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Authoring a blog feels a case of "build it and they will come" - how would people discover the blog in the first place, and if they can find the blog, why can't we make them find the core site first?
Leaving comments on blogs feels clandestine, but is it actually normal / acceptable practice (assuming you're constructive and not just spamming.)
The beginner's idea that gets me most curious is "get people to link to you, without linking back".
How? If we see some content-filled site we'd love to get a mention on, how do we make sure we do? Is it through merit, or persuasion, or both? Old-school phone calls, or email, or submitting forms online - or all of the above?
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Hi Ash, I'll address a couple quick points and those threads Larry gave you have great info.
RE BLOG - The reason to blog is search engines love blogs. How do they find you? Good targeted key phrases in your blog post titles. You need to do some KW research and find some important keywords people would use who are interested in your niche, then write blogs about some of those main topics, but include long tail KW so the KW are not as competitive.
For instance if your site is about Persian Cats, you'd research those 2 KW and find longer tail phrases that have lots of people searching for them, but aren't too competitive. I have not researched that market just - making up some examples if that was your niche. Caring for baby Persian Kittens, Persian cats urinary tract infection, Persian Cat pictures, how to make your Persian cat stop scratching the furniture, etc. Then if you can get some fairly good search engine placement, people looking for those topics may find you.
RE COMMENTING ON BLOGS - "Leaving comments on blogs feels clandestine". It’s a really good way to not only get some traffic from those blogs but become part of the community for your niche. Give you a back link. People reading that popular blog, if they like what you have to say, may check out your blog, bookmark, subscribe OR even see a blog you wrote they want to blog about and will send you more visitors.
Key is to make real comments, written for the right reasons, like you said. If you do it just for links, people can see right through it. I don't even approve short comments or lame comments that don't add value to my blog. I think most popular blogs are the same.
"If we see some content-filled site we'd love to get a mention on, how do we make sure we do? Is it through merit, or persuasion, or both?"
I say try to get it through merit. If no one in your niche sees or knows about your blog, they can't link to it though. So you need to use good titles for search engine and comment on good blogs so people get to know and start to follow you.
THE BEST WAY is to link to them 1st. As you find good blog posts in your niche - that very day you can blog about them. I just
did one today can see for example. You don't have to make it so long. A paragraph or two about an interesting article you read today over at the Persian Kitten blog. Write an overview (pretend you are a news reporter commenting on the story) and quote a paragraph (which gives you some spiderfood you didn't need to write).
BE SURE TO ADD A LINK TO THEIR BLOG POST + use a trackback. 1) once they approve the trackback, then you have a new link in the comments of their blog. Helpful for getting backlinks. BUT ALSO the reason to write about it right away, is as
their readers read and comment, they may see
your trackback link and click to see what you have. 2) When the blog owner sees the trackback, he will most likely go to your blog to read what you said about his post.
Then if they like your content may subscribe, then maybe blog about one of your posts and link to you down the road.
All of the above pertain only if you are contributing and adding good content people WANT TO talk about and link to.
There are other strategies for getting blog links such as make a top 10 list of the best tools, blogs or whatever in your industry. Those tops sites you list will come to see what you wrote about them. Others may write about it and say Ash over at XYZ has this great top 10 list. Or do some kind of industry study. Just think, if I was my ideal reader or another blogger in this niche, what could I write that would GRAB people's attention???
IF you can write good enough content and get it found people will link to you without asking. I have people all the time email me saying "thought your readers may be interested in this" blah, blah. Sometimes it is something good, usually it isn't. No matter what it is, it comes off a little desperate and I tend to ignore. I suspect most big bloggers are the same.
I've never asked anyone to link to or post about one of my blog posts except in the case of important info I need to get out to lots of people, like the NY affiliate tax issue for example. I get tons of people linking to my blog and quoting me, just because they like what they read. So it's a NATURAL process, just like face to face networking in many ways. If it starts to seem contrived or like someone is just doing something as a marketing ploy it loses effectiveness.
(scuse any typos, no time to proof and wrote that pretty fast. WHOA no wonder I'm out of time, didn't realize I wrote a book!)
Hope this helps and best of luck!