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Home » The Famous Blog » How to Develop a Reputation for your Blog – A Quick Guide

How to Develop a Reputation for your Blog – A Quick Guide

February 9, 2012 - Last Modified: March 29, 2014 by Pratik Dholakiya

Blog Reputation

Who doesn’t want their blogs to shine? While some do, others are relegated to the dustbin of history. Now, here’s the thing. Your blog definitely needs to be well written for it to succeed but, just a well written blog is not something that is going to help your blog achieve the kind of success that bloggers usually want.

There is much more to blogs than just their content.

What works for a blog is its reputation and this isn’t purely built by delivering engaging and quality content to readers. What actually gets the blog’s popularity soaring is the fact that its reputation is unblemished by any negative feedback.

But this isn’t enough. Yes, to get your blog’s popularity right up to stratospheric levels, you will need to take proactive steps to develop a reputation for your blog and make sure that you are able to maintain this reputation that you have so carefully developed.

So, let’s take a look at how you can develop your blog’s reputation:

Leverage Social Media

Why not use the most popular social phenomenon in recent times for your benefit. You can use platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to market your blog. Any new blog update, just Tweet the link; or share it with your Google+ circle, or paste the link onto your Facebook profile.

By doing this, you are not only promoting your blog, but you are also sowing the seeds for improving its reputation. For e.g. if the followers on Twitter find your content worthwhile, they are going to ‘retweet’ it; your Google+ circles will share it with their circles, the same is the case with Facebook, your fans will share it with people on their network and so on and so forth. You can ask people in your Google+ circles to +1 your post or you can ask your followers on Facebook to press the ‘Like’ button if they like your blog post.

In no time at all, your blog will go viral and so will its reputation.

Another way of using social media is to monitor what people are saying about your blog. It’s important to understand that social media is very much like your neighborhood barber shop. This is the place where you get the latest news, especially news that you can use. You can keep track of all conversations taking place about your blog content and know whether the content is a hit or a miss. If it’s the former, good for you, but if it’s the latter, you can take immediate steps to rectify any mistake that you have made; or you could see to it that you do not repeat your mistake/s in your future posts.

High Quality Content

Now somewhere right at the beginning of my post I have mentioned that content is important, but it’s not the only thing that is important. Now, I am not going back on my statement, but want to dig a little deeper into the importance of content.

A blog is nothing without content. More importantly, it’s nothing without quality content. The keyword here is quality; it stands for interesting, relevant, readable, precise, usable, accurate and factual content.  These are the parameters that define successful content. Your reputation is made or broken on the anvil of your content. It is the foundation of your reputation and as we all know, you need a rock solid foundation before you start building anything.

[box type=”info”]Compromising on content, but using innovative reputation building tricks will only get you so far. If you want a long term innings for your blog, focusing on quality is an absolute must.[/box]

Create a Brand Name and use it everywhere

You need to call your blog something. This can be your domain name or something else. Say the domain name for your blog is www.example.com , but you address yourself as ‘Speak Easy’. Think of which is the name that is going to help your branding efforts. In order to ensure that your brand is unique and has recall value, you need to use a name that not only sounds unique but also feels unique. So, in this case, if you choose to go by ‘Speak Easy’, then this name inherently becomes the personality of your blog.

Your readers are going to remember this name rather than your domain URL.

Whenever you are talking about your blog on any platform on the internet, whether it’s social media or something else, for all purposes, you will need to address it as ‘Speak Easy’. This is your brand. Don’t think of it as your blog. Even if you are putting up a banner advertisement for your blog, don’t use some other name on the banner. This will be your blog’s identity.

You will find that it’s easier to market this identity than your blog as a whole.

There is a very thin line of difference between branding and reputation building. One could call ‘reputation building’ a subset of branding. It cannot exist without branding.

Spread the Word through Forum Participation

A reputation building exercise with respect to your blog is all about spreading the good word about your blog. You have an opportunity to do so by becoming a member of various forums that belong to the same niche as your blog.

