Do You Know The Most Common Marketing Mistakes By Bloggers?

It would be safe to assume that running a blog like Source Blogger requires a lot of research. Thus, I find myself visiting a lot of blogs.

Blogs are not that hard to detect. Especially, If you spend any length of time performing keyword research or visiting any number of social media sites.

Typical Complaints From Bloggers 

If you make a habit of visiting blogging communities and forums, you begin to see a trend. The most common being low visitation and very little-to-no clicks or sales conversions. (If I wished to expand the list of blogger concerns, I could have mentioned subscribership and low reader interaction / comments.) 

Despite the greatest care to planning and lofty expectations, frustration sets in. When you start to measure the cost-to-benefit ratio, the answer is evident. It's time to close, abandon, or sell your blog and channel your energies in different areas. Blogging is a serious commitment of time. And at a level that is hard to maintain over months, years...and hundreds upon hundreds of posts, isn't it? 

In What Sex and the City Can Teach Us About Blogging!, we pondered our motivation for blogging. Is it for the money? The notoriety? The promise of A-List fame? We also concluded that the return of all our personal investment in running and managing a blog often returned little reward. 

I'm not here to discourage, by any means. We would like for Source Blogger to be source of inspiration to carry you through those peaks and valleys during your blogging tenure.

But, let's take a look at some of the most common marketing mistakes made by bloggers, shall we? 

1) When you say market, are you referring to advertising? Isn't the very existence of my blog a marketing tool? 

If you were under that impression, surprisingly, you would not be totally wrong. But, it also demonstrates a general detachment for needing to reach your target audience and making a lot of assumptions on how your blog will be located. 

Do you know what makes your competitor's blog better? This is actually an easy question. It boils down to this. Throughout the millions of blogs cluttering the blogosphere, it can be found! That's it! It doesn't mean the site's design is better. It doesn;t mean the content is any better. It means the blog is closely connected to a web user's search. 

Now, this article was not meant to carry over into the area of organic vs. inorganic search. We'll keep it elementary with this: How will anyone ever have the opportunity to visit your blog if they are unaware that it exists? 

2) When you discover my blog, it's obvious what it's about and who it was written for!

In order for you to attract a target audience, you can not expect for them to locate you. You have to find them and lure them to your blog. There are many methods. From static headlines, to blog comments you leave, to responses in forums, to guest blogging, and especially by creating direct relationships. (I've actually made a note to expand on this further in a later article.)

Take a deep breath. Now put yourself into the role of the typical web user searching for information. His time is valuable and there are thousands of other websites and applications vying for his/her attention. 

Within a couple seconds, the reader has critiqued your site to know whether he intends to stay or flee. Because of this it is essential, for your blog to be very targeted. 

The reality is that readers do not want your input on dozens of different topics at once. 

Let me give you an example. Pepsi-Cola. You know exactly what that is. Ok, how about Gatorade? Or Quaker Oats? 

What if I told you that all those companies were owned by Pepsi? The difference being that they market their products individually and separately from each other. And so should you.

3) When you have content this good, who needs to market? The blog sells itself?

Ouch! I admit that sounds a lot like me!

But, we already are aware that the "If I build it, they will come" approach is bogus...don't we?

If a tree falls in the middle of the forest, does it make a sound? Well, in the case of blogging, it would be no! 

You would think with so many blogs that quality would be a priority. What if I told you that was not the case? Why do you think there is so much content theft? Why are your fellow bloggers struggling with writer's block? 

I'll tell you why. It's because creativity is in low supply. You have the creativity. Make the most of it!

4) My blogging revenues flow one way - in!

It is true that you have to spend money to make money? Absolutely. As you will discover advertising comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. And in blogging, it's evident that "one size does not fit all." 

Your goal is to assess what advertising resources are the most cost effective to your blog and to develop strategies to attract unique visitors. 

There are millions of readers who have no idea your blog exists. Since you have a so many articles targeted to your blog's topic, and present each post effectively, the truly targeted should arrive and never want to leave. Sort of like the guest who stays well beyond the party. But, in our case, we welcome that type of guest! Millions of new readers means millions of new opportunities.

6) Online marketing are for those slimy spammers who have some hidden agenda or something to sell?

If you think of marketing in those terms you have lost the battle. Promotion is a function of marketing and applies to all blogs and websites, not only to blogs dealing with internet marketing, making money online, or with a product or service to sell.

Your goal is to create a buzz and draw readers. You create and maintain your blog because you have something of value to share with the world. Blog promotion enables you to create a brand and image for your blog, to set it apart from the other blogs in your niche. 

