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Posting On Blogs, Forums, and Groups
Karl Kasca
Posting can be a very effective way of promoting your website. If done the right way, you can generate interest in your site from those who are truly interested in it (in other words, from the best potential prospects for your information, products, or services). - Note: Some of Karl's killer tips on how to search blogs, forums, and groups are included in this article/video as well. Skip to Video- Note: Since there may be more info of interest/use on the page below, you should at least skim it quickly in addition to viewing the Video below. Quick strategyFind a blog, user forum, or discussion group whose readers could be your people and write a helpful comment/post/reply that will inform their readers and also link to your site for more information. Conform to the rules of the social group, as some groups may consider this spam, especially if your post doesn't provide value. Bottom line: Always try to provide value by giving helpful information in your comments/posts and leave information about your site and/or links in a respectful way in accordance with the rules and expectations of the users (or hosters/owners) of the sites.Longer Term StrategyConsider blogs, forums, and groups to be communities of people with their own sets of rules (and ways/norms of functioning). Build relationships with the group by posting comments to their posts and over time they will come to accept and respect you. Over time determine what is accepted by the group and adhere to their code of conduct. If/when acceptable, add your company name, contact info, and/or link to your site so they can find out more info if they've found the comments you've posted to be valuable/helpful (which is the goal).A good rule of thumb is: "Listen" (read) first, then comment. And remember that any subtlety you use in promoting your site is worth more in the long run. Action Steps
Video of How to Find a Blog, Forum, or Discussion Group to Comment OnNote: Please remember that you can "Fast Forward" through the video, just stopping where you need more information.How to Find Blogs and Blog PostsThe easiest way to find blogs or blog posts your people may read is to use Google Blog Search.Just go to Google Blog Search and enter in terms which are related to your website, products, or services. Note: If you want to do a general search in Google Blog Search for a specific phrase, like "russian museums", then be sure to include the quotation marks around the phrase being searched, e.g., "russian museums". If you really want to target related blogs and blog posts you can use these Google Blog searches (with the example being if you wanted to find blogs about Russia): inblogtitle:subject, e.g., inblogtitle:russia - Yields blogs with "Russia" in the title of the blog. intitle:subject, e.g., intitle:russia - Yields blog posts with "Russia" in the title of the blog post. intext:subject, e.g., intext: russia - Yields blog posts with "Russia" anywhere in the text of the blog post. There are many other ways to find blogs and blog posts, but this is probably the easiest/quickest. Also, what you can do is set-up an Alert in Google which will forward the results of your Google Blog Search to your email inbox as frequently as you specify. Note: For more information on this, see the Video below. --> Setting ups Alerts is highly recommended! How to Find Forums and Forum PostsYou can use the Omgili search engine to find forum and forum posts.To find a word/subject in the name of a particular forum use Omgili's Advanced Search and the "words appear in forum name" option. How to Find Groups and Posts to GroupsThe best way is by using Google Groups.Note: If you want to do a general search in Google Groups for a specific phrase, like "russian museums", then be sure to include the quotation marks around the phrase being searched, e.g., "russian museums". You'll notice that searches of Google Groups also provides Forums, so if you want to restrict your search results to just Google Group, you'll need to choose the "Google Groups" option under the search box. If you'd like to search for particular words in the Subject of the Group, then use the Google Groups Advanced Search, and the search box for: Subject: Return only messages where the subject contains. "No Follows"Note: Most people may not need to know this info, but it's here, just in case you do.Last word: Be aware that some sites put "No Follows" on links left in their comments or on their sites. So you may wish to spend your time of sites which do allow "Follows" on their site. For more information on the somewhat controversial practice, see Wikipedia's article on "No Follow". To determine if a page of a site uses "no follows" you can view the page source code (e.g., View > Source in your browser) and see if this code is present: rel="nofollow". Then if you find the code you'll need to decide if you wish to leave a comment or not. Our bottom line our "no follows": If you're making posting on a site a major part of your strategy for getting people to go to your site, it probably doesn't matter if it's follow or no follow as it's the people you're hoping to have visit your site. But if you're also trying to get "Google juice" from links being followed and indexed by the major search engines, you may wish to spend more of your time on sites which do allow follows, rather than "no follows". ARTICLE DATE: 04/28/09 REVISED DATE:
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