
Now that I consistently have two readers I feel that I can talk a little about blog promotion. There are a million gazillion blogs out there, and if you are a skeptical/atheist blogger, then the competition is really tough for consistent and dear readers. Of course content is the most important factor and being prolific a close second, but there are also many other things you can do to promote your blog and get the message out.
For the atheist blogosphere there are two blogrolls that you must get on if you want to gain readers. The first one is
Mojoey's Atheist Blogroll. This one is seen on all the main blogs in one form or another. At last count there was aprox.1500, and truthfully, I haven't check it lately, so it might be much more. Richard Dawkins'
Out Campaign also has a blogroll with just as many blogs as Mojoeys. All you have to do is send them a 'line' and when you get accepted, write a post about joining the blogroll. Think about all the blogs (almost all of them) that have one of these two 'rolls' in there sidebar. Just by joining them you (potentially) will be seen by thousands of readers.
Many blogs have there own blogrolls and the process is the same to get on those. The smaller blogs usually just promote a handful of blogs, but it doesn't hurt to ask. All they can do is say no, or not respond (Friendly Atheist, Atheist Revolution, Skepchick..). If they do respond, then cool for you; you just got free advertising. The kindness of Internet atheists is tremendous and so far I've been
blogrolled on Dr. Jim's Thinking Shop and Tea Room, Atheist sites.com,
Redheadedskeptc and
Skeptic Cat (off the top of my head). Skeptic Cat is an Internet sensation and has thousands of hits on the blog. To be on SC's site, or any other blog site, is free advertising and to me personally, I think it is totally cool to be sandwiched between The Redheaded Skeptic and Lagunatic (yum and hellooooo).
Speaking of Skeptic Cat, I'm also on the news feed. So when ever I write a post, it is automatically fed into the sidebar and my newest post is just a click away. On twitter there is the
GlobalAtheist news feed. Doug runs that and if you ask him, you get on the news feed. Everytime you write a post it will be tweeted to his thousands of followers. He also has a blogroll (thanks again Doug).
Social networking sites is another great place to promote your work. I use Facebook and on the 'wall' I put a small amount of content that is not in the post, or a different picture to mix it up and give the reader a little extra something something. I used to blog using myspace, but then I moved to blogger. Now I just post links on myspace to announce the new post, but realize that myspace needs to have an agreement with your host, otherwise the links will not work. Myspace does not allow my links to work but I put them up there anyway so the reader can copy and paste to get to my blog. Twitter is my favorite blog promotion tool. Of course you have to have some kind of following for this avenue to work, but with patience and time you can easily have hundreds of followers, which in turn is hundreds of potential readers. You can follow me @thesexyatheist.
There are two social networking, meet up places that I belong to. Think Atheist and Atheist Nexus. I blogged once at TA and linked to my blog with the hope of attracting readers (Honestly, I very rarely go to either place). But..., everytime you go to a blog, leave a comment in the comment section and if possible, leave you calling card in the form of your URL. Many have the option of leaving your URL so you should leave it. If people like your comment(s), then chances are that they will probably like you blog also. If there is no URL option, then at least comment then people can go to your profile page and if it's set up like mine, then they can go to your blog from there.
In writing whether it is journalism or short stories, the first line is the catcher. For a blog, the name you choose is the catcher. Happy Jihads House of Pancakes, Angie the Anti Theist and Atheist Revolution are great catchy names. If you are scrolling down a blogroll of a thousand or so blogs, naturally the one with the interesting/bizzare/funny or catchy name will make you double check. Of the thousands and thousands of atheist/skeptical blogs, many have atheist or skeptical in the name. But how many are Kriss the Sexy Atheist? See what I mean.
Blogging/writing is fun an should be done for yourself first. If you desire to share your words then there are a couple of things that you can do to promote you site. You can use photo's and video's on your blog or have cool backgrounds and a bunch of stuff in the sidebars, but the most important thing is to have great content. That is what will bring people back. When I started krissthesexyatheist, I knew that I could not "out scholar the scholars", so I decided that my goal was to show the humanity of atheists. You to should find your niche. Like I said earlier, the competition is tough out there, and there is no shortage of blogs to read. These are just a few examples of what I have done and I'm sure that there are many more great ideas out there. If you are having troubles getting readers and followers, then go topless on your avatar. Sex sells. I didn't create that, I just acknowledge it. Good luck to you and don't steal any of my readers.
* One of the results of promoting your work is that it will end up all over the Internet, which is cool. I was googling KTSA and one of my post was
here. Check it out.