This helps you interact with users of the forum, who can be potential readers of your blog. You can share the link to your blog while you participate in discussions on these forums.

Most people who are discussing various topics on such forums are either looking for expert advice or want to share some latest development in the niche with other like minded people. So, it’s important to showcase your expertise in the forum. The equation is very simple, if you are regarded as an expert and have a reputation as problem solver, your blog will be highly regarded as well.

[box type=”info”]Remember, when it comes to forum participation for improving your blog’s reputation, it is how people see you personally that moulds their perception of your blog.[/box]

If they believe you are an expert, they will believe your blog is an expert too.

Never Underestimate Comments

The cardinal sin of blogging is that bloggers tend to ignore all the comments that their blog post attracts.

Agreed, there are comments that are spam and there are other comments that are just posted for the purpose of getting a link; but there are serious commentators who actually are making relevant comments about your post, as well. They either agree with you or don’t or have some doubts that they want solved.

So, you need to be able to filter the wheat from the chaff and reply to the comments that make sense.

If you don’t, you come out looking unprofessional. People might think that you are not really interested in either defending the assertions made on your blog post, or you don’t give much importance to allaying the doubts readers might have regarding your blog post. This is one of the ways that the blog’s reputation can spiral downwards. So, you must never ignore the power of comments to enhance blog reputation.

Email Connections are Important

Overtime you need to develop an email list of people who are most likely to read your blog. Send them emails regarding your blog and the latest posts that you have written. Very often, bloggers ignore the email as a channel, because they think that the email more often than not, will end up in the spam folder of the receiver or they might just delete it without giving it a second glance. The problem with this thinking is that it is founded on a negative assumption.

When it comes to the reputation building of your blog, you must understand that each and every avenue matters and there are plenty of people out there who will open your email. They are willing to give your blog a chance. So don’t miss out on such readers. This is a step towards reputation building because it will help you attract a loyal readership to your blog.

In conclusion

Some of the pointers given above might look like theyare more marketing centric rather than something that will help you build your blogs reputation. And you will be right in thinking along those lines, but the truth is that when you are building the online reputation of your blog, you are marketing it. You want to keep getting as many readers to your blog, so that you can help achieve your predetermined objectives with the help of your blog.

At the end of the day, you can even use the phrases ‘marketing your blog’ and ‘improving its online reputation’ interchangeably. The differences between the two blur if you keep working towards making your blog more popular.

Image © N-Media-Images – Fotolia.com

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Filed Under: Blogging

About Pratik Dholakiya

Follow @DholakiyaPratik

Pratik Dholakiya is the Founder of The 20 Media, a content marketing agency specializing in content & data-driven SEO and PRmention, a digital PR agency. He regularly speaks at various conferences about SEO, Content Marketing, Entrepreneurship, and Digital PR. Pratik has spoken at 80th Annual Conference of Florida Public Relations Association, Accounting & Finance Show, Singapore, NextBigWhat’s UnPluggd, IIT-Bombay, SMX Israel, SEMrush Meetup, MICA, IIT-Roorkee and other major events. As a passionate SEO & content marketer, he shares his thoughts and knowledge in publications like Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, Entrepreneur Magazine, Fast Company, The Next Web, YourStory and Inc42 to name a few.

