Wow guys and gals!  We, the students of Dean Holland’s, Starting With Marketing Academy are already on module 5, called, ” World Wide Winners”.  Time just rushes by, doesn’t it?

In this module Dean taught us how to branch out across the internet to start getting some outside exposure for our blogs.  Previously, I mentioned that, “blog hopping” was a way to get people coming to, and commenting on your blog by getting your URL in the comments area of other blogs for other visitors to see and click on. We started blog hopping amongst our own Starting With Marketing group, and now we are going to branch out to other blogs in our same niche.

When you submit a comment the form will ask for your name and URL.

Once you submit, your name becomes a clickable link back to your site or blog.

Dean reminded us that first impressions are everything.  Have you ever been to a blog that looks great, only to find nothing in the comments section?  What most people assume is that the blog is no good, the content must be terrible and they leave without giving the blog a chance.  So what we have done within our Starting With Marketing group is create interest in our blogs by leaving comments for each other, so that people stop, read and realize that our group actually does have interesting things to say.

In module 5 Dean also talked about using forums.  He taught that forums are a great source of free traffic, but you have to use them properly as they can make or break you.  When you interact in forums you have to guard your reputation by following the rules, interacting with others and providing useful information.  Forums are also a place to share your accomplishments with other forum users, this way you build awareness of yourself and your brand.  Just  remember that you should reciprocate when anyone praises you, or helps you out.

Lastly, but by no means least important, is articles.  Articles, which should be about 300 to 500 words long, are basically text written about a specific subject, much like a blog post.  To make articles even more effective, you should consider keywords when composing them.  A great resource to find the right keywords to use is the Google Keyword Tool.  This tool tells you how many times a search was done on Google for a specific word, and it gives you additional ideas for your main keyword.  We will use, “dachshund puppies” as an example.  The screen shot of the results is posted below.

Google provides information about your keyword and gives you additional keyword ideas.

Of course you do want to submit your articles to as many article sites as you can, but it makes sense to only submit to the sites that are worth submitting to, that are actually going to help your cause.  Dean provided a site that reveals the, “Top 50 Article Directories By Traffic & Pagerank”, so this is a resource worth looking at so that you are not wasting your time submitting to article that won’t help your cause.  Incidentally, the top three sites are, ezinearticles.com, ehow.com and articlebase.com, so that will give you a great place to start.

There you have it.  These are some of the techniques that you can use to gain world wide attention to yourself and to your blog.  Remember that reading and studying are important, but taking action is the most important.  Action trumps learning any day of the week.  Make sure that you learn from your mistakes by, “Failing Forward”, because if you don’t, then you are just standing still, so take action on what I have revealed here today and see the results.

All the best,

Ed