| The blogging rage is still a fiery flame and there seems to be no end in sight. Blogging remains as one of the best ways to express oneself online and it has also become a highly effective way to promote and market a business. In fact, many online companies have used blogging as a tool to supplement their business site. That is why blog directories like BlogCatalog continue to grow and become an influential force online. So how can you use BlogCatalog to promote your website? Using BlogCatalog If you've used online directories before, you have a pretty good idea of what BlogCatalog is. However, if you haven?t taken advantage of these tools, you might want to learn more about them. BlogCatalog is like the online Yellow Pages, except that all you'll find here is a comprehensive listing of blogs that exist online. Anyone who wishes to look for blogs dealing with a specific topic or subject within a particular industry can use BlogCatalog to perform a quick and simple search. If you want to view blogs that write reviews for gadgets, for example, you can look for them under the appropriate categories in BlogCatalog or perform a search within the site. Can BlogCatalog help? BlogCatalog is currently one of the largest repositories of blog links online. It is also a blog directory with some of the highest rankings around. It is a favorite site for people looking for blogs writing about certain topics. To be able to use BlogCatalog effectively, it is important to determine what it can do and what it can't. First of all, BlogCatalog, like most blog directories, will probably not help you in your search engine optimization efforts. It's a directory and therefore will not contain specific keywords and key phrases found in your website. What you'll find here is your blog's title and link. If you wrote a great blog about gadgets on your recent post, for example, posting your link on BlogCatalog won't attract search engine crawlers. Obtaining PageRank juice is also a bit difficult because BlogCatalog has its own redirect link, which means you won't find any links with a directory site with BlogCatalog's PageRank number (it is currently a PR7). Why use BlogCatalog Although it won't help your search engine optimization efforts much, you'll find BlogCatalog very useful as a community site. BlogCatalog features a few social networking tools that active bloggers will find very valuable in their efforts to strengthen their ties with other bloggers in their industry. If you wish to build strong ties with other bloggers in the community of your choosing, find out about who are blogging about the same topics as you. This is a practical way to meet bloggers and form potentially beneficial relationships. Getting known in BlogCatalog BlogCatalog allows bloggers to build their own profiles in the neighborhood/s or community/ies of their own choice. Their profile page will show these communities, along with other relevant information. What you can expect from using BlogCatalog is pure exposure. This is especially relevant since BlogCatalog is gradually promoting a social networking atmosphere. As we all know, social networking has proven effective as a means to promote and market websites. As of today, there is a small stream of traffic that you can expect from BlogCatalog but this traffic can be used to promote your blog to develop regular readers. From there, your popularity can be built and you can benefit from early bird buzz. |