Bloggers Are Your Best Friends

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When trying to drive traffic to your site, bloggers are your best friends. Not only can they drive some great traffic with just a mention on their site, but when they link to you search engines take notice. Right now, nothing beats a good link from a blog.

So how do you get them to mention your site?

Get Their Attention

If you’ve got a great site, this might be all you have to do. Just link to them in some way from your site, and I guarantee you they’ll see it. Most bloggers watch their links like a hawk. In fact, WordPress shows the newest inbound links right on their dashboard. You can also get them to notice you by leaving good comments on their blog. Bloggers love good comments.

Once they notice you, if you’ve got something worth them blogging about your work is done. Most times it’s obviously not that easy, though. You usually have to do something else.

Give Them Something of Value

If you offer a product, this one is easy. Just send them one, no strings attached. Just ask them if they’ll let you know what they think about it. If they like it, they’ll probably blog about it. Be forewarned, though: they’ll also blog about it if they hate it.

If you don’t have a product, what else can you add that’s of value? Inside information? Breaking news? A creative take on a topic? What is it that that blogger will find valuable? ($10,000 works pretty well.)

Appeal to Their Ego

As Labor Nurse said, most bloggers blog at least in part because they want to be read. “Flattery will get you everywhere” definitely applies in this case. Be genuine, though. Most people can tell if you’re just blowing smoke up their nether regions.

Be Controversial

I don’t do this one much, but it’s highly effective. Write something very controversial, and it’s almost guaranteed to get links if it’s any good. Anthropogenic Global Warming is a Fraud is one of my favorite examples of this. I think it would have done much better had it been presented as something other than a contest entry, but you get the idea. Calling people out also works quite well.

Best Friends Image from All Posters.com

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