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There is only so much attention you can get for your blog by playing with keywords and doing article marketing. Top social media websites can drive a significant amount of traffic to your website if you play your cards right. But there are other ways you can go about promoting your blogging business and getting people to pay attention to it. I personally like trying things others are not comfortable doing. Doing things everybody else is doing won’t set a blogger apart in a niche. Trying some of these Guerrilla tactics might:

• call radio shows: this is a tactic not everyone is comfortable with. Most talk radio shows are not too open to the idea of people pushing their website or product on air. But there are ways to get around that. This is fairly risky tactic. You do not want to come off as a troll nor do you want to be overly promotional on air. I have seen many callers pull this tactic of on super popular radio shows in a graceful manner. That’s what bloggers should aim for.
• create top people lists: people love having someone massage their ego. Creating top lists of people who are supposed to be great at something can get you links and the much needed attention your blog deserves. Just make sure you do your research and add people to your lists who deserve to be there.
• wear branded items: if you are serious about your business and value your brand, there is no reason you should not purchase branded items and use them on a daily basis. Wearing a branded cap or t-shirt can help you get the word out about your website without you having to do anything special.
• interview rising stars: this is a tricky one. Many top stars may not have the time to do interviews with you. If you can get interviews with someone overly popular, more power to you. Targeting rising stars is the better way to go as long as you can identify them. Those folks are more likely to do interviews with you without you having to wait a year to do it.
• put your brand all over your car: do you spend a lot of your time on the road driving in your car? Those of you who run your businesses from your car may want to put your brand or website URL on your car. Make sure you use a trackable URL (an alternative URL for your website) to see if this is actually working.
• do something crazy: be creative. Do something that others are not willing to do. Just make sure whatever you do does not damage your brand. I have seen people dance in Apple stores and doing all kinds of crazy things to get attention to their product. Try something new. Something different that others are not brave enough to do. But make sure you don’t burn down your business doing it.

What is your favorite Guerrilla blog marketing tactic?

"Different is great" via duchesssa

Social networking websites such as Twitter can not only help you drive more traffic to your website, they can also show you whether you are doing the right things on your blog. If you have been blogging for quite some time and are still not getting enough action on Twitter and Facebook (retweets or mentions) even after you have called upon your visitors to give you some love, then you are doing something wrong. Thankfully, you can take a look at what other successful bloggers and Twitterers have done and learn from them.

Being involved on Twitter and Facebook can open your eyes to a whole new world of opportunities. All you have to do is figure out what it is that others are doing that’s making them so successful in blogging, tweeting, and on Facebook. I am not suggesting you should just imitate them. But knowing how to get some action in social networking sites never hurts. Here are 5 ways to make sure you blog gets the attention it deserves on Twitter, Facebook and beyond:

1. conduct your surveys & publish reports: if you are getting a lot of traffic to your website on a daily basis, you can conduct your own surveys and publish them on your website for others to take advantage of. Just make sure you approach this in a scientific way and present your information in a professional fashion. Making your report available as a free PDF document can help.
2. create your own infographics: I know. Creating these sounds daunting if you have not done them in the past. Think about it. Practice makes perfect. You’ll learn a lot by doing a few of these. They make great linkbaits and can set you apart from your competitors. Don’t forget that you can always hire someone to do the job for you.
3. make your own cheatsheets: cheatsheets get a ton of action on Twitter, Delicious, and StumbleUpon. Making these is probably easier than infographics but you will have to do your research. You don’t want to create something that is already out there.
4. Put together super lists (user names): a few months ago, I received a ton of retweets for posting an article about top 100 WordPress programmers. People were commenting on my blog thanking me. Some were even wondering why they did not make the list. Let’s just say that article’s performance was magnificent.
5. Aggregate resources: people are hungry to know about all kinds of things. Let’s take marketers. They want to know about search engine optimization, Facebook advertising, podcasting, and much more. Putting together articles that brings everything together as far as those topics are concerned can be very helpful.

Some of the above tactics may look hard on paper. Nobody said making it big in the blogging world was going to be easy. If you are not willing to go out of your comfort zone, someone else will.

Everybody makes mistakes. Some mistakes are small and negligible. Others are huge and can be devastating for your business (see BP). Bloggers make mistakes all the time. Having typos in headlines, getting stories completely wrong, or forgetting to name sources just happen Perfection is a fool’s gold. Not only it’s almost impossible to achieve, it can take away from your business too. Not everyone handles mistakes the same way. Some go crazy and start making drastic changes. Others apologize and beg for forgiveness. Smart bloggers understand the inevitability and focus more on learning from their mistakes to make sure they don’t happen again.

