that the newsletter's finished, I took some time this week to do some research about online marketing. I want to find out how I can get my blog out there, build a readership and an online brand. These things are probably a cinch for all of the web savvy writers out in cyberspace, but they had me bouncing from one website to another, in search of simple, concrete instructions. The problem is, every article I find on marketing assumes I know what I'm doing! They contain techie terms that I don't know. A pattern forms: I open a new window to find the definition of the techie word...and the definition inevitably contains more lingo. At one point I had three internet windows open, with three working tabs each. Ah!
Anyways, I was able to find some pretty basic strategies to start off with:
1) Add a counter. I found mine for free at amazingcounters.com I found simple directions for how to add the counter (!) at: http://www.ehow.com/how_2019245_hit-counter-blogger.html?ref=fuel Now I can keep track of how many new hits I get each week. I wanted to do this first so that I can see how my hits increase as I make improvements to the blog and expand my marketing.
2) Add a sitemap to Google. As I understand it, if you upload a sitemap - the equivalent of a table of contents for your website - to Google, Google's electronic spiders are more likely to find what you've written and spit out your website when somebody searches the topic. Supposedly, blogger automatically sends a sitemap to Google because it's a part of the company. BUUUT, I've read in some places that it doesn't happen automatically. And - when I typed my blogspot address into Google's search box, Google couldn't find it. I'll check back tomorrow and see if adding my sitemap helped. I found clear, easy directions on how to add a Blogger sitemap to google at http://theos.in/hakuna-matata/adding-google-sitemap-to-bloggercom-blog-account/
3) Add bookmark and subscribe buttons so that it's easy for readers to get new posts as they're published. I found mine at http://www.addthis.com/ , but am still working on its layout on the blog. There's also a way to edit html and add the button beneath every post, but I haven't been daring enough to try it. Yet.
There are several more tips, some which I agree with and others that sound iffy at:
http://www.elance.com/p/node/2298?rid=1A8K6 Hopefully that counter will start climbing!
Anyways, I was able to find some pretty basic strategies to start off with:
1) Add a counter. I found mine for free at amazingcounters.com I found simple directions for how to add the counter (!) at: http://www.ehow.com/how_2019245_hit-counter-blogger.html?ref=fuel Now I can keep track of how many new hits I get each week. I wanted to do this first so that I can see how my hits increase as I make improvements to the blog and expand my marketing.
2) Add a sitemap to Google. As I understand it, if you upload a sitemap - the equivalent of a table of contents for your website - to Google, Google's electronic spiders are more likely to find what you've written and spit out your website when somebody searches the topic. Supposedly, blogger automatically sends a sitemap to Google because it's a part of the company. BUUUT, I've read in some places that it doesn't happen automatically. And - when I typed my blogspot address into Google's search box, Google couldn't find it. I'll check back tomorrow and see if adding my sitemap helped. I found clear, easy directions on how to add a Blogger sitemap to google at http://theos.in/hakuna-matata/adding-google-sitemap-to-bloggercom-blog-account/
3) Add bookmark and subscribe buttons so that it's easy for readers to get new posts as they're published. I found mine at http://www.addthis.com/ , but am still working on its layout on the blog. There's also a way to edit html and add the button beneath every post, but I haven't been daring enough to try it. Yet.
There are several more tips, some which I agree with and others that sound iffy at:
http://www.elance.com/p/node/2298?rid=1A8K6 Hopefully that counter will start climbing!
No comments:
Post a Comment