Value Investing and Entrepreneurship Blog

After laboring 18-hour days for two months in a row to get your next Google-killer application out the door, nothing is more depressing than watching your site traffic continue to hover around the 8-visitor-per-day line on the day you launch your product. And worse, your mom, your dad, your little brother and sister and your best friend make up the first five visitors. You scratch your head and wonder “What the hell is wrong with everyone? This is bigger than iPhone. I should be worrying about whether my server will hold up with all the traffic I’ll be getting. F#$@!”

It hurts. Believe me, I know. Have you heard of our product IncBaby? Exactly.

Instead of crying over spilled milk, I’ve decided to get my act together and figure out how to market properly. If you are a geek like me, you’d think the word “marketing” is as evil as Microsoft. It reminds us of greed, power and ruthlessness that lead to the corrupt corporate empires. But the sad truth is, to get your product into the hands of your customers, you have to first market your organic, wholesome product to the world.

Marketing does not yield effects overnight. It is a long term commitment. You need to think about marketing every day. Someone once said, “Running a startup is 50% coding and 50% marketing.” Because it takes time to build a following, it is important that you begin marketing way before you plan to launch your product. This way by the time you launch you already have a steady following, thus increasing your chance of a successful launch. Because blogging is the cheapest and one of the most effective form of marketing, this is where I’ll be focusing my discussion.

Before you cringe, marketing your site is really as simple as the five steps listed below. Just add a pinch of creativity and a whole lot of persistence and you will do fine. Without further ado, here are the things I’ve found effective via trial and error:

Step 1: Catchy Title Like This One

This is why you are reading this. The most important thing about blogging to promote your site is to come up with a catchy title for your article. When you do a search in Google for a topic, you first see the big bold blue links. If your article title doesn’t stand out among the ten titles listed on the page, you will lose quite a bit of potential traffic. No matter where your article is going to appear, the title is always the first line that people read. So, make sure your title grabs the attention of the reader within the first few seconds. Erica Douglass, a millionaire entrepreneur, found out that positive headlines do better than negative headlines. Chip and Dan, of the Made to Stick bestseller fame, came up with a simple formula known as SUCCESS to come up with ideas that stick. Some of them can be applied to headlines. Write unexpected headlines. “Google Search Is No Longer The Best” is more likely to garner attention than “Better Search Results with XYZSearch”. Be specific. “Get a Raise By Asking” is not as interesting as “Get a 20% Raise In Three Minutes”.

Step 2: Content, content, content.

A great title must be paired with great content. Great content is content that is useful to your readers. Tell a story. A story is easy to remember and makes good entertainment. Be controversial. A little bit of controversy as long as you can back up your opinions can pique curiosity and challenge the conventional wisdom. Be personal. Don’t be afraid to show who you are. To paraphrase Steve Pavlina, your life experience is unique. So that makes your content unique when you tell a personal story. Create a list. Most popular articles are lists that are insightful. In fact, marketing guru, Seth Godin, lists this as the first item on his list of suggestions to grow your traffic. A list allows the casual reader to quickly scan an article and get the message right away.

Step 3: Make Your Site Viralable.

Now that you have created something of value for the world, it’s time to make sure your site is, what I’d call, “viralable”. A site that is viralable is a site that is capable of being spread easily. The best way to achieve viralability is to add something like an Add / Share This button. An Add / Share This button allows a user to submit your article to popular content aggregators such as Digg, Reddit, Delicious, and StumbleUpon. These aggregators could drive thousands of visitors to your site.

Step 4: Optimize for Search Engine.

A great website is nothing but a great waste if no one could find it. There are a lot of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts out there who charge hundreds to optimize your site for search engines. You don’t need them. If they are so good at SEO, they won’t need to sell you their services. They can get rich selling ads. Just do the basics and you’ll do fine. Use the free Website Grader to guide you. Focus on writing great content for your visitors and the rest will follow. One more word on content… Don’t touch on every topic under the sun. Try to focus on a niche. Be an expert on a narrow topic. For example, if you like to talk about safe, organic cosmetics, then talk about that and nothing more. As you write more, you are building credibility that supports your expertise. You may not be the first in the search results for “cosmetics”, but you are likely going to be the first in “safe cosmetics”.

Step 5: Tell the world.

Great! You have made all the preparations for the finale. It is time to announce to the world the birth of your shiny new website. Here are a few ways to make your entrance:

a) Submit your best articles to related blog carnivals.

Blog carnivals are basically quality link exchanges. The host of a blog carnival gets to choose the best articles from all submissions and list them on his website. Most often the host website has decent traffic, so you get a fair share of the traffic. You can also volunteer to host a carnival as well. Blog carnivals work well for websites just starting out. I’ve tried them with wonderful results.

b) Comment on popular blogs.

Erica Douglass suggested commenting on popular blogs. This is also known as networking in the blogosphere. When you comment on someone’s blog, you can link back to related articles on your blog. You get some decent traffic from this. I’ve tried this with mixed results. So I wouldn’t place too much emphasis on this. But your mileage may vary.

c) Submit guest posts to popular blogs.

Contributing your articles to popular blogs for free is a great way to promote your blog. This is one of my favorite. Remember to include a link back to your blog in the footer of your guest post. Make sure you have some content other than your guest post on your blog first. Otherwise, there’s nothing else for your visitors to come back for.

d) Linkbaiting.

I picked this up from reading Problogger Darren Rowse’s 20 Linkbaiting Techniques. Some of the techniques recommended include writing a controversial piece that challenges the point made by the blogger. I’ve tried this with 150 Stocks - The Secret to Proper Diversification? and found it to be quite effective.

e) Participate in publicity stunts.

Another linkbaiting technique involves hosting a contest. HubSpot recently announced a 50k viral marketing contest offering $100 for published articles and $5k if the article made the Digg front page. To tell you the truth, I submitted a trimmed down version of this article to the HubSpot contest but didn’t get selected. I didn’t care too much about the prize money although winning the 5k wouldn’t be bad at all. I was more interested in the potential traffic I might get from being published on their blog. Anyway, I figured, what the hell, I’m going to write this anyway so I can share my worldly wisdom with the world. Hmm… Now I think about kicking myself when I imagine how I’d miss winning the $5k if this article did make it to Digg front page.

Finally, once you have achieved stardom, never forget your readers. They got you here. Continue to write great articles for your readers to keep them engaged and build loyalty.

By now, you might be thinking, “Gee, all this kinda make sense. I wonder how his blog is doing relative to the sites he mentioned?” Well, I’d tell you “It’s literally off the chart”. But a picture paints a thousand words. So, here’s a snapshot of this site’s traffic as of this writing in relation to sites mentioned above. Enjoy.

How do you market your website?