The Seven Missing Links in Your Business Blog Strategy
I read a lot about increasing blog traffic, but I think a lot of it gets back to six core tactics, some of which get overlooked or misplaced in the marketing mix.
1) Traditional public relations and media relations for TV, print, and radio.
2) Online blogger relations
3) Pay per click advertising
4) Guest posting on core industry blogs
5) Interviews with industy experts and bloggers
6) Community hub function (aggregation)
7) Search engine optimization
Of course a host of other issues are important as well:
• Listening to trends and conversations.
• Joining ongoing conversations.
• Being linky to blogs, particularly in your field.
• Commenting intelligently on authoritative and/or well trafficked blogs in your field.
• Building offline relationships via networking at dinners, conferences, and unconferences.
• Active social media participation. I think the sweet spot for social media is flickr, audio, and video.
• Forum participation. These are the watering holes of the internet.
• Blog design
• Blog usability
• And all importantly interesting, original, informative, and/or thought leading blog content.
All of this generally gets back to listening + content + relationships. Or perhaps listening + content + community + relationships.