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{ 56 Responses }

  1. Denise Gabbard says:
    I think often that a blog takes on many of the characteristics of its owner--- at least it seems that way with mine. Thanks for this post--I am glad that it seems I am doing a few things right on my blog -- I respond to every comment and use good quality content. I have not really developed an email list, or participated on forums much, and I can see where those things would be valuable. I do know where to turn if I was ever dinged with negative SEO-- reputation repair .
  2. Ankur says:
    Social Networking sites are a great means to spread info about your site or in fact about any product. Not to forget, content is everything.
  3. Dylan Didiano says:
    Great tips! Thank you very much, I actually enjoyed reading this post.
  4. Jim Luthra says:
    I believe that High quality content is Important, If you have that on your blog then people will most likely respect you. If your blog is good then it will sure help developing reputation.
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Absolutely Jim, I agree!
  5. Morgan Barnhart says:
    We hear a lot of the above advice a lot, but a couple things that you put in there that not a lot of people mention is comments & forums. Comments are huge and I have attracted a lot of comments to my blog simply by leaving a valuable comment that added to the conversation. And forums, some people say they're dead, but they are far from gone! They're a huge resource for people trying to prove their expertise to those who have questions. It may take a lot of time, but after building those relationships and showing that you are a true expert in your field, the payoff is truly worth it. Thanks for your post!
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Hi Morgan, Glad you liked the post and thanks for sharing your story. Yes, some activities seems like not effective but real those help a lot to attract comments and readers to your blog. Forums are never dead, you can call it Gold for insightful interaction with the target audience. Good to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
  6. Earl Dickerson says:
    I think you forgot something, the BLOG REVIEW. This conveys honesty, and shows you listen to what people are saying.Anyway, thanks for sharing.
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Hi Earl, I agree that Blog Review conveys honesty and readers get interaction that you are listening, but i thought that it could be the next part of leveraging your blog through your network. May be when you have something valuable to share and some valuable readers, you can jump into it immediately and that might help sky rocketing your traffic. Thanks for sharing your view. Sincerely, Pratik
  7. Hannah Hamilton says:
    Wow, thank you for making it clear about making my blog more reputable as opposed to making it popular. You can have bad publicity, and it's still publicity right? There is indeed a huge difference. And I know now that the way I work with my blog should be geared towards developing reputation rather than just attracting traffic for the sake of traffic. It kinda makes sense and a good reputation is what will carry through to the long haul.
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Thanks for stopping by and sharing your words Hannah. I hope this guide will be helpful to you to get more visibility for your blog. Yes Indeed, reputation takes place first before traffic. If you'll be successful in earning reputation for your blog and if you can make people rely on you for such great information that you share through your blog then its your biggest success. Traffic will also increase without more efforts..
      • Hannah Hamilton says:
        I agree. Traffic is like a very positive effect and working on a reputable blog is the good, solid cause.
  8. Zach says:
    Beginning bloggers should make the motto Content is king their priority. Connecting through social media or by comments in other blogs does help but you need to have something to show to your new readers. Blind traffic is no assent most of the time.
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      To provide some thing valuable to your new readers is obviously the main and strongest thing. Thanks for stopping by and leaving comment.
  9. Annette Golphin says:
    Consistency in blogging and writing high quality of posts may help to build and develop more your reputation. There are a lot of ways to develop your reputation online and it is all about you on how to use it. Thanks!
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Thanks for sharing your views Annette! I appreciate this.
  10. sai krishna says:
    really very quick and awesome guide mate :) i think brand name and logo will play very important role in reputation management :) nice share
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Thats correct, glad you liked the article! Thanks for stopping by and commenting Sai Krishna!
  11. Pritam Nagrale says:
    Writing useful & high quality contents on your own blog and other blogs through guest posting is the perfect way to get recognition.
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Absolutely Pritam, Sharing your thoughts in a unique way helps getting more attention of readers. Thanks for commenting.
  12. Ricardus says:
    Guest writing is a good way of gaining reputation
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Thats true. Thanks for stopping by and reading the post.
  13. James says:
    Great article, I think that the brand name is the most important factor for better reputation. Use your brand name everywhere and you'll get better results
