Blogs provide news and commentary one to two days ahead of major media. Those two days can make a big difference in the world of public relations. Blogs build buzz, so after you’ve launched your blog, use these tips to promote and monitor it:
Submit to blog search engines. Beyond the traditional search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, there are search engines and directories that track blogs exclusively and which thousands of people search every day. Submit your blog's URL to these sites for free: http://blogsearchengine.com, http://technorati.com, http://www.daypop.com, http://blogdex.net, http://w.moreover.com, http://www.yahoo.com, and http://popdex.com.
Ping each time a new post is published. The blog search engines offer a system whereby you notify (or “ping”) them, either manually or automatically, each time a new post appears on your blog.
Use trackbacks and tags. Look for the “trackback” link at the bottom of a post, next to the permalink and comments link. Trackbacking notifies a blogger that one of their posts has been featured on another blog. It’s a non-intrusive way of letting a blogger know you are interested in what they have to say. “Tags” are categories and keywords for blog posts. You will often see keywords on the navigation bar of a blog. If you click on one of the keywords, it will show you all of the blogs that are categorized under one of those "tags." If someone finds your blog and wants to read all of the articles on a particular topic or keyword, tags make this very easy.
Include a growing “blogroll.” You’ll see this on the navigation bar of many blogs. It is essentially a list of favorite blogs or related Web sites. This is one of the ways people hop from one blog to the next and help promote each other’s blogs.
Participate on other people’s blogs. Devote a certain amount of your time actively commenting on and linking to blogs that are related to your industry and topic. Focus especially on blogs that get high traffic. And be sure to include your blog address in your email signature so that your blog will reach many new readers who see your post.
Make it easy for readers to subscribe to your blog via RSS. Give lots of options so people can choose the one they prefer.