How to Expand Your Online Presence
The internet is like high school. You walk in, find your circle of friends, and then probably don’t even stop to get to know the people you pass in the hallway everyday, or that one teacher who’s always calling out random funny comments between class changes. Instead, you focus on your group, and its adventures. This same principle seems to apply to businesses and bloggers online. They don’t expand the network of sites that they have in their bookmarks, and go to only a few different sources for information. If you continually rely on your narrow spectrum of the internet as your source of information your content will begin to sound the same as that of the blogs around you.
Expand Your Network
There are millions of blogs, forums, and websites, and you just have to find them. We all know that Google is great for looking up keywords, but why not try something new? Here are a few approaches to finding new blogs, products, and websites:
Random Link Clicking on Niche Blogs
This is probably my favorite method of finding new blogs, forums, or websites. It follows the “random button pressing” way of learning. Simply click on the links in the blogrolls of your favorite blogs, or on the articles that they link to. Even feel free to follow the entrecard advertisements they have. Bloggers link articles for a reason, and sometimes those sights have more to contribute than just a side note.
Follow Comment Links
People often link to their blogs in their blog comments. Why not follow someone who makes an interesting comment? Interesting people make for interesting content and products. The same could go for forum signature links. If you think a member is particularly important or prominent, why not follow through and see what they’re doing on their end of the internet?
Alternative Search Engines
Google is actually not the only search engine online. (Scary, I know) Why not try ask.com, or blogcatalog’s blog search? Heck, even try “search.com” (.org, .net…) and see what you can come up with. Each one has a slightly different algorithm, and you’re sure to uncover at least one new website or product.
Connect With People
Once you find a site that you really like, engage in the community. Don’t spend all of your time marketing your product, but rather, network with people who share a common interest. Build some foundation for a business (or friendly) relationship, and then slowly trade service/site information. This will help you build up a loyal readership or clientele and give you new leads.
There are plenty of opportunities to connect with people through the use of social media such as plurk and twitter and through email. Simply follow one of the methods that best fits your lifestyle, be it:
- commenting regularly
- contributing to the forum
- trading emails
- instant messaging
- twittering and plurking
- trading site “diggs” or “stumbles
By connecting with people, you surround yourself with a steady foundation to launch new experiments, projects, and products on. You also have the ability to spread news about your product updates faster. Consider your network one of the most important aspects of your business.
So what are your thoughts on networking? Do you have any great tips to share about building up your online presence? Do you have any questions about building online business relationships?
Related posts:
DesignNerd
October 29, 2008
This is a great article! Very Interesting and very true.
Thanks for your comment on my site, yeh it would be good if the hex code changed! lol
Corey Freeman
October 29, 2008
@Design Nerd
No problem! Thanks for your comment!
Rajeev Edmonds
November 9, 2008
Aha, thanks for sharing this unique tip. Random clicking on niche blogs is certainly the best way to connect with new bloggers and to expand our online presence.