I was just talking to a friend who has been blogging for about a year now. Last week, she decided to shut down her original blog and create a new one. The big difference is that this new blog is open only to people she chooses – and she has chosen four. It occurred to me that she needs this blog for personal purposes only and that she does not have to worry about promoting her blog to get more readers. That’s great for her, but for a good number of bloggers out there, blog promotion should be at the top of the list.

If your goal is to make your mark online and get as many readers as you can possibly get, then promoting your blog is important. While you may have that much confidence in your ideas and writing style, it may not be enough to catch the attention of potential followers. After all, there are millions of blogs out there, what are the chances of a person stumbling upon your blog?

How can you promote your blog? Is there a right way to do it?

To be honest with you, I don’t think there is ONE way to do it. However, you can put into practice some activities that will help you market your blog. Let us look at some of the most practical ones that actually get results.

Facebook
If you had written this more than a year ago, the first item on my list probably wouldn’t have been Facebook. However, we all know just how big this social networking site has become, and it is a very effective way of getting the word out that you have a blog that you want everyone to read. You can publish links to your posts on your Facebook status. You can create a page on Facebook for your blog and invite people to become fans. You can even pay for ads if you are willing to.

Comment. Comment. Comment.
Two things: make sure you comment in relevant blogs and that your comments are NOT solely to promote your blog. Commenting in other blogs is a great way to meet new people who might be interested in what you have to say. However, simply leaving a useless comment and putting your blog URL is not acceptable. That’s spamming, period. I have made quite a number of friends over the years through my personal blog; and how did that start? We discovered each other through blog comments.

Blog Communities
Practically every blogger I know wants others to discover his/her blog. I suppose that this desire has brought about the need for blog communities such as MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog where bloggers can come together and promote their blogs. The good thing about these communities is that you can also discover likeminded people with similar blogs. It’s easier to do this as part of a community – with tools already set in place – rather than manually looking for blogs through a search engine.

Forums
Much like leaving comments in other blogs, you can participate in forums focusing on topics related to your blog. While blatant self-promotion is usually not allowed, you can always make mention of your blog when relevant.

The ability to comment on each post is one distinct feature of blogs. Comments provide an additional dimension: interaction. This interaction can be between blogger and reader as well as reader to reader. As such, blog comments play an essential role in the success of a blog.

Let’s look at this role – why are blog comments important? Try visiting some of the most popular blogs in the Web today. Whether you look at blogs with an international scope, or more localized blogs, you will see that the most popular ones have LOTS of comments linked to each post. This is because being able to start or join a “conversation” about a particular topic – that which is contained the blog post, usually – is what makes blogs interesting for people. Even if the comments are not so positive, the fact that your post has created a discussion is enough to make you make your mark.

Another thing that bloggers have to realize is that blog comments can have an impact that extends to beyond the blog itself. Those readers (who are probably bloggers as well) who leave comments in a blog will probably link back to that post in their own blogs. It is easy to see that this can attract new readers to the blog in question.

Now let’s look at some technical issues that you may have to consider when it comes to comments. Blog comments may be presented either chronologically or in a “threaded” manner. The former view simply shows comments based on the time that they were posted while the latter shows comments which are related to each other – just like a thread in a forum. The chronological view is simple – all the reader has to do is to scroll down to see all the comments. However, the threaded view provides the additional advantage of clumping replies together, making the conversation more coherent.

The layout of blog comments may also be tweaked, and the options will depend on the blogging platform that is being used. Comments may be shown in the most straightforward manner – a line by line presentation of information (Commenter’s name, time and date, comment, etc.). Alternatively, comments may be shown in two columns, with the commenter’s details in the left and the main comment in the right. Sometimes, it is possible to use three columns.

The blogger has the option to set restrictions regarding comments. The “loosest” setting is to allow comments from anyone and everyone without any restrictions at all. This may prove to be problematic if spammers start messing with the blog, though. The strictest setting is to have people register before they can leave comments. A happy medium is to allow people to leave comments without having to register but requiring certain information to be inputted. Usually, this is done using “captcha,” or code that is automatically generated, which the commenter has to manually input. Furthermore, the blogger can choose to view comments and approve them first before publishing. This provides more control over what is shown.

The bottom line is this: comments are an integral part of a blog, but the blogger can employ measures to make the most of comments while at the same time make it easy enough for the readers.