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Thanks James, Yes, I agree that focus on the Brand helps a lot to improve reputation as well as recognition. People get used to knowing you by your Brand and not by your domain name or your name. I think that more and more focus on branding will be taking further steps in the near future.
  14. Mark says:
    Hi Pratik, I really like how you pointed out hi-lighted making email connections. I have been into SEO for about a year now and it took me a while, but I finally realized that SEO is best utilized as a lead-capture tool. I find it far too volatile to be relied on as a consistent source of traffic, but as a lead generation tool, it is perfect. Great read, friend. Mark :)
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Hi Mark, Good to hear you enjoyed the post. Yes, SEO helps a lot generating quality and potential leads. Also, to be able in receiving consistent traffic on your website/blog you have to optimize it properly and regularly. If you'll skip working on then it may happen that you may loose the consistency in the traffic. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
  15. ryan says:
    I am a newcomer to the world of blogging and must say doing research at the moment on what makes a blog tick is abit daunting,But a task that I feel will push me to sucessed.I am staying away from the social media site ATM as I want to concentrate on throwing out good qualitly posts.Cheers for the heads up on whats to come.
  16. doug_eike says:
    My experience with social media is that it does not push a significant amount of traffic to my site. The traffic I get that way is hard-earned--I have to attract visitors through active posting, and any increase in readership is short-lived. Working the social-media sites is like having a job. If I create quality content, however, the search engines find it, and that has given me traffic on high-visibility articles that lasts for months. Better ways exist to use my time than working the social-media sites. Thanks for the insights!
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      I think generating traffic from Social Media sites has never been as easy as we find it. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to get a good success through Social Media. You have to be active on Twitter, do a lot of tweeting, follow some very strong tweeterers, do a lot of re-tweets, share insightful and great contents with your followers, sometimes you may have to ask for re-tweeting even, get re-tweets from them etc. Once you have a great list of followers then your post will go viral without any doubt if you really have great content to attract readers eyes. (Consider the same points for Facebook, it needs constant sharing and liking) It's very true that working on social media sites is like having a Job, but it's worth. However, your another point has also reached to me. If you'll have quality and thoughtful content then it will definitely attract readers and will help getting you high-visibility and good amount of traffic.
  17. Allie says:
    Pratik, What a great article. Everything is right on. Like many above me, I need to work on being in pertinent forums more and donate some great content there. What I think many people neglect is monitoring what others are saying about you. As your blog grows more and more people will be mentioning you. Set up Google Alerts and pay attention to those pings to your posts. ~Allie
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Hi Allie, I'm glad you liked the piece. Thanks for sharing your input about monitoring what others are saying about you. That's absolutely needed.
  18. Eapen says:
    Hi Pratik, Excellent post ! I loved reading it. You are a great writer. Kudos for that. I strongly believe that not everyone can be a successful blogger. To be really successful as a blogger, one needs to churn out absolutely engaging articles, grammatically sound, easy to read, thoughtful, may be not very unique or informative, but 2 or 3 articles every single day or otherwise a highly unique and immaculately informative one to make one's blog a sweeping success. For those who cannot do either of these, sorry, go look out for other avenues, or else be ready to burn your pocket on expensive ghost writers or have an army of guest bloggers always lined up to do that job for you, day in and day out. Looking out for more of such great posts from you, again, Pratik !
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Thanks for your kind words and support Eapen. I really appreciate it. This gives me inspiration to think more on various topics and write more. I will surely come up with some more great posts for the readers like you. Stay tuned.
  19. bbrian017 says:
    Hi Pratik, the good old leverage social media huh? I totally agree with you, I use social media to drive heavy traffic to my sites, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. The best part is I love it as well. Like you also enjoy commenting. I think it's fun and you get to learn while reading other users content. It's a win win in my books. I'm also very big on forums, in fact I've done a nice guest post here on famous bloggers about forum marketing with over 500 comments. I like your suggestions this is a very good article.
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Hi Brian, I'm glad to hear you liked this article. I really appreciate your comment. Yes definitely, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin are the most powerful websites to drive huge traffic on any blog/website and now Google+ is also helping out to drive traffic. I tried finding your post about forum marketing here But didn't get success :( . Would you mind sharing it? I would love to read that. Thanks, Pratik
