Here are 5 of the biggest blog promotion mistakes I’ve made in my first year of blogging:
1. Wohoo 1,000 Hits… Aww Darn - One of the biggest mistakes I have made (and still make, albeit less often) is getting too excited about a couple of high traffic days and stop promoting my blog. What’s even worse is that it takes forever to get the momentum going again.
2. Friends, I Don’t Need No Stinking Friends! - Truth be told I’m not exactly Mr. Social. I’ve never been particularly good at communicating with people and getting new friends (I’m the geek who stands in the corner of the room during a party designing some new algorithm). So with that said, this should mean 10 times more now than it might have if I didn’t say that: get to know your neighbors. Becoming friends with bloggers goes hand in hand with success - as I have learned in the past couple of months.
3. Not Commenting Enough - I go through spells with commenting, some days I’ll comment 50 times and other days I won’t comment on other blogs at all. Without a doubt there is a direct correlation between how many comments I leave and how much traffic this blog gets. Although, leaving bad comments like “Funny, Lolzars!” just to get traffic is worse than not commenting at all.
4. Link Bait? Oh Yeah… Link Bait! - Link bait works - but for some silly reason I didn’t take it seriously until recently. During the past year I’ve written a few very linkable posts (and they got linked to quite a bit), but I never really paid much attention to the marketing aspect of blogging until the past few months. Yeah, that was a smart idea. 
5. Fearing Rejection - Probably the most important lesson I’ve learned is that other bloggers don’t bite. While most of the A-listers don’t respond to every single e-mail, there are many that do. And don’t forget, there’s also a million little blogs for each a-list one. Bloggers who run little blogs (like me) are always looking for things to write about. There’s simply no reason to fear rejection. Think of school - do you remember thinking about asking someone out but you never seemed to get around to it? Do you regret it now? The thing that keeps most people from e-mailing other bloggers is the same thing that kept you from asking that cute girl in school out - fear of rejection. What is the worst that can happen? They’ll say no or ignore you.
So as you can see, I’ve made (and still make) some fairly hefty mistakes. But you know what, life would be incredibly boring if no one ever made a single mistake.
Stay tuned for more Back To The Basics posts
Please subscribe, or else I will cry. Do you really want to make a programmer cry?
October 8th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
[…] Day 29: 5 Of The Biggest Blog Promotion Mistakes I’ve Made […]
October 8th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
This might be very helpful for newbie bloggers like myself. Thanks for sharing !
October 8th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Hi, I like this post. I agree with you that consistent promotion is still necessary to keep the traffic alive. That’s why I like wordpress blog because we can simple post new content everyday to the blog easily…
Thanks for this great post!
October 8th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Thanks for sharing (and posting the link @ Authority Blogger). I’m inclined to make some of the same mistakes for similar reasons.
You might want to check out Liz Strauss’ list of ten common fears bloggers struggle with. Her list is a nice companion to your fifth point.
http://www.successful-blog.com/1/10-bloggo-fears-that-go-bump-in-the-night-and-how-to-make-them-worse/
October 8th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Most of us have been guilty of insularity or of resting on our laurels (slacking off) from time to time. Count me in, there!
Another common trap that many new bloggers fall into is that of using link farms or indiscriminate link exchanges, under the mistaken impression that any old link into their blog is going to help with their ranking. I’m just grateful that I wise friend explained this error to me when I was starting up, or I very well might have gone down that road too.
October 8th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
exQUIZZme! - You’re very welcome
KPeBiz - I suppose staying consistent with promotion is one of the more difficult things for me. Don’t know why, I don’t have a problem posting every day.
Aaron - Thanks for the link, Liz Strauss’ blog is one of those ones I keep reading but I forget to add to my RSS reader - just added it though.
Jen - Indeed, new bloggers see “free link directory submission” or “Want to trade links?” e-mails and they do it right away without thinking. I fell into that trap when I first started really getting into SEO.
October 8th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
I’m guilty of not commenting enough, so here is mine.
I get about 20 visitors a day, not 1,000. That many a day for me would be quite scary
October 8th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
1k day ain’t scary, what is scary is getting 1k hits in a short period of time. That’s when the “oh crap is my server going to crash” thought comes in
October 10th, 2007 at 4:12 am
This here is a fantastic post.
It is different to other such posts in that it is HONEST.
It has also given me a bit more to think about when it comes to blog promotion.
KEEP IT COMING??
October 14th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
[…] 5 Blog Promotion Mistakes […]
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:39 am
[…] Check This Out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today. Here’s a quick excerpt: Here are 5 of the biggest blog promotion mistakes I’ve made in my first year of blogging:. 1. Wohoo 1000 Hits… Aww Darn - One of the biggest mistakes I have made (and still make, albeit less often) is getting too excited about a couple … […]
October 22nd, 2007 at 8:00 am
[…] 5 Of The Biggest Blog Promotion Mistakes I’ve Made […]
October 22nd, 2007 at 1:15 pm
My worst problem is commenting. I probably read over 50 blog posts a day, and most of the time, I don’t leave a comment. What would take very little of my time to help promote my blog, for some reason, seems like a lot of trouble. And, I always have something to say.
So, here’s to new beginnings! I am leaving at least one comment today. Your article was a great read.
October 22nd, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Yeah, it is quite amazing what a few extra comments can do. I’ve read some stories of people getting nice guest posting gigs all because they left a few helpful comments.
Thanks for reading
October 23rd, 2007 at 12:21 am
Both “not commenting enough” and “commenting too much” are problems, the way I see it. I used to spend a lot of time blog-hopping and leaving comments, but at the end of the day, I’ve read too much and can’t think of anything to write anymore.
For that, I have 2 suggestions:
(1) Limit the number of blogs you visit and subsequently leave a comment. 20. 30. Whichever suits you.
(2) Write your post and publish it before blog-hopping. That way, you get to publish a post, and you get to blog-hop for all you like
That being said, I’m still not following any of the method above. Yeah, I need to be kicked, LOL.
October 23rd, 2007 at 12:31 am
“imit the number of blogs ”
Heh, that definitely isn’t me. Got close to 110 in Google Reader.
November 8th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
This is a great list. Wish I’d learned these sooner. We blogged for about 12-18 months starting back in 2004, then just fizzled out for a variety of reasons. One of the big reasons I never really started back up was the universal writer’s fear: if you have an opinion and nobody reads it, does what you have to say really matter at all? Ouch that’s painful. I never knew writing could be so damn hard.
November 8th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
BTW it appears your comment form rejects a comment if your e-mail address uses the word “spam” in it, but gives the error message that you can’t pass math…
November 8th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Thanks for letting me know Dave - I’ll look into it and try to figure out what went wrong wiht it.
December 9th, 2007 at 1:53 am
Ahha.. another tips (i guess).
January 28th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
very useful, thanks…
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:23 am
Useful tips. Thanks for sharing!