6. All I need is Google. SEO anyone?

Search engine optimization is a very passive way of attracting readers. There's no guarantee your article is a good match to Google's algorithm and be displayed prominently in Google's search pages. Those that have been blogging for any length of time know that as a blog's page rank increases, so does your blog showing up in a lot more search queries. To be more effective on search engines requires countless months of link building. 

Link building...SEO...a great method of becoming visible online, but must not be the sole approach. Great bloggers know this. Great bloggers also know that blog marketing and promotion was just as an important road map to where they are today.


Fortunately, for this current generation of bloggers, we have the luxury of established mediums of marketing and promotion exist on blogging communities, forums, and social media sites.

You may not have realized that your blog's promotion and marketing campaign began the day your first article published and you had continued to engage in some form of marketing and promotion since. It's natural.

Source Blogger was created to be an ongoing resource to you. When we started years ago, there was not blogs like Source Blogger that really had something valuable to share.

If there were, I would have saved myself a lot of time and aggravation. Without marketing, you will be doomed to make the same mistakes of many failed blogs. 

And I refuse to let that happen to you.

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What Sex and the City Can Teach Us About Blogging!

Today, in the midst of a pleasant conversation with the wife, the phone rang. As I waited on her to conclude her call, an episode of Sex and the City was playing in the background. 

As my wife's call went into overtime, I was struck at some of the parallels Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker), who runs a relationship column for a New York City newspaper, faces as similar to what we encounter as bloggers.

Carrie's dilemma was that part of her preparation for writing a column about love and relationships for single women was to be in love and in a relationship. 

While having lunch with her friends, she soon discovered that not all her friends were faithful readers of her weekly column. She was also concerned with the quality of her column lately since not having a man to affect her was making her struggle for content. To make matters worse, her editor was trying to get in touch with her, something that rarely ever occurred. She was sure it was because of her last article. To make matters worse, her next piece was entitled : "Men Are Like Socks". (Socks and the City?)

I won't bore you with all the details of the show. I will confess that it was not the first time I had seen the show and I did enjoy the movie. 

Anyway, as Carrie was drawn in her by friend's to get out and enjoy the city and all the men in it, she bumped into her editor who was not pleased his messages were not returned. She felt for sure he was going to fire her. 

Only that was not the case. He informed that there was a publishing company wanting to channel her best work into a book. 

The point of all this was it made me begin to wonder why we blog. What directs us to faithfully update our blogs week after week, month after month? As you know, the return on the time and commitment can be very poor, yet some of the ulterior rewards can be so fulfilling.

So, why do you blog? Is it for the money? The notoriety? The promise of A-List fame?

Friends and Family - The "Facebook Effect"

Carrie was disappointed that her close friend, Samantha Jones (played by Kim Cattrall) did not always make a point of reading her column. 

Previously, on Source Blogger, we devoted an entire week to integrating your blog to Facebook. 

As we learned, we have the ability to create a Fan Page for our blog and RSS our blog feeds to both the Fan Page (in conjunction with Facebook's primary blog application, NetworkedBlogs) and to our personal pages.

As bloggers, we do not have the luxury of ignoring any methods to market and promote our blogs, do we? Especially a social media site the magnitude of a Facebook. 


Do you RSS your feeds to your Facebook time line? If so, then your friends, family, co-workers, and pretty much everyone elese you anetwork and connect with has access to your feeds. There's just enough title and summary to prevent any confusion over the subject of your blog's topic. (Assuming you are conscientious about maintaining a defined, targeted approach to your blogging.) 

Source Blogger is still a relatively new blog, just recently surpassing its six month anniversary. For the greater majority of it's existence I have been RSS'ing my feeds to Facebook. 

During family get-togethers, even I discovered what a nuisance these feeds were to the 80-something people in my personal network! (Not my Source Blogger Fan Page). Either people had me "hidden" or completely ignored me! (How do you like that for support!)

Research and Preparation 

Despite Carrie being in somewhat of a dating "dry spell," it was obvious that she felt compelled to her master her craft because she was aware of the value of providing relevant and useful information.

At Source Blogger, our take is that you do not have to be "an expert." But, you should work on narrowing your blog's topic, so that you become more and more familiar with the material as you prepare for your next blog update. 

Well, there you have it. Sex and the City on Source Blogger!

We hope that blogging opens opportunities for you too! 

And if Source Blogger was any help to you at all, let us know about it! 

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