I started this blog in February this year, but have just recently gotten into really trying to get the word out about in the past couple of weeks. I’ve updated and customized my template, added
widgets, submitted my blog to numerous blog directories and all the major (and many not-so major) search engines and joined various social bookmarking sites, all with the end result of getting my blog some attention and getting my page(s) ranked.
With all of this in mind, I want to point you in the direction of some great resources I’ve found on my way, so that you too can take your blogging to new and higher levels.
My two favorite sites for customizing my template have been Blogger Buster and Tips for New Bloggers. Both sites offer blogger templates and comprehensive, extensive instructions for customizing your blog. Using these sites, I have added site navigation, customized authoring on my individual posts, rearranged the way some elements show up on my main page, extensively editted my footer to include links to AddThis! and other popular social bookmarking sites.
I love Amanda’s (author of Blogger Buster) personable approach in her tutorials and the templates she designs are amazing. Conversely, Bizwhizz (author of Tips for New Bloggers) offers a no-nonsense approach to submitting blogs to blog directories and search engines.
Blogger Buster offers numerous hacks and tweaks to customize your blog to your taste. I am aware that Bizwhizz offers a lot of the same tutorials on his site, but I found Amanda’s tutorials so user-friendly and comprehensive that I used hers. She also designs templates for free download use by anyone as long as credit remains hers (please see the bottom of my front page). I am of the opinion that a unique blog design is key to keep your readers coming back.
Now there are literally dozens of blog directories to which you can submit your blog to reach a broader audience. However, having submitted mine to a plethora of them myself, I want to recommend some that are actually providing me with extra readers, allows me to track and/or receive ratings.
- Blogged is the first blog directory I found. They provide ratings by peers (and by the editors on request) and require sign up.
- Bloglines has sent several readers my way. It is also a feed aggregator. If you don’t have one, this might be the one for you. It requires sign up.
- BlogCatalog has a ranking system and shows page views and hits. It also allows you to add your nomination from Blogger’s Choice Awards (see below). It requires sign up.
- Feedage is slightly different, because it is an RSS directory as opposed to a blog directory. Like many other directories, this site offers stats of your feed. Unlike many other sites, Feedage offers a grade for your site by the Feedage Inspector. Sign up is required.
- Technorati is perhaps the most well-known blog search engine. It has a lot of uses besides a blog directory: there are a number of widgets available for displaying on your blog, there is a blog community, they offer blog ping and there is an area for developers, as well. Sign up is required.
There are a lot more sites you can submit your blog to without sign up. Fill out a form and they will list your blog. It’s simple and could get your blog more readers! Bizwhizz’s list of blog directories is pretty comprehensive and includes a lot of great suggestions. Please note that most blog directories require you to link back to their sites in exchange for continuous listing of your site at theirs. It’s only fair and it brings you both more exposure.
Both aforementioned sites also have directions for submitting your blog to search engines and both offer tweaks so that you get the best possible results from submitting your blog. You can avoid a lot of work by submitting your blog URL and blog name into search engines to see if they are already there.
And if you haven’t yet, I strongly recommend you sign up for Feedburner, Feedcat or Feedblitz. These sites allow you to syndicate your feed so that they are easily subscribed to by your readers. Of the three, I personally prefer Feedburner. It’s a much friendlier user interface and has the fewest amount of glitches. Feedcat has glitched several times for me (it keeps renaming my blog) and Feedblitz is not as user-friendly. They all will allow you to create widgets that enable your readers to enter their email address in a box form on your blog and they all have tracking that allows you to see how many page views, clickthroughs and subscribers you have in present time.
Feedburner also has several other publicize tools that help you spread the word about your blog and there are a lot of resources out there for Feedburner in the event that you encounter a problem. I would know, as I encountered some coding problems and found a solution in Google’s Help Group for Feedburner. Google recently acquired Feedburner, so they provide a help page for it, too (the solution I needed was to edit in IE instead of Firefox; don’t know why it worked, but it did!).
Lastly, a great way to increase your blog’s exposure is by reading and commenting on other blogs! Blog directories are a great way to find blogs with content that you find interesting, educational or entertaining. Since you are submitting your blog to some of these directories anyway, take a look around! However, blog reading can be time consuming, so I recommend you get yourself a feed reader. I have been using Google Reader quite happily for a few weeks now, but recently discovered Friend Feed, which allows users to customize and share feeds for a number of services (41 in all!) including Flickr and Library Thing. If you decide to join Friend Feed, please add me!
For bloggers, there is a service I just discovered (thanks to Tampa Pirate) that may drive some new traffic to your blog. rssHugger is essentially a blog directory wherein all feeds have a fair shot at being in the Top 100 since the feeds are all reset at the beginning of each month. Check it out!