      • bbrian017 says:
        Hi Pratik sure this is it here, https://famousbloggers.net/drive-consistent-free-traffic-blog.html I hope you enjoy! Thanks for connecting with me online, maybe we will be lucky enough to see you joining blog engage and submitting your content!
        • Pratik Dholakiya says:
          Sure Brian, Would love to do that!
          • Allie says:
            Brian, I have given up on forums. Maybe it is because I want that immediate gratification like with Twitter or forums just feel so cold. I don't know. But I am glad you shared your post, I may change my mind after reading it. ~Allie
  20. Andreas Pazer says:
    From a business perspective, blogs are as important as any written communication in relation to a business's reputation.
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Well said Andreas, Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
  21. Kimberly Gauthier says:
    Love this post! I've just started focusing on branding and saw and immediate improvement in my stats. And I reply to everyone who comments on my blogs - definitely a great way to build a reputation. Thanks for the tips.
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Glad to hear you enjoyed this post. Let me know if you need any kind of help to improve your stats more.
  22. Abhi Balani says:
    Hey Prateek, It's nice to see you here. Agree with all your points. I think, I'm lacking in forum participation. May be, because of less time for being online. But I'll go in this soon. Very well written article. :D
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Thanks Abhi, I appreciate your comment. Forum participation will really help you to improve your knowledge as well as it'll increase your interaction between the members there and eventually you'll get benefited to gain some relevant traffic on your blog.
  23. Gagan Arora says:
    i think quality content is so important than other to make a reputation blog...........nice share
    • Abhi Balani says:
      Hey Gagan, Yes, quality content is important. But there are lot more things which matters much. You should neglect that. You can have a look to the linked article below for some must have for your blogs.
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      That is a must Gagan, I would say it's a main part of your blog's reputation development. If you will share great content with your readers, you'll be liked by them. The other points are also as much important as quality content is BUT, the content needs to be great :)
  24. Jamie Northrup says:
    Good tips Pratik, and like Dave said, stay clear of automatic software. You need to be real in forums, social media or anywhere else, if you want to have a good reputation that is.
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      That's very true Jamie. Use of automatic software is nothing but a SPAM. Good to hear you liked the tips.
  25. Ryan Biddulph says:
    Hi Pratik, Comments, comments, comments. Such an easy and effective way to drive traffic to your blog, and develop authority. Stuns me that more people don't use this strategy to their advantage, because it's 100% free and takes like 10 to 20 minutes a day, tops, when you do it the right way. Think about it. By simply being mindful and offering your opinion, you can drive a high number of visitors to your blog. The key is to make an impact. If most leave 2 lines, leave 8. Leave something valuable, something readers can digest and use for their benefit. I intend to write a mini guest post with each comment. I like helping, adding value and making an impact wherever I am. It takes mindfulness, and holding your intent at all times, but the nice SEO boost I receive by getting backinks from sites like FB, problogger and copyblogger is certainly worth it. Your other tips are spot on too. Quality content, churn it out. Do not forget to SEO your posts too. Targeted marketing leverages your presence and saves you so much time. No need to promote the stuffing out of your post for hours every day when you top google for a number of keywords in your niche. This is possible, if you write really helpful content which strong SEO and leave great comments on high ranking, relevant blogs. Thanks for sharing your insight Pratik. Ryan
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Hi Ryan, Thanks for sharing your views. Yes, I agree that commenting on popular, high ranking and relevant blogs will help boosting up the traffic and help to improve authority as well. I really liked the part of sharing something valuable and in depth information with readers, that helps even more to drive relevant traffic to your blog. Quality in the content is a must now, so that's the main and most important part to get the right audience. Thanks, Pratik
  26. Dave Lucas says:
    Yes! I enjoyed your article, Pratik! Two more tips: (1) steer clear of any robot or automatic commenting software - you'll get banned by other bloggers and lose any friends you might have had and (2) four letter word - BLOG - just keep typing! BLOG BLOG BLOG and if you write great stuff, great people will recognize it - and you - and your little blog too!
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Both are great tips Dave, yes, continuity in blogging and sharing thoughts with readers helps getting recognition. Glad to hear that you enjoyed the article.
  27. Hung Hong says:
    Using social media is real time to update our contents.I use Facebook, Twitter & Google+ for this
    • Pratik Dholakiya says:
      Thanks for commenting, Social Media really helps to create and share content and to build a community as well.

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