Instigator Blog

You’ve launched your new blog…now what?

You want to share your ideas with the world. You want to make a name for yourself. You want to stand out. You want to have some fun too, learn a bit and leverage blogging in other aspects of your life (both personal and business.) All true? Then get ready…

Here’s a list of 10 things to do after you launch your blog:

1. Write 10 Posts. Before you really start promoting your blog, write at least 10 posts. You should have launched with at least 3-5, so you’ve only got a handful more to go. By writing 10 or more posts at the beginning, you’ve created a rich enough content experience to keep someone interested. Plus, you’ve given Google a chance to find you, and some blog directories won’t add you without that amount of content. It will feel like you’re blogging into a vacuum, but don’t worry about it. Get 10 quality posts out the door, then keep going through this list.
2. Link Smartly. In the early stages of your blog you should be linking to people to grab their attention. Target people you want to connect with. Find blogs in your field of interest and link to them heavily. Don’t worry about getting links from the uber-popular blogs or A-listers - there are a million bloggers out there that will be happy to check out your stuff and link back. You need that foundation of reciprocal links to grow your blog’s popularity.
3. Add Your Blog To Site/RSS/Blog Directories. There’s a huge (and constantly updated) list at RSSTop55 Best Blog Directory and RSS Submission Sites but that list is completely overwhelming. A much smaller list can be found in this blog post The 23 Most Critical URLs Where You Should Submit Your Blog or Feed. I would also suggest Blog Catalog.

   You don’t need to go crazy adding your site to a million places - but it can’t hurt. Do 10 a day, every couple of days, for a few weeks as the blog develops. More important, make sure you’ve got a sitemap and it’s submitted to Google Webmasters, since Google rules the day and having your content easily found via search is critical.

4. Get Out And Comment. You might have already been commenting on other blogs, but more than likely you stayed in lurker mode, without a blog of your own to point people to. That’s now changed. Increase the amount you comment - leave intelligent, meaningful comments on blogs you’ve targeted for attention - and you’ll start to create a powerful spiderweb of contacts.
5. Setup TheGoodBlogs Widget. This is a great widget for your sidebar. It’s a dynamic blogroll of related content from other blogs. In the early stages of your blog it’s a great way of finding worthwhile, relevant content. You want to find that stuff so you can check it out and interact with other bloggers. Visit TheGoodBlogs for more details.
6. Setup MyBlogLog Widget. MyBlogLog is a popular blog community where you can promote your blog through a network of contacts. It’s easy to setup and has a few worthwhile features. First, it shows you which other MyBlogLog members are visiting your site (which is fun + interesting.) It also has some basic stats (such as visits / popular clicks on your site) and will help drive traffic. MyBlogLog is a useful way of connecting with people online, so it’s worth doing when you launch your blog.
7. Change Your Email Signature. Make sure your email signature includes your blog address. If you’re using FeedBurner you can use their Headline Animator to produce a cool little graphic at the end of your emails. It looks like this:

   

8. Learn About Social Bookmarking Sites. Early on, the most effective social bookmarking/news sites will be StumbleUpon. It’s less important to write great linkbait for StumbleUpon users, and although you may not get thousands upon thousands of visitors instantly, with a bit of work you could see a few hundred per day quite quickly. Tamar Weinberg has some worthwhile instructions on StumbleUpon - How to Use StumbleUpon for Your Business: The Definitive Guide.

   Digg is the king of social bookmarking sites. Make it to the front page of Digg and you’re looking at 10-60,000 unique visitors. But getting there isn’t so easy. And until you’re really comfortable writing (and writing great linkbait) it’s not worth the effort.

9. Get People To Comment On Your Blog. A blog looks so much more alive when people are commenting on it. This is a big reason why you see “Most Recent Comments” promoted so heavily at the top of sidebars - people like to see other people commenting. There are some ways to write blog posts to get more comments, but you’ll also want to encourage your friends and contacts to participate. Get your buddies out of lurker status quickly and others will follow.
10. Learn How To Improve Your Blogging. Being a blogger means you’re always learning and improving. There’s no end to the road, it just keeps on winding along. There’s no shortage of high quality blogs out there about blogging. You’ll want to check these religiously. You’ll probably print quite a few posts out and pin them up near your desk.
    • copyblogger
    • ProBlogger
    • Successful Blog
    • Daily Blog Tips
    • Andy Beard

    Part of learning is experimenting. Don’t be afraid to try new things quickly. Mix up your style of posts, test out new headlines, write lists, move things around in the sidebar. The beauty of blogging is that you can make so many changes - and if something doesn’t work, change it back.

It doesn’t matter where your blog starts. It will be a bumpy few months as you get a handle on what you’re doing, experiment, and connect with your growing community. Everyone looks back at their start in blogging and chuckles at all the blog mistakes they made.

Don’t stress out about stats. It’s not worth it, and although it’ll be tempting to obsess over them at the beginning, it can also be demoralizing to see less visitors than you expected. Traffic will always go up and down, you’ll see big spikes and maybe even big drops. Since there’s no end to the blogging game, the fluctuations at any given time in your traffic numbers aren’t important - it’s the trend that matters. And since you just started there’s no real trend. So don’t worry about it.

Have fun and be prepared for a significant emotional and time investment. Blogging is easy. Blogging successfully is another story. It takes a time investment to blog successfully. As your blog gains popularity, your brand develops and you find your voice, you’ll think nothing of the time you’re investing, it will make complete sense and be totally worthwhile. You’ll have fallen into the Blogger Mindset. But initially it may seem frustrating and odd to devote so much time. Get ready to open your mind and jump in.

Setting up a blog is a combination of 20,000 foot vision and nitty gritty details.

