Internet Marketing Blog

Are you using widgets on your blog? Remember the plain old WordPress themes like Kubrick? Today blogs can be much fancier.  WordPress is the industry standard in blogs and can be great for monetization and SEO and it’s quite widget-friendly.

What do widgets do?

Widgets can simply dress up your blog or they can provide function as well. They’re simple to insert and generally you can just paste the code into a text widget and place it where you like.  Many sites offer widgets for you to grab and use.  They can help you put advertising on the site as well as direct your traffic elsewhere. Here are some examples of blog widgets you might consider using:

Twitter or Plurk

These widgets can sit on your site and tell people what you’re doing. You can get the widget from your user settings and it’ll allow your website visitors to read your statuses, click to subscribe or follow your updates as well as let them see others on your friends list.

EzineArticles

Ezinearticles.com has a widget that feeds your articles to your site which can be great for your marketing efforts.

My Favourite Widgets

I’m a bit of a self-professed widget junkie.MyBlogLog has one of my favourite widgets. There are a few to choose from that look great and can show people your various blogs or your activities in social marketing so people can see the sites you Digg or Stumble as well as links for new posts in cyberspace. Wink offers my other favourite options as it also lets people check out a lot of different aspects of your online activity and is customisable so it’ll blend well into just about any template.

Social profile sites often have widgets you can use that can help you with social bookmarking and networking as well as dress your blog for success. There are also functional ones that feed internet marketing ads and other blogs for advertising and link exchanges. What widgets do you use and why?

What are you doing when it comes to promoting your blog? Are you recording every post you make in all the social bookmarking sites you can find? Are you pinging it every time you update it in some way? How about your website – do you link to it and mention it on more than one page?

Who Is Promoting Your Site?

A lot of internet marketers do everything they can to spread the word about their website, but when it comes to promoting their blog things can go slightly awry. Some of them seem to leave the promoting to other people, hoping that every visitor who finds them will tell everyone else and send waves of traffic flowing in their direction.

Real life is not so wonderful of course. You should be promoting your blog by shouting from every rooftop you can find. If you have business cards make sure your blog URL is printed on them. If you fancy the idea of one of those neat metal strips on the outside of your car, boasting your web address and an eye catching quote from your blog, why not splash the cash and get one made up?

Blog Self Promotion - Every Little Bit Helps

Sometimes all it takes to be promoting your blog in a way that will get you noticed is to do it differently from everyone else. Try printing up some slips of paper on your computer with a cryptic message or tantalising question that leaves people wanting to know more. Add your URL and stick those bits of paper wherever you can think of that’s relevant.

If you write about internet marketing, stick a piece of paper in every internet marketing book you can find at your local library. Get creative. Be different. It’s what will get you found when you are actively promoting your blog.

OnlyWire is a great tool for doing social book marking in multiple places with the click of a button. It can be a great time saver which means you’ll do more social marketing with fewer keystrokes. The initial set up is a little bit of effort but well worth it. It was shown to me a few years ago and has had a home on my FireFox browser ever since.

Social bookmarking can get you more traffic. Plain and simple. Placing interesting headlines on sites that information-hungry people browse within hot categories can net you traffic, subscribers and maybe even some sales.

What is OnlyWire?

OnlyWire is a bookmarklet that contains many social bookmarking sites.  Instead of having to visit several sites every time you want to do some bookmarking, you can simply use the toolbar in your browser to bookmark them all at once.  Then, if you have a new website or new blog post you want to share with the world,  you can simply enter the details once.

Setting Up Social Bookmarking Accounts

Several of the tools in the system might be ones you already use but if not, you’ll want to visit all the sites first and create accounts.  Then you’ll need to set up the tool with your username and password for each site.  Sites covered by this bookmarklet include: del.icio.us, Furl, Wink, Blogmemes, Bluedot and others.

Should you do social bookmarking on your blog? Today’s post covers the how and the why? Having a blog of your own is fabulous and can build your SEO on your site as well as sell your wares as a marketer but only if people find it and read it.

Why Use Social Bookmarking?

Today, the web is all about Web 2.0 and the social side of the Internet and that’s one of the reasons blogs can be so effective and profitable. Not only does the way the web works with social bookmarking give you the ability to get more exposure for your blog but it helps you find more relevant websites to link to and to gain knowledge from as well. Web 2.0 tools can be integrated into your site and you can also use them yourself after you’ve created a new blog entry. Here are a few tools you can use and a few tips:

Technorati

Technorati is a blog directory. Once you list your blog, people can find you. The more popular you are, the more potential new visitors you get. Technorati is a robust tool worthy of a full post about it which we’ll explore another day but for today, let’s just say that by using technorati tags in your blog, you can increase your blog visitors based on people who want the information you’re sharing. This is also a great tool for keeping up with blogs you are interested in reading.

Blog Catalog or MyBlogLog

Joining Blog Catalog or MyBlogLog gives you access to another directory of blogs and people can find you in those directories. There are also some great widgets you can display to dress up your blog and by visiting other blogs in your niche, you can display your face on other blogs and entice new visitors.

Digg

Digg is a great tool for getting traffic to specific articles. By logging into the tool and submitting specific articles, you can bring traffic to your site. When you put a digg button on your post, you also get the bonus of letting your blog subscribers or visitors show their appreciation by giving you some social love.

There are dozens and dozens of social tools out there to help you maximize your blog and website’s potential which can help you make more money online.