Comments on: Goals to Achieve in a Blog’s Launch Phase

By: Andrew Moorhouse

Andrew Moorhouse — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 06:11:50 +0000

Hi Darren,

Inspiring post for a new blogger. Thanks.

Andrew.

By: Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound

Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:40:24 +0000

Writing press releases is an excellent way to promote your blog, particularly if you are careful to optimize the press release using specific keywords.

I’m offering a free email course called “89 Ways to Write Powerful Press Releases.”

I explain why we should no longer be writing press releases only for the press, but for consumers who can find the releases online, click through to our websites and enter our sales cycle, even if journalists don’t think our release is worthy of attention.

The course includes several terrific press release samples as well as “before” and “after” makeovers.

You can sign up for the free press release writing tutorial at http://www.PublicityHound.com/pressreleasetips/art.htm

It’s a very long tutorial but please stick with it. By the time you’re done, it will be like earning a master’s degree in writing and distributing press releases. And you’ll know more about this topic than many PR people.

By: Leo

Leo — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 18:05:34 +0000

Mine was a controversy, lots of people tuned in to see the argument between the two blogs and I skyrocketed from about 4 readers to about 180 in a one-week period. The problem is, how am I going to keep those numbers? Since it’s new, and has not even been launched yet, this is kind of a big thing, because how is it going to keep this number, modest though it is, it is better than four, and in order for it to grow, it’s going to need more content, good solid content in a short period of time.

By: Bowrag

Bowrag — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 22:45:25 +0000

Exactly what the other comments say. Thanks and very timely.

I am in my 5th day of launching my blog. I am targetting a specific niche at the moment and then will branch out from there.

By: Ruby @Advice and Rants

Ruby @Advice and Rants — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:11:08 +0000

A very timely post for me, considering that I’ve got a new blog where I’m desperately trying to build up readership.

By: Nat

Nat — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 12:55:57 +0000

Very interesting… and reassuring for me as i’m doing – or planing on doing – most of those things, so it’s nice to see i’m not totally living on a different web planet ;-)

I’m still in the launch phase, and it’s nice to see a post dedicated to this, thanks Darren & Brian!

By: A Tentative Personal Finance Blog

A Tentative Personal Finance Blog — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 22:54:45 +0000

I’m still in the launch phase. I think I need to work a lot on the networking and writing cornerstone posts.

By: Lifesperspective.com

Lifesperspective.com — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 22:46:45 +0000

think that was really helpful. Especially like the point about loving your first few readers to death. Shall do that now!

By: DH Wall

DH Wall — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 20:53:07 +0000

Good tips. Another tip is to stay focused on adding quality content to your blog first. Resist the temptation to add features to your blog that will eat away time from creating content.

Wait till the traffic comes in, then you’ll have reason to spend 10 hours adding that fancy widget or revenue source.

By: Armand

Armand — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:53:47 +0000

Great tips! Right on time, considering that I’ve had a blog lauch (Yaaay!) last week.

By: Susan Payton

Susan Payton — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:29:43 +0000

Darren–
It’s great to find a single article like this! It keeps me from having to pull the same info from 12 different sources.

The thing about marketing your own blog is that there are no rules. Where marketing and advertising has meant billboards, phone book ads and press releases, it means something completely new now. It’s exciting and frustrating, since there’s no guide book, yet each of us can come up with new ideas and pass along what works to our fellow bloggers.

Each subscriber I add still thrills me!

By: Nicholas the aspiring copywriter

Nicholas the aspiring copywriter — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:58:21 +0000

Very cool

I am in the process of getting our work team participating in blogs and building their own blogs.

This is a great help. At the end in comes down to solid content.

My blog is still very “newborn” and the biggest thing I have learned is to be constant. Write a post every day, two is better. Even if you are not yet 100% on your niche topic, just start writing, get in the flow.

This is a great community, thanks mister Problogger sir. :-)

Regards
Nicholas

By: Brown Baron

Brown Baron — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:49:44 +0000

Great read. These tips are also important steps for blogs that haven’t done it yet.

By: Chase Roper

Chase Roper — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:44:00 +0000

Well I’m far past my launch date, but these are all things I need to focus on. Maybe I should put together a binder to organize all of these ideas in. . .

BTW, I gave you a nod (not that you need one) on my blog yesterday. I’m trying to organize my posts to be a specific category for each day of the week. That makes it easier to narrow down a subject to write about. Yesterday happend to be “Other Blogs I Like Day.”

By: JoLynn Braley

JoLynn Braley — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:29:06 +0000

Thanks Darren, I really like your personal spin on Brian’s article, especially your post examples of how you completed each suggestion here on your site. I hadn’t read your post before on “the house that blogging built” and I was inspired by it (nice house, btw!).

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 16:38:51 +0000

I think doing some cornerstone or pillar articles in the beginning in incredibly important. I need to work on getting some free reports and things done….now you’ve given me something to really shoot for!

By: Michael Martine

Michael Martine — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 16:04:07 +0000

This is good, solid advice. Participating in a community can be a bit of a chicken-or-egg situation, since one reason to comment is to provide links back to your blog–so you have to have one, first! ;) This is where discussion forums come in, since after everyone at a forum already knows you, they will trust the link you offer for your new blog.

The biggest beginner mistake is not having core content created and not having a specific mission or goal for the blog, which is necessary if your goal is monetization.

By: Neena

Neena — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 15:30:09 +0000

I think the “finding high volumes of traffic” point is the key and also the hardest to acheive. I hope to get to the point where it is all sustained by the readers – if such a point really does exist.

By: DerekBeau

DerekBeau — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:36:03 +0000

Yes, very nice tips. I am currently in the start-up phase with a couple blogs and this information is helpful.

By: alam

alam — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:32:27 +0000

agree with Shane too, different approach for certain type of niche. Being network of gadget blog seem like selling product that easy to find.
By the way, congrats problogger for quick upgrade to wp 2.2.1