Ways to get people to read your blog

[nykfan4life]

I just started a blog, and wondered how you guys promoted yours. Do you just tell your friends or put links everywhere you can(not a good idea), or what? I'm not promoting it here, i just wanted help on how to promote it in general.


My blog is very political, and i would want other kids my age(i'm 14) to start talking about it, even if the mainstream media have told them that my views are wrong and that the war in iraq is a 'failure'

[bornfishy]

I hate that this forum automatically signs me out for three or so minutes!

I typed a very long reply, going into quite a bit of detail. I'll retype as much as I can remember.

I know you're 14, and may not have access to online payment facilities - credit card, debit card, etc. - but think about a domain name redirect. Basically, you'll still use blogspot for hosting, and for uploading new content, all that jazz. However, the user will type in a much more snazzy and, importantly, memorable domain name; yournamehere.com, etc.

Utilise backlinks. Almost every major search engine ranks its search results in order of the number of other sites linking to yours. Exchange links with other sites in exchange for you linking to theirs. Don't use a link exchange program - most of them fail nowadays, as search engines use those number and letter keys that are unreadable by a computer program. You have to do the hard work yourself there, unfortunately.

It might seem obvious, but ensure you have enough content! Generate regular, interesting content, and try and keep to a rough schedule. You want enough that the reader comes back for more, but not enough that you'll bore them before they've had a chance to infer the meaning of your article, gain an opinion on it, agree or disagree, etc.

Think about using a forum. However, there are a few caveats with that advice; don't use one until your site is busy, with numerous regular readers. You'll know from site traffic, if you have that available, and from the number of comments posted. There's nothing worse than a dead forum, so wait until you have the regular traffic a busy forum necessitates.
Use good forum software; I, and many others, won't post in a forum with a crappy user interface. I'll peruse topics, even lurk regularly, but I won't post.

Think about Google adsense, if you're really serious. Tbh, I think it's of more use to affiliate marketers, but have a look. Google link to it on their site.

Good luck!

andy.