Blogging is one of the most talked about activities that takes place online and the option to blog has given budding writers a chance to share their thoughts and knowledge with others in an open space. So how does it all start? Well, you take an idea and then apply your passion for writing or photography and select a platform like Wordpress, Blogger or Tumbler to publish on.
I started PR Company two years ago as a project when I was learning about digital PR and SEO. The blog was almost used as a working diary to start with and then I began writing about topical subjects that others could relate to. Someone told me about a little thing called page rank which Google uses to determine the importance of your site and typically link to pages that have the highest keyword density.
PR Company now has a page rank of 4 which makes it credible in the SEO world and I get a lot of great feedback about the blog. I then decided to start a new project and as I have a lot of knowledge about retail/fashion, I decided to home in on a niche and select something that would be appealing to the Mummy blogging world. Harper7Style.com was born! Harper Beckham is already a little mini fashionista and appears in national press on a frequent basis. Therefore I thought this blog would have great potential now and later on in life when she becomes as big as her Mother, Victoria Beckham.
Even though blogs may look great, getting the word out there in a cluttered blogosphere can prove to be challenging.
Here are a few tips when it comes to marketing your own blog!
1. Guest Post
A good way of getting the word out there about your own blog is to guest post on others that publish content that covers the same topics as yours. It takes a bit of effort as you will need to approach editors and pitch a good topic with appeal to their readers. Most guest posts include an author name and a link back to the author’s blog.
2. Twitter, Facebook, Google+
This is an obvious one but plugging your blog on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ is a very straight forward option which provides instant results and hopefully directs traffic to your blog. Using the correct hashtags like #socialmedia, #PR, #fbloggers will also enable your post to be picked up by people searching for these topics.
3. Comment on other blogs
Commenting on other blogs and leaving a link to your own blog is an option that will enable you to tell others about your work and it will also assist with SEO efforts which means your blog could quite possibly rank higher. However be cautious as this can also look quite spammy if overdone or comments are placed on irrelevant blogs. You need to make the comment worthy as leaving a comment about ‘Fish and chips’ on a beauty blog about skin care just wouldn’t work and it would probably get deleted.
4. Get involved with conversations on websites that have high authority
This takes a little more effort but networking and getting involved with debates on websites that carry authority like the Guardian Online, will give you the chance to plug your blog and get it out in front of a large audience. Here is an example of something I took part In: Working in Fashion PR: ask the experts.
High end links like this are also very valuable in an SEO strategy.
5. Word of Mouth
A very obvious method but one that can be just as effective, speaking to people and telling them to go online and take a look at your work. If they like what they see, they may follow you and spread the word to others.
For more information on Jessica Hodkinson and PR Company, visit prcompany.org.uk. Jessica works as Senior PR and Marketing Exec for Daniel Footwear. Jessica recently won a competition with Nokia and will be reporting at Social Media week in Mumbai.You can follow Jessica on Twitter @onlineprpixie and @harper7style.
