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My apologies for the 3-week lull between entries. The holidays were here and I was busy being merry! I did, however, recently add a post about what makes a good blog entry that has to do with the content of your blog, rather than the structure and functionality. Anyways, back to business. Here’s tip #11 through 15 for marketing your blog.

For 1-5, click here.

For 6-10, click here.

11. Submit your blog to directories—This will provide more channels for new readers as well as build your credibility.

12. Submit to paid directories—Yahoo, BOTW, bCentral, WOW and JoeAnt are sites with high traffic and are great venues for attracting new readers. Submit to their paid directories with categories for blogs.

13. Build links—You can do this any number of ways, including finding suitable sites to link to you, adding a guest book or newsgroup, requesting links from other sites, etc.

14. Write a press release—Announce your blog to online and offline news sources to raise awareness. Optimize the content of online press releases for search engines to direct traffic to your blog via applicable search terms.

15. Request feedback and reviews—Ask people to talk about you. The best way to do this is to ask for their honest opinion. Reviews will provide links and expand the reach of an old-fashioned marking tool: word-of-mouth.

There’s an ongoing debate amongst web marketers on which is more important—paid search or organic search engine optimization (SEO). Why this debate exists is beyond us, nonetheless, it’s exists. From our standpoint there’s no question that both SEO and paid search engine marketing are [almost] equally important, but, at the same time are appropriate in different situations.

Whether you’re an online goods retailer, local yoga studio or pizza shop, optimizing your web presence is invaluable. After all, who doesn’t want to show up in the first three spots on Google for keywords related to their business (e.g. “pizza in Portland”)? That said, there are situations when it’s just too competitive to get where you need to be organically, which is when paid search engine placement is needed. Here are five situations when we think paid search engine marketing is necessary:

1. Competition in your business category is fierce and organic optimization for certain keywords (e.g.”oil change in Portland,” “Nike shoes” or “tennis racquet”) is just too competitive.
2. Your website is new and you can’t wait for you organic optimization initiatives to kick in. So, you pay for placement until your organic ranking picks up.
3. You’re an online retailer of multiple brands and optimizing for organic search results becomes inefficient. So, you buy keywords related to specific brands and styles.
4. Your other marketing communications (TV, print, etc.) have a call to action. So, you buy keywords related to your communications and the advertised product’s category. This limits the likelihood of competing brands showing up on searches related to your product’s/service’s advertisement.
5. You’re promoting a special sale or promotion that won’t be realized in organic search results.