12 July 2007
Outdoor Blog Marketing 101 - Fill The Parking Lot, part 2
Posted by Darrell under: Blogging About The Outdoors .
In my last blog marketing post I discussed the importance of comments. In that article, I compared comments on your blog to the cars parked out in front of a retail store. Seeing other reader’s comments make your site visitors comfortable and secure. And, if you remember, one key to getting comments is to be a good commenter yourself. Kristine and Othmar both left comments on that post with an important suggestion that I missed.
As they both pointed out: replying to comments is also very important. As Othmar states, “A reply to the comments strengthens the bond between reader and writer and makes the reader feel appreciated.” So, don’t forget to reply to the people that leave comments for you. Thanks Othmar and Kristine for this tip!
The reasoning behind my parking lot metaphor is that you don’t want your site visitor to feel like they are alone. You don’t want them to feel like they are the only one visiting your site. If no one else is listening (reading) to what you have to say (write about) then it can’t be too important, right?
Besides comments, what else can make a visitor feel ‘comfortable’ and make them feel like they are part of a large group or community that is collectively benefitting from your outdoor wisdom? One way to do this is to have friends. Take a look at Idaho Fishin Times and pay close attention to the right column. The top of the column is titled BlogBuddies and is followed by a list of ‘buddies’ or friends.
What better way to fill up your parking lot then with your ‘buddies’ or friends? As a visitor, I instantly see that this guy isn’t alone. He’s got a bunch of friends - so I need to see what he has to say. And, then if you look down just past his friends, you see his recent readers and guess what - you are one of them! Wow, there are other people reading this guy’s blog and I’m lucky enough to be part of this community.
You can easily add this ‘community’ to your own blog by downloading it from mybloglog. There are similar ‘communities’ and reader lists on other outdoor blogs. The thing to remember is that they can help make your visitors comfortable by reinforcing that what you have to say is worth reading and that other people are already here reading it.
I need to practice what I preach and add a recent reader list to my own blog in the near future. I hate having an empty parking lot.
4 Comments so far...
Eagle Eyes Says:
12 July 2007 at 11:01 pm.
Thanks a bunch, Darrell, for the kind words about Idaho Fishin’ Times and the link to blog and all my BlogBuddies! I appreciate the posts you have put together to help build better blogs and good fellowship with our outdoor friends. Keep up the great work!
Kristine Shreve Says:
13 July 2007 at 7:23 am.
MyBlogLog is a great program, and I notice you’ve added it to your site. It is nice to see who’s reading and from where they are coming. It’s also enlightening, because I sometimes forget that there are probably readers that aren’t commenting. I saw a statistic somewhere that said that only one out of every 10 or so readers will comment on a regular basis. The stat might be somewhat different than that, but I remember it being a pretty high number of readers that would read but not comment.
BeachBum Says:
13 July 2007 at 10:09 am.
MyBlogLog is an awesome service. That is how I found you. Based on the number in my comminuty I would say the comment to member ratio is more like 1% not 10%.
BeachBum
Kevin Paulson Says:
15 July 2007 at 12:12 am.
Darrell,
Great series you have going here, I hope you continue it with more and more suggestions.
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