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Using Blog PR to Promote Your Site
By Adam McFarland of iPrioritize (c) 2006

The recent trend of using the press release to promote an online
business has emerged with good reason – good press costs very
little and can do more for a business than thousands of dollars
of marketing. Most businesses use press distribution services
like PR Web or PRFree to get the word out about their news.
While distribution services certainly can be effective, they
tend to miss out on arguably the most influential group of the
press – bloggers.

Bloggers mold and shape the opinions of their readers, who are
normally the most important in their particular industry, many
of whom are also bloggers. Not long after a post from an
influential blogger, your news has been picked up by several
other bloggers and within days you are all over the blogsphere.
Before you know it your site is getting more attention than it
would if a story ran in the local newspaper! So how do you get
the influential bloggers in your industry to run a story about
your business?

Why Would Anyone Do a Story About Your Business?

Are you a new company? Did you just launch a new product that
they could review? Did your business win an award? Are you a
group of college kids who started a company on savings from your
summer jobs? You get the idea. There needs to be a reason that
someone would want to read about you. Bloggers take pride in
the content they feed their readers. You don't stand a chance
of getting a blogger to write about you if you don't have a
story that their readers will be interested in.

Research Bloggers in Your Industry

More is less when it comes to contacting bloggers. Buy a list
of 1,000 bloggers and send out a generic email to all of them
and you'll likely get no response. But send a small amount of
personalized emails to the appropriate bloggers and you'll be
shocked at how many positive responses you get.

The first step is to make a list of the bloggers that would be
interested in your story. You can generally get a feel for
whether or not a blogger would be interested in your story by
reading a couple of posts and checking out their bio. If
they've done a few similar stories in the past or they are
heavily involved in your industry, there is a good chance
they'll want to hear your story.  If not, leave them off your
list and move on.

The single best method that I have found to research blogs is
the Technorati Blog Directory http://www.technorati.com/blogs/.
You can peruse blogs in your industry in order of "authority" -
how important Technorati thinks a blog is. This is extremely
useful. For example, if you are in the travel industry, you can
view a list of the most influential blogs in the world of
travel.

Another great way to find the right bloggers is to search
through your competitors press sections on their websites to see
what blogs have mentioned them. You can also find out who has
mentioned your competitors by looking at the sites that have
linked to them (type in "links:www.theirsite.com" on Yahoo!).
There's a good chance that if they found your competitors story
interesting, they'll find your story interesting as well.

Compose Your Email

The best way to contact bloggers is by email. The good news is
that most bloggers make themselves easy to access and provide
their email addresses on their blogs. The bad news is that most
people don't know what to do with said email address once they
get it. Use the following outline for your email and you'll see
amazing results:


*   Have a simple subject. You probably won't get many responses
    by treating your email like a press release and writing
    RELEASE in the subject line. Try something simple like
    "fan of your blog" or "comment about your blog." You want to
    make sure they actually read your email and don't mentally
    mark it as SPAM when they see the subject.

*   Start by complementing them. Since you've read their blog
    and learned about them from their bio, you know quite a bit
    about them. Use it to your advantage. Compliment them on
    your favorite post, or how cool it is that they worked for
    XYZ company.

*   Request them to post about you (be direct). In three
    sentences or less, tell them your story, why you think
    it would be of interest to them and their readers, and
    respectfully ask that they write a post about it. Be direct
    and to the point. They will respect that.

*   Offer something in return. You have something that could
    help them. Maybe it's a link back to their blog from your
    personal blog, or maybe you could provide them with a free
    product or service that could help them or their business.
    One way or another, there's something you have to offer them
    in return for the time spent on a post about you.

*   Close with something nice. Thank them for their time and
    wish them luck with their blog and/or business ventures.

Notice that of the five components of the email, only one is
about your story. The rest of the email is spent complimenting
them and offering them something. Your chances of getting a
positive response have just gone through the roof. Every
blogger, no matter how large, likes to hear that people are
enjoying their posts.

Respond Promptly and Respectfully

Not everyone is going to agree to run your story. Some will say
that they don't do that type of thing or that they don't have
time. Since you have been so nice as to compliment them, they
will still usually reply either way. Regardless of the
response, be sure to thank them for their time and wish them
luck with their ventures. You never know when they will
encounter someone who needs your product or service in the
future (remember, they are in your industry) and if they have a
positive image of you and your company they will undoubtedly
give you a good recommendation.

Sit Back and Watch the Traffic Roll In

Over the course of the next few weeks you will see post after
post appear about your business. Be sure to send another thank
you email to the blogger after the post and also be sure to
promptly provide whatever you offered them in return. At this
point you have developed a mutually beneficial relationship with
someone important in your industry that can become invaluable
over time.

That wasn't that hard was it? With a little research and a
carefully crafted email, any business can effectively use blog
PR to drive traffic to their site.
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Adam McFarland owns iPrioritize - simple to-do lists that can be
edited at any time from any place in the world. Email, print,
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