I'm sitting in my office the night before a wedding--working when I probably shouldn't be. It's raining out and has been all day. Most of you probably don't know how great the rain is to Arizonans but we LOVE it. So cozy.
Anyhow, I haven't done a f.a.q. (frequently asked question) post recently so I thought I'd tackle Michael's question on how to get your blog out there. Michael attended my presentation on blogging at PartnerCon in September where I gave a ton of info on why, how and what to blog but didn't talk a whole lot on how to get people reading it. Well, in a way I did. I gave some tips on how to keep people coming back but maybe not on how to get them to find you in the first place. Hmm...this is a tough one.
My experience with my blog has been slow growth. I started over a year and a half ago and I think my mom was my sole reader for awhile :). Thanks mom! Today I have around 500 people a day stop by which absolutely blows my mind! Do you people not have anything better to do with your time? JUST KIDDING -- please keep coming :). There may be some formal strategies out there for publicizing your blog--but I'm not familiar with them. Feel free to post a comment if you know of any. My encouragement to all you start-up bloggers out there is basically "blog it and they will come." The internet is a crazy thing that makes the world amazingly small.
A few more practical things you can do:
-Comment on other people's blogs and make sure to fill in the info when it asks for your web address. I often get curious about my commentors and check them out. I've developed some cool online, long-distance relationships this way.
-Link to other people's blogs when you find something cool or enjoy them. Oftentimes you'll find that others will do the same for you!
-Collect email addresses from guests at the wedding who want to view all the photos online. Send them an email after the wedding with a link to your blog post and slideshow.
-Send out newsletters on a consistent basis to your friends, clients, and other photographers. In your newsletter, highlight what's been going on and link back to your blog.
That's about all I can think of. For me, it's been more important to focus on doing a good job of blogging--being consistent, sharing my personality, and making it interesting--in order to keep first-time readers coming back. I think that's the real challenge of blogging. Anyone have any other thoughts to add?
Oh--and Michael also asked a good question about making his images larger on blogger. My friend, Liene, has a great post on how to do this. You can read it by clicking here. See--now all the 500 people a day who come to my blog will go visit hers and hopefully stay for awhile. It's just that easy :).
Anyhow, I haven't done a f.a.q. (frequently asked question) post recently so I thought I'd tackle Michael's question on how to get your blog out there. Michael attended my presentation on blogging at PartnerCon in September where I gave a ton of info on why, how and what to blog but didn't talk a whole lot on how to get people reading it. Well, in a way I did. I gave some tips on how to keep people coming back but maybe not on how to get them to find you in the first place. Hmm...this is a tough one.
My experience with my blog has been slow growth. I started over a year and a half ago and I think my mom was my sole reader for awhile :). Thanks mom! Today I have around 500 people a day stop by which absolutely blows my mind! Do you people not have anything better to do with your time? JUST KIDDING -- please keep coming :). There may be some formal strategies out there for publicizing your blog--but I'm not familiar with them. Feel free to post a comment if you know of any. My encouragement to all you start-up bloggers out there is basically "blog it and they will come." The internet is a crazy thing that makes the world amazingly small.
A few more practical things you can do:
-Comment on other people's blogs and make sure to fill in the info when it asks for your web address. I often get curious about my commentors and check them out. I've developed some cool online, long-distance relationships this way.
-Link to other people's blogs when you find something cool or enjoy them. Oftentimes you'll find that others will do the same for you!
-Collect email addresses from guests at the wedding who want to view all the photos online. Send them an email after the wedding with a link to your blog post and slideshow.
-Send out newsletters on a consistent basis to your friends, clients, and other photographers. In your newsletter, highlight what's been going on and link back to your blog.
That's about all I can think of. For me, it's been more important to focus on doing a good job of blogging--being consistent, sharing my personality, and making it interesting--in order to keep first-time readers coming back. I think that's the real challenge of blogging. Anyone have any other thoughts to add?
Oh--and Michael also asked a good question about making his images larger on blogger. My friend, Liene, has a great post on how to do this. You can read it by clicking here. See--now all the 500 people a day who come to my blog will go visit hers and hopefully stay for awhile. It's just that easy :).
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