Trying to figure out why some blogs do better than others even though both blogs provide intriguing content? The reason can be summarized in one word: marketing. If you blog on a regular basis and have high quality content then you have just as much potential for success as all the other blogs. While there are a few other factors contributing to the success of a blog (a valuable niche for example), marketing is the key differentiator. Luckily for you, I stumbled across a great ebook today that helps novice and intermediate bloggers get introduced to blog marketing in a web 2.0 environment. The ebook is called “2007 Authority Black Book: The Best Web 2.0 Resources for Generating Traffic and Winning Customers”. Not exactly the shortest of titles but it will do for being a free ebook.

The Black Book highlights a few key factors critical to the success of a blog. A few of these include:

  • Blogging Platform - In order to have a successful blog, it helps to have a powerful platform to blog from. While many choose blogger or livejournal as a starting point, the author highly recommends using Wordpress. I use wordpress to publish this blog and wouldn’t switch to any other platform.
  • RSS Marketing - While the author doesn’t make many suggestions on how to build your RSS subscriber base besides installing the “What would Seth Godin do” plugin. I haven’t installed this plugin because I think it would probably be annoying to visitors, but hey maybe I’ll give it a try at some point.
  • Social Bookmarking - Jack Humphry (the author) suggests submitting each of your posts to every social bookmarking site. While I’m not too sure about the value of this, it may be worth a shot for getting the buzz going about your site.
  • Video Marketing - This is one of the last marketing methods covered in the ebook. By creating videos and publishing them on sites such as YouTube or Blip.tv you can direct viewers directly to your blog. The only problem I have with this one is that it takes a significant amount of time to create a catch video whereas it takes significantly less time bookmarking and pinging content syndication sites.

Overall the ebook is definitely worth a read, especially since it is free. The bottom line is that blogging takes a significant amount of time with or without marketing. Marketing is necessary though to get your site over the initial hurdles. Once you have reached the “tipping point” for your blog, you are well on your way to success. Good luck!