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I came across this post “The Top 50 Marketing Blogs To Watch In 2009″ on a site. These are all just blogs, but they made it to the top 50. When you have so many people to follow you why depend on Google adsense, of course they do not. They depend on their own books, they sell their own products or affiliate products and make their luxury out of it. When they can do that why not you and me. I thought it would be a good idea to analyze these blogs one by one and share the psychology behind their acts so that we can grow just the same way they have grown.

First of all, is there any blogger who does not know famous blogs such as Problogger, Seth’s blog and Online Marketing and so on, if not better know them. Only if we make up our minds to follow them, we can learn from them. Once we start learning from them we can grow with them. I am sure the rate of our growth would be even better as it is not just the observation from one blog, it is a collection of top blogs that we are going to observe and therefore it is collective information.

What’s going to make the difference?

We are going to do something which these top bloggers have forgotten to do. They are toppers, therefore I am sure they have all started their works may be 2 – 3 years ago simultaneously. I believe they would have concentrated marketing their own blogs and sure they would have not got enough time to observe others blogs. What we are going to do here is to list out the marketing tactics that are just revealed from these blogs and analyse them.

All right, back to business

Seth Godin’s blog is a sub-domain from typepad. Typepad does not come for free. From the knowledge I have gathered about typepad, the blogging group is for bloggers who are not very technically sound. I really do not question Seth’s tech knowledge, perhaps this is the info from Wiki about typepad. One more thing about typepad that my friend shared with me was it is a site that does not very easily let it’s server slow down.

Coming to the layout, it is a simple 2 column blog with the whereabouts and blog info shared in the first column and the next column is dedicated for posts. Seth is so clever enough here to have a label or a thumbnail or a picture to represent his blog. It is a picture of Seth, a naughty pic where his eye point’s upwards and when you follow his eye it leads to “Click on my head”. One more thing about his picture is he never likes to disclose his identity. He does this to induce more curiosity about him and here he proves him to be a psychologist.

Now focusing on “Click on my head” he has ordered few important things with the “Subscribe” button on the top. He is so conscious about not leaving any reader/ visitor to leave the site without subscribing and that is the importance that he pays in gathering readers. And if someone fails to click on the “Click on my head”, there again he does not lose any visitor as the immediate next application to the blog’s pic right under it is the “Subscription from Feedblitz”. Let us go to “Subscritption from Feedblitz” later.

Right under “Subscription” is “Back to the home page”, here he makes his readers really feel at home. He does not want them to get lost in the blog or struggle to find the page which was lead from any search engine. Then comes his main business – ” Seth’s books”. Oh my God no wonder why he is so famous, he has written 12 bestsellers it seems and that was translated in 33 languages.

If you click on “Check out Seth’s books” you will be redirected to another site. He is making use of “typepad” domain as a tool to market his real blogs. In that case I think what my friend told me about the server specialty from typepad should be true. I checked his site and he has 12 books, all those that he has written. I have not tried any of those, therefore I do not want to take the trouble of commenting on those.

Oh my God he is such a Genius. It is another site altogether with the site describing about him, about his popularity and an easy way to contact him. This site leads to 4 to 5 more sites, therefore it would be appropriate to deal with this site “sethgodin.com” later. Let me allocate an article for this site alone.

Now, back to business. This marketing savvy has given a way again on the site “sethgodin.com” which will redirect the audience to “Seth Godin’s blog” – the typepad blog. Now right under “Check on Seth’s blog” is the archives column. The only way to fascinate readers is to post interesting articles regularly. Looks like he has started this blog by January 2002. He has posted 9 articles by Jan 2002, and in the whole of Feb 2002 just one article. There is no much of trackbacks in his initial stages. He has given out 9 articles this month until now. I do not see a lot of trackbacks, diggs, delicious or anything special. On observation, I find that there are many saves. It is so very normal and the articles gain the same popularity and response as any other young blog.

Now there is something interesting. He has written about 9 posts in November 2009 and there I see a reasonable amount of diggs and trackbacks. Therefore it looks like articles gain popularity based on the age. Looks like it needs time to be allowed to mature and one can expect few digs, saves, facebook marks only after that. Therefore consistency in posting is required for the blog to mature, age and gain popularity in the near and far future since when it is posted.

Right next to the archives you can see two links which leads to Seth Godin in Squidoo and Wiki. He is so focused that he has made use of Squidoo to market his books. In addition, looks like Squidoo is too important for him and there is where he is publicising his articles. Not just to publicise his blog and books there,  to gain a solid respect and due importance he has been posting in Squidoo for more than 2 years. Is not it amazing? Will you believe if I say he is delivering few of ideas(books) for free. Yes, he is doing it for the reason that he allows his readers to get used to his tone, credibility and ideas which will induce the readers to go for more, thereby they will plan and decide to go for another book of his and they do not mind paying for it. There are few of his books that comes for free, just grab them before they are gone.

Coming right under “Click on my head” is the Subscription button that specifies to enter email id. This will be helpful to capture the visitors who fail to open “Click on my head”. There is a short description above it and it is Feedblitz. Feedblitz does not come for free, I have not tried it but to point out Amit Agarwal – the owner of labnol.org also uses this.

Again there is something for you be connected to this blog, rss, bookmark. Then comes his Facebook link and twitter link, look at the way he tries to forge connectivity, I am sure he is not socialising perhaps just creating for visitors, fans and readers a way to lead to his blog through Facebook and Twitter.

Next is the Search button, I do not find any reason for why he has the web search. I am sure he knows that this will distract his audience, I am confused and if you find a logic, kindly let me know. Oh my God, another connection building activity where you can mail him to his gmail, is not that great. He says he is available and to reach him is not very difficult.

Next is nothing interesting, he is again marketing his blogs and each of his blog markets his products. Also, he has not forgotten to show his popularity in Squidoo. Again, this section is for any visitor/reader not to miss all these had he missed to check out “Click on my head”.

When it comes to the concept of making his visitor/reader spend time on his site he has presented them with the archives, recent posts to stay stuck to the site. And again nothing new other than his marketing sites, his products and the subscribe.

Bottomline

1. He is very particular about not missing any of his visitors, that is why ample of “Subcribe” buttons.
2. He is trying to stay connected with his readers, irrespective of whether he responds to their comments/questions he is trying to stay in connection. His twitter, Facebook, Squidoo and Email concept shows it all.
3. His blog revolves around his products and blogs that he uses to market his products.
4. And to keep his blog alive he is consistent in his postings.

Is that not enough for a blog? I don’t think it’s enough, perhaps he guesses that’s what a blog should be made of.

“Thank you for your time & Have a great day”

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