Shameless Self Promotion: Write Everywhere and Link Back to Your Site

Does Google know about it?

If you answered "Not many," and "No," then you better get about promoting that site! Publishing on the web is fun and all, but it's kind of pointless and certainly profitless if you have no visitors.

Here's a place for you to get a little extra publicity: NaBloPoMo.

Na-Blo-What-Mo?

It stands for National Blog Posting Month. It's a social network for bloggers - like you - that are looking for some motivation to kick start their blogging efforts. It started as a monthly gimick where members posted something on their blogs every day for a month, and now it's a year-long extravaganza.

As a blogger, the NaBloPoMo mission statement is enough reason for you to head over and join. We all need a little motivation to keep writing - especially if you haven't build up a reader-base yet - and the other members can provide you with that.

There are, however, some fringe benefits that you might be interested in.

Reasons to Join NaBloPoMo.

Join the Blog Roll. Each month, the moderators of NaBloPoMo create a new blog-roll for people that participate in the post-every-day-for-a-month challenge. Join the group, send in an e-mail, and you'll be added to the blog roll.

You're going to turn your nose up at a free backlink? I think not. Check out the December Blogroll and see for yourself. I submitted my site (This Life of Brian), and within a few days it was added to the list.

Get a New Blog. Yes, you've got a blog. But what about a blog to promote your own blog...?

Ok, that does seem kind of silly. I've heard people pitch the idea on forums before. "I'm gonna start a blog, then I'm gonna start another twenty blogs to promote it, and my page rank will go through the roof!"

Probably not so likely. However, your membership to NaBloPoMo (or Ning, really, since NaBloPoMo is a Ning-powered social networking site) does come with a free blog. Used wisely, and sparingly, it can help give your site a bit of extra oomph.

Personally, I post there once a week to look back at the posts I made during the week on my main site. It's aligned with the NaBloPoMo mission - posting on my page every week. It gives me a chance to look at what I wrote, and what topics I focused on for the week. Check out this example to see what I mean.

It also lets me spread a little link love around to all my articles. Some of the posts are destined for archive-oblivion, but this way there will be a link somewhere to remind Google that the outside world does know about that old article.

Profiles and RSS Feeds, Too. To complete the self-promotion triumvirate, enter the Profile page. Like all good social networking sites, you can create a profile for yourself and add a link back to your site. Here's an example profile page to see what I mean.

Your page also displays an RSS feed of your latest posts. More link love to help Google find and enjoy your latest posts.

Use it Wisely, Use it in Moderation

Like most social networking sites, NaBloPoMo isn't going to radically alter your traffic patterns.

However, spending an hour or two a week can have a beneficial affect. You will slowly build up a network of back links to your own articles and your own site, enhancing your visibility in Google.

It's been about a month since I joined NaBloPoMo, and I don't see myself turning back. You shouldn't either.