How Would You Spend $100 on Promoting a Blog

[adder]

Hi,

I was hoping to pick your brain a little bit :)
Let's imagine somebody gives you $100 and says: "go and build some links for your personal blog"

So far I've only worked on commercial sites with decent promo budgets but I wouldn't approach blog promotion in a similar way.

It is a personal (kind of) blog and although there is some potential, I would not spend more than $100 on acquiring some extra links... doing this more for an experiment's sake.

I was thinking adding the blog to eatonweb ($35) a couple of good quality paid directories ($30+) and getting a couple of low-profile webmasters to review my blog and include an in-content link.

What do you think about the plan? Do you have some bright ideas to add?

Thanks!

[wheel]

I'd probably go with a couple of decent directories (though not sure you can get decent directories at that price).

Or spend the $100 on taking my wife out to dinner and then go find free ways to get links.

I work with some niche bloggers. The most effective way I've seen to promote a new blog is to get in with the established bloggers (comment knowledgeably on their blog, offer guest posts, etc). Then hopefully they'll start referencing your blog. I recently watched a blogger promote his site successfully this way - despite being in a competitive and suspicious niche, and despite the quality of content on his blog being questionable.

[adder]

@wheel, yeah ok, but I'm not to be held accountable for the consequences. I'm quite a charming person... :)

Thanks for the ideas. I'll have to try being friendly with some big bloggers.

[anand84]

One way I have seen some personal blog owners promote is by organizing contests. You can open a discussion on your blog (in your area) and recommend all bloggers reading your site to post their views on their own blogs and the best reply gets prizes (worth $100) - say movie tickets, dvds, etc. Inevitably, these bloggers link back to you for the original discussion before posting their views to their blog readers.

[Planet13]

You can open a discussion on your blog (in your area) and recommend all bloggers reading your site to post their views on their own blogs and the best reply gets prizes (worth $100) - say movie tickets, dvds, etc. Inevitably, these bloggers link back to you for the original discussion before posting their views to their blog readers.

that sounds like a pretty easy strategy, but to be clear, can you explain:

Do the prizes go to the other bloggers (who link to you)?

Or do the prizes go to the visitors of the other bloggers who post a comment on the other bloggers sites?

[adder]

@anand84, it sounds like a good idea, but like Planet13, I'm not sure I'm getting this right.

As for competitions, I've tried giving away stuff to readers in a hope somebody will spread the link via Twitter or FB. What I did get was "compers" (professional competition wh*res and greedy freebie hunter mutants) swarming my website and I ended up banning their IP addresses and keeping the prize myself :)

There are some other points, anand84, that make this competition thing difficult. Gathering hundreds of fellow blogger email addresses and getting them actually read your email and what's even less likely - respond to your email. But as a whole, I think I like the idea.

I don't see it working though (mind you, I might be wrong) because if we imagine 100 bloggers link to my discussion, after the prize is given away, there's one reasonably happy blogger and 99 very unhappy bloggers, LOL If I was amongst those 99, I'd simply remove the link for f***'s sake!

[wheel]

The bloggers I work with are not interested in prizes for the reasons adder mentioned. Give away an Ipad for example, and people are Googling "ipad giveaway" to find this stuff.

[JohnRoy]

Fiverr would provide you an article for five bucks x 10 = $50.

B. Put each unique article on another major article directory with dofollow links to the personal blog.

A spinner software should get you 30 versions of each. x 10 = 300 (70% unique) articles. Each spun article shall link to one of the ("B") articles. Not to the personal blog.

Article Marketing Robot (trial, or pay - with/ without captcha) should market these on schedule.

[anand84]

Valid points against the idea. Well, I haven't tried it out myself, but just got the idea as I read this topic.

Anyways, to offer clarity to Planet13, what I meant was initiating a discussion on your blog (Eg: Why the air operation against Osama was wrong) and asking for your readers to provide valid counter points on their own blogs. Since these blog posts are responses to the original argument on your website, these bloggers would inevitably link to your site from theirs. And you may pick the best of the lot and offer them freebies using the $100 budget.

But yes, it is not always that you have so many readers who have their own websites. Also, you could end up antagonizing at least a few of them by announcing a winner.

[Planet13]

But yes, it is not always that you have so many readers who have their own websites.

On the other hand, that gives you an opportunity to reach out and find other bloggers to connect with. Which can lead to other business relationships (aside from the giveaways).

And really, we all SHOULD be connecting with others out there.

Also, you could end up antagonizing at least a few of them by announcing a winner.

In the book, Corporate Creativity; How Innovation and Improvement Actually Happen, by Professors Alan Robinson and Sam Stearn, they point out that the companies that give their employees the biggest bonuses for suggesting new ideas, get the least benefit from those suggestions.

They also show that the companies that give their employees NO monetary reward - or just a token amount of like $5 - get the BEST ideas that generate the most income. Mostly all they got was a mention of their name on a "Great Ideas Hall of Fame" wall somewhere in the building.

Their conclusion is that people will often give great ideas for simply getting recognition in return.

So maybe you can't give all the webmasters / bloggers a monetary award, but maybe you don't have to?

[adder]

A spinner software should get you 30 versions of each

Thanks. Can you suggest a good spinner? I've done some article marketing for my commercial projects and it is quite effective. I like your idea JohnRoy, will have to try linking to the main articles instead of the blog.

Their conclusion is that people will often give great ideas for simply getting recognition in return.

anand84, Planet13 That's very interesting. Worth exploring!

[JohnRoy]

Google/Bing/Yahoo: content spinner

IMHO the difference between a good or a better spinner is the person that uses it. You can produce junk stuff from a top rated spinner - and if you put in a little effort, even a standard spinner can provide good output.

[adder]

Google/Bing/Yahoo: content spinner

Yeah, well, that's the problem. If you google for content spinner, the first couple of pages are full of affiliate junk. I was hoping to get a first-hand tip from somebody. I don't really agree with you on the difference between spinners. I've tried a couple a while ago and they were utter rubbish. One big factor in the quality of an article spinner is richness/relevancy of its synonym database.

[Planet13]

Hi there, adder:

I sent you a sticky mail with the name of a spinner that some people have recommended to me in the past. Don't know if you checked your private messages yet though...

Hope it helps.

[wheel]

lol at spinners.

I suspect many of the people using these are doing so with the mistaken idea that their short term income is actually long term income.

It's like the old stock market. The folks that got in early knew what they were doing and made some money. By the time you hear about it from your stock broker, it's kinda late to be getting on board. What you maybe should be thinking about is doing the opposite of spinning.

Or not - it's a great big web out there. Room for all sorts.

[incrediBILL]

The best use of the $100 is purchasing booze, purely for creative writing purposes ;)

Sign up for some forums, make useful posts, people will look up your profile and follow you to your blog. Get a twitter and facebook account, write some useful stuff and promote it for free.

I've never paid to promote a site with paid links yet, drank the booze though...

[wheel]

And that's why I don't recommend incredibill for your link building campaigns. Now you know :).