Internet Mogal

It’s only a matter of time before the market opens itself up for “blog marketing.” With Technorati reporting several million blogs online, it’s a natural progression for the business world to capitalize on this growing trend.

So what is Blog Marketing?

I will define it as the following:

promoting a blog through traditional and online efforts including but not limited to postcards, email newsletters, Myspace profiles, MyBlogLog communities, linkbaiting, directory submissions, etc.

I decided to make this my first article because this is my first “real” blog and I wanted to capture the process of getting this baby up and running. I have a point to prove to myself and I’ll share it with the world once I’ve reached it.

POINT: I CAN DO THIS.

Sounds like a simple point, yet it has always been my Achilles heel. My insecurities inhibit me from realizing my potential. And so this blog serves as public proof that success online is indeed possible, especially if I can do it. Marketing my blog will take the form of many different phases and milestones. Not too many drastic and over-the-top goals, but very manageable and realistic expectations, which is crucial for any marketing efforts you take for your blog.

Establish online presence. This is the very first goal to creating a blog. You have to read what’s out there first and see what’s going on. Even the greatest of ideas have been done before you. A reality check into seeing who’s doing it and how is critical. This is not meant to burst your optimistic bubble. It’s to give you a sense of how to craft your voice. I’m not saying that you can’t do it if someone else is talking about it online. Just remember, what makes your voice different from theirs.

Once you’ve got a sense for who you want to be online and how you want to harness that voice, think of a clever name. Something that’s catchy and simple. I knew I wanted to blog for a while and had made several half-ass attempts at doing so. It wasn’t until I came up with the name “Ambition Is The New Black” that I felt like I could do it and do it well. This kind of confidence is underrated. When you are completely sure of your voice it will call to you every single waking moment. It might take weeks or months. That’s fine. Don’t put something up just to put something up. You’ll more than likely end up doing it for a month and then neglect it.

Now that you’ve got your clever name, check online to see if it’s in use.

SIDE NOTE: DON’T EVER GET ATTACHED TO A NAME!!

I’ve seen too many people get so emotionally attached to their name that it cripples them from moving forward. They get a domain name with .net or .biz and then get upset when I say WTF is wrong with you? If you can’t get .com change the name. Seriously, CHANGE THE NAME. Why? Because people online are not that bright. Sorry to break it to you so early on. They’re not. Web savvy people who blog and do alot online are SOMEWHAT the exception to the rule. But even then the first thing we do is check “[insert blog name].com” to see what you’re about. If the .com is taken by someone else, why go through all the effort of optimizing the keywords for your blog (including your name) and not own the domain most people will go to when looking for you?

So you don’t think I’m talking out of my a$$, I remember a few years ago when a client had a .net. She would network and meet all sorts of people. She gave them her business cards and when she followed up with emails, many told her that her website was under construction. Surprised, she quickly asked me if something was wrong. Her website was up and running just fine. She offered her website in her email signatures and that was when she found out. Most of the people who she had met encountered the same problem because they Google’d her name and the .com came up. Not one to say “I told you so” she quickly changed her domain to include .com on all her business cards.

Once you’ve got the domain name and hosting, it’s time for the fun part, design! Woo hoo. This is the part I absolutely love. Why? Because I love to procrastinate and what better phase to play the perfectionist hat than during design time. It’s awesome. It lets you be months behind schedule because something just doesn’t seem “right” and after you spend 36 hours designing the “perfect” blog, you now all of a sudden don’t like the color blue. You’re actually repulsed by it. That’s ok. Let’s start again from scratch.

Design is overrated, and that’s saying alot coming from me. No one really cares that much about the details to your site.

• Is it functional?
• Is it user-friendly?
• Do you have relevant content on it?

Then that’s all you need. Seriously, don’t go overboard and don’t let it become so overwhelming that you can’t scale up or down later. It’s a good rule of thumb to let others give you feedback on it but I stopped doing that a while ago. Everyone has an opinion about something. Listen to your inner voice. Not the one you bribed to tell you what you want to hear. Listen to the honest one, the one you roll your eyes to when you ask her/him something. If you’re rolling your eyes or sucking your teeth as you read this, then you know EXACTLY who I’m talking about!

So does this mean you completely neglect the design phase? Absolutely not. The thing to remember here is balance. Spend time on it but don’t spend too much time. You have to take some time to think about what vibe you want to give off. I use Wordpress because it’s totally awesome. There’s a ton of templates, free and paid, that you can use to convey any message you want to put out there. Take a day to check them out. They might even inspire you!