If you have never made a mistake as a blogger, then more power to you. But most bloggers have and will during their careers. Sometimes, you can get away with your mistakes. Some other times, your readers will call you on it. While not all mistakes are equal in magnitude, the last thing you want to do is dwell on your mistakes. Every misstep can be a learning lesson. If you don’t make mistakes, you are not going to learn much anyway.

Here are a few smart ways to handle blogging mistakes:

• How it happened: understanding how you committed your mistake can help you avoid it in the future. You certainly do not want to make a habit of making big mistakes on a consistent basis. Going through this process will help you figure out the next step too.
• Why it keeps happening: sometimes you end up making a mistake over and over again. Assuming that you are going to get it right after a while is not the smartest way to go. Those of you who have a large team may want to look at your team and find out where things broke down. Solo bloggers need to take a look at their processes and find out why they have continued to do things the wrong way.
• Respond to comments: there are many bloggers that do not dare to answer to criticism they receive on their blogs. Maybe they don’t want to be rude or they have no way to defend their actions. If you do not answer the questions that people are asking, it will reflect poorly on your blog and your brand. Taking responsibility for your mistake should not be that hard as long as you take actions to prevent it from happening again.
• Don’t get defensive: whatever you do, do not get defensive. Don’t you just hate bloggers who think the world revolves around them; those who never take responsibility for their mistakes and ban those who criticize them. Being defensive only makes things worse. Beside, if you have made the mistake, it does not do you any good to pretend you were not at fault.
• Run your business: mistakes happen. If BP can continue to operate after committing the biggest mistake one company can ever make, you can too, no matter how big your mistake. Your mistake may be large enough to cripple your blog. Then you’ll have to deal with the consequences. Stopping everything and dwelling on the past is not going to solve anything. Even if your mistake is fatal for your blog, you’ll always have other chances to get it right. It’s not the end of the world.

I am not suggesting that you should just accept your errors and move on. You look at them, learn from them, try to rectify them, and then you move on. Just don’t quit on your business while doing so.

A lot of people can’t handle the thought of losing their search engine rankings overnight, but it could happen. A lot of blogs get flagged for duplicate content and some even become victims of hack attacks or serve downtime. It doesn’t take much to lose your position in the search engine results pages. You can handle a drop in your search engine rankings two ways. You can panic and start going berserk, changing your code, web host, and even your domain, or you can think logically about it. While there are no guarantees that you can get back your original search engine rankings, there are things you should and shouldn’t do when faced with such a dilemma.

How To Handle A Drop in Search Engine Rankings

Here are just a few ways you can go about handling a drop in your rankings:

• Don’t Lose It: I have seen a lot of bloggers who just lose it when faced with a drop in their rankings. Blogging is all about having fun and facing challenges. If you can’t handle the heat, just don’t get in the kitchen. Just because you have dropped a few places in your rankings, doesn’t mean the world has come to an end. Sometimes these changes are temporary. Sometimes they are due to things you have done to your blog. But don’t just lose it and start changing everything. I did that once, and I can tell you changing things drastically more often than not backfires.
• Back to Basics: make sure you check your blog’s structure and SEO basics to figure out what could have gone wrong. Also make sure you keep your web host in check. Maybe they were down when you were not checking. If you haven’t taken time to optimize your blog for search engines, you may want to take time to add titles, address duplicate content issues, and create a sitemap for your blog.
• Identify the Source: my blog disappeared from the SERPs as someone hacked it and added Viagra and other malicious links to my database. It took me a while to realize what had happened, but if you keep yourself up-to-date with the latest hacking tactics, it’s not too hard to identify the source of your problem. Not every issue on your blog can be attributed to hacking, but hacking is a part of life for bloggers. Thanks to great posts such as this you can stay up-to-date.
• Diversify Your Traffic Sources: never put all your eggs in one basket. I don’t care how many people are visiting your blog from Google or Bing. Just make sure you stay involved in the social media and use article marketing, hubs, and other traffic sources to keep bringing people to your blog. That way things will be less stressful if Google drops your blog.
• Try Paid Search: paid search for blogs? I must be crazy, right? In some situations, you may have to rely on paid search to get people to your blog (especially if you have built your empire upon your traffic from Google). StumbleUpon and Facebook ads are not too expensive, and they can get a lot of people to your blog.

The best way to handle a drop in search engine rankings is by staying calm. The world doesn’t end when your rankings drop. More often than not, you can get it back by making minor tweaks. Even if you are hacked, you can always get yourself back to your original position. By losing it, you may make decisions that you will regret in the future. Nobody likes to get slapped by Google. Just take a time-out and try to think of ways you can regain your position in the SERPs. If you haven’t put all your eggs in one basket, you won’t have to stress too much while planning your next moves.