Five Signs Of A Small Blog That Is Ready To Grow
July 29, 2008 by akemi · 19 Comments
(Photo by Kaptain Krispy Kreme)
When you leave comments as a way to market your own blog . . .
In my last post Know, Like, Trust: Three Steps To Winning The Business, I emphasized the importance of working on the process of being known. It’s such a basic step, yet it’s quite obvious that many businesses fail on this first step of marketing. How many businesses go out of business before they ever get attention of substantial number of potential customers? Forget about the quality of your products and services for just a moment, if nobody knows about it, it doesn’t matter to them.
In the online world, this translates into getting attention of new readers. And one of the tried-and-true approach is to comment and / or guest blog on other blogs.
James the “handsome debonair king of the blogosphere” wrote in this post that it’s better to comment on smaller blogs. He insists that the ROI (return of investment) is higher with smaller blogs. Kind of like investing in small cap stocks. It’s an interesting strategy.
Not all small blogs are created equal, though . . .
I sort of agree with him. There is a point in investing in growing small businesses rather than in large cap blue chips. The “sort of” is inserted there, however, because I don’t think all small businesses or blogs are created equal. There are small blogs that are going to stay small and silently disappear and small blogs that are ready to grow big. Two different animals even if the current subscribers number are the same.
Can we spot promising small blogs that are going to grow big? Like stock investment, there is no guarantee, but I think there are signs that indicate that a blog owner knows what he or she is doing. Look for these signs and find great small blogs to comment.
1. There is About page with contact info.
As I discussed in Are You Afraid Of Expressing Yourself In Business?, people like people. Further, if the blogger is hiding out, do you think they are responsible for their writing? I don’t like dealing with nameless someone, and I bet many people feel the same.
2. The blogger responds to comments.
Maybe things are different for A-list blogger who gets 100 comments for every post. For everyone else, it serves to treat the visitors right. Not ignoring the people who spent their precious time to write their comment is really just the first step. I usually don’t return to blogs that ignored me before, and again, I’m betting many people feel the same.
3. There are outgoing links.
We don’t live in the vacuum. Bloggers who send out link loves know they will be reciprocated. (Well, most of the time.) Further, it shows the blogger goes out and do some learning or marketing by reading other blogs, which is important for growth.
4. Unique contents that deliver value.
We are tired of rehashed content. (Except this extraordinary one) Unique content is fun to read, and it attracts incoming links. But I’m putting this at #4 because there are certain limitations to uniqueness (whereas the aforementioned three are actionable for anyone willing to put their effort in). I mean, I’m pretty well read and it’s very seldom that I come across with something that is so new to me. What I’d like to see is a fresh angle, a personal flavor. Of course, if you can offer something that I never heard of, that will be wonderful — it reminds me there are more to explore in life.
Needless to say, please present the great contents in a neat way that doesn’t take more than 15 seconds to figure out what this blog is all about . . .
5. Big Bonus Point: You’ve seen the blogger at other parties – I mean, at other blogs. This means the blogger is working on the marketing.
Do you know of other signs to spot a growing blog? Some secrets to success? Whisper me. . .
Further reading: King James is currently writing a series of posts on the art of guest posting. The first post of the series is here.
More reading: The best way to comment is to find the blog you really enjoy and comment for the joy of having conversation with the blog author. Cath Lawson just published a terrific post on this — I could not explain better.