You can’t have a successful blog without thinking about high level questions — What’s its purpose? Who do I want to connect with? Why am I blogging?

At the same time you can’t be successful without getting into the details. The details - once taken care of - help a blog run smoothly.

Here’s a checklist of 10 questions you should ask before launching your blog:

1. Does the blog look OK in different browsers? It’s a common mistake for people to only test in the browser they use. But you need to test your blog with multiple browsers. Some services like browsershots will help with the process.
2. Does the feed work? Whether you’re using FeedBurner or not (although I highly recommend it) you should test the feed. Subscribe to it with your own RSS Reader and make sure it’s coming in properly. It’s also a good idea to make the subscription options highly visible. Don’t bury your RSS feed link at the bottom of the blog or in a far-right sidebar. Get it front and center.
3. Did you setup stat tracking and a sitemap? Everyone wants to track stats on their blog, so make sure you’ve got stat tracking setup properly. There are lots of options - Awstats, Google Analytics, 103bees, etc. A sitemap is equally important. It helps search engines crawl your pages faster, which is good for search engine optimization and ranking. And don’t forget: Submit your blog to Google Webmasters.
4. Did you update the About page and test the Contact page? Too many bloggers forget about the About page and leave it as the default (or don’t include it at all!) In WordPress, the default About page tells you it’s an About page; which really doesn’t help you. Make sure you update it and spend some serious time thinking about what you’ll write. The same holds true for the Contact page - Do you have one? If it’s a form, does it work?
5. Did you test all the links? Before launching your blog click on every link and make sure they work. This is particularly important for links to pages (i.e. About, Contact, etc.) as well as links between posts and to outside sites. You want to make sure links to outside sites are working - those other bloggers will see the trackbacks and visit (or they should.)
6. Did you claim the blog in Technorati? Your blog needs to be live before claiming it, but it doesn’t have to be “launched” - where you’re actively promoting it, telling people, building links, etc. Before launching the blog, make sure you pop over to Technorati and claim it. The process is simple and quick, and it’ll help people find your blog. It’ll also help you track incoming links.
7. Did you write a few posts? You can’t launch without content. I’d aim for 3-5 posts before you really put yourself out there and launch your blog. The more content you have upfront the easier it is for people to get a feel for what you’re doing. Plus you’ll get more comfortable in your blogging shoes. It takes awhile to get into the Blogger Mindset.
8. Do you have a few more posts ready to go? It’ll be a huge shame if you launch your blog only to write sporadically or not-at-all for the next little while. You want to be as productive and effective as possible right out of the gate — so have a handful of blog posts ready to go. Even if they’re not completely written, it’d be good to have the ideas and basic outlines in place.
9. Did you make a list of people to contact? You can’t launch your blog into a vacuum. Yes, people will find it, but you should give it a nice kick into gear right away. Put together a list of contacts that might be interested in your blog. When you launch, ping ‘em all and let them know that your blog is ready for action. Encourage them to comment, send feedback, link over and spread the word.
10. Do you know how you’re going to promote the blog? There are lots of ways to promote a new blog, including blog directories, various widgets, strategic linking, etc. You may not have all the answers right off the bat, but a big part of blogging is marketing - you need to market your blog. Do some research, make a list of blog promotion steps to take, and get going once you’re launched.

These 10 questions are applicable irrespective of the blog software you’re using. Lots of things in blogging at platform-agnostic; it doesn’t matter whether you’re using WordPress, Typepad, Blogger or something else. Good writing is good writing no matter what. Killer headlines are killer headlines no matter what.

Covering all the details and making sure your blog is prepped will help your blog be successful.

A quick reminder — tomorrow is our 2nd Montreal Tech Entrepreneurs Breakfast.

Entrepreneurs in tech-related fields of interest are welcome. That’s a fairly broad category, and I want to encourage as many people as possible to come.

You can track the event at Upcoming’s event listing where so far 22 people are signed up to attend.

The breakfast is an informal gathering - no pressure - no requirements - just a great place to meet some other entrepreneurs, connect, build some solid relationships.

We start early - around 8am - at:

Cafeteria (google map)
3581 St. Laurent Blvd.

If you’re in Montreal and involved in technology and consider yourself an entrepreneur, come on by…

See you tomorrow!

The Canadian Marketing Association is holding a 1-day conference in Toronto on Word of Mouth Marketing called From Mass to Grass. The name still cracks me up, I can’t help it…

The conference is on April 12th. They’ve got a great cast of speakers lined up including Jackie Huba from Church of the Customer and Kyle MacDonald of one red paperclip fame.

Sean Moffitt (one of the organizers) introduced me to the conference. Sean is a word-of-mouth guru himself — check out Agent Wildfire and his blog Buzz Canuck.

It should be a great day - tons of great sessions and lots to do and learn. My only disappointment is the cost. They’ve got an early bird special going on right now for $595 (which ends March 12th.) Otherwise it’ll be $695. That seems just a bit too steep for a 1-day event, no matter who is involved. But that part of it is out of my hands - I’m certain the event will be a blast.

In the 3rd installment of Your Passion Podcast I’m talking about connecting with others.

It wasn’t always my strong point, but after a year or so of blogging and realizing that I needed to put myself out there, I’ve embraced the ease and power of connecting online and started translating that to offline connecting as well.

Connecting is key. Sounds simple, and in many ways, it is - particularly online. There are plenty of tools (chat, Twitter, Skype, blogging, etc.) and as long as you’re willing to invest the time and a bit of yourself (to demonstrate who you are, what you care about, and why others should care) it will be returned in kind.

I hope you enjoy Your Passion Podcast — and please send in your own recordings!

In 2-3 minutes tell me what you’re passionate about and why - and I’ll put you up at Instigator Blog.