Hey !
How is it going today? I just got back from vacation so I’m all
pumped and ready to rock!
Today I want to discuss a very frustrating topic
for young bloggers: how do you get attention from the big guys?
I’ll tell you upfront, if you just started a blog
or think about creating one; the competition in blogging is very intense.
There are bloggers with thousands of articles written, highly research keywords
and astonishing presence in search engines.
Increasing traffic and number of daily readers is
quite a challenge. One of the easiest ways to grow your readership is by being
mentioned by one of those big bloggers. You want to get big blogs linking
back to you because:
-
They
have authority that you and your fellow young bloggers don’t have.
-
They
can drive significant amount of traffic toward your site with a single link.
-
A
link from a big site worth 10 thousand times a link from another young blogger
(from Google’s perspective anyway ;-) ).
-
Big
bloggers have engaged readers that will more likely to follow you if you are
being referred by them.
So the question remains; How do you get
attention from a guy that receives more than 100 emails per day?
Today I’ll be sharing a few of my tricks to get
some attention from bigger bloggers.
#1 Comments on their site
I think that you are better off commenting on 5 big
sites each day, than commenting on 30 small blogs per day. There are some
basics rules that you need to follow if you want your comments to worth something:
- Post thoughtful comments: Forget the “wow,
great post!” line. Write something that adds up to the discussion. If you don’t
have anything to say, ask a question. You should get an answer from the author
and an opportunity to engage a discussion.
- Post your comment in the morning: Other regular readers will have the chance of
reading your comments before writing theirs. Chances are that you will not only
get the blogger’s attention but also his readers!
- Do not refer to your website in your comment: There is a space where you can put your website
url (that will be linked to your commenter’s name). Use this space properly and
don’t add another link in your comment. This is often considered as spam and
you will get ignored or deleted by the author.
- Comment on a regular basis: Get to know
the blogger’s writing schedule and comment on each post. You will shortly
become a “regular” and your name will be recognized.
- Don’t forget to follow-up on your comments:
Commenting is one thing, but subscribing to new comments and engage discussion
with other readers is another. This is how you will definitely draw more
attention with you. It is by giving that you will be receiving ;-).
- Write quality content on your blog at the same
time: It’s worthless to bring new readers and big bloggers to read your
blog if you don’t publish high quality content first ;-).
#2 Write About Them
Who doesn’t like to be mentioned? This technique is
not only good to draw attention on your site but also to get more links toward
yours. I have recently written about 6
Superhero Bloggers I Admire.
Throughout this post, I am talking about 6 great blogs
that I like and tell why I like them. I use an original theme (comparing them
to superheroes) in order to stand out from the crowd. If you are not creative,
you won’t get much attention. With this post, I got my idol; Pat Flynn from
Smart Passive Income
to retweet this post and comment on my blog!
In fact, each blogger I have mentioned in this post
either commented or retweet it. Most of them also linked back to it and I got
some attention from other great bloggers such as Gen X Finance, Free From Broke, Canadian Capitalist and the Rob
Carrick from The Globe & Mail (the biggest newspaper in Canada).
Here are some tricks to write good link bait
articles:
-
Be
creative (have a theme)
-
Do
not just list top bloggers
(compliment, explain, give some details)
-
Add
pictures (it helps being
creative and makes the post even more interesting)
-
Make
sure to have a RSS button that is visible (you want to draw attention but you also want to
keep some readers as well ;-) ).
-
Write
longer post than usual (My
article was about 1,000 words). It gives you more time to interest your new
readers and it increase your authority as a blogger.
-
Ask
people to contribute to your post. I have some other bloggers being mentioned in the comment section.
It’s always interesting to see which bloggers are followed by your readers ;-).
#3 Offer Them a Guest Post
I could write a full ebook on how to write a guest
post and get published by bigger blogs. At the very beginning, I have even
managed to get published by John
Chow! However, I know that you don’t have much time so I’ll just tell
you why you should write guest post and offer them to big guys:
-
You
will get full attention from the big guys. If your article is good, you will
get full exposure from the blogger you want.
-
Bloggers
like good content. If you offer them something great, there are no reasons why
they would not publish your content.
-
Big
RSS numbers = More traffic visiting your site. Imagine if you can manage to
write for Gen X Finance. He has over 7,000 RSS readers. This increase your
chances of having traffic wave ;-).
Here’s a quick tip list to write a good guest post:
-
Write
it upfront and send it to the blogger of your choice. You demonstrate upfront what you are capable of
and offer the blogger to publish or not your guest post. It makes their
decision much easier.
-
Offer
your best posts as guest posts.
You want to gain readership, so you have to offer what you have best to
convince someone to read your blog on a regular basis. Remember; it’s always
harder to gain new readers than to keep them ;-).
-
Do
not fill your article with link to your site. Guest blog etiquette recommends 1 or 2 links back
to your site. Not one more.
-
Include
an author small bio with link to your site and your RSS readers.
-
Reach
the blogger via a quick and direct-to-the-point email. Don’t go with a paragraph of how much you like
him. Just tell him upfront that you like his blog and wrote a piece for him to
publish.
-
Be
a bit controversial. It’s
interesting to get a discussion going and participate actively in the comment
section. Forget about classic 10 ways to do so and so post. Get something like
“being Frugal is for losers”… but not on a frugal blog obviously ;-) lol!
That’s all for today!
I hope you will have a great day.
Take care,
Mike
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