Blog networks may not be all the rage as a term right now, but they seem to be alive and well, and even growing.
Networking is good. You should always push your products, services, and whatnot across your network of sites, blogs, forums etc. The idea is to try and catch that visitor who might be interested in your other work as well, and not just the site s/he’s on. While relevant networking usually works best, sometimes you’ll find that people have very broad ranges of interests, and a diehard chopper fanatic might be in to knitting as well. The beauty of the Internet helps this knitting biker to get his fix within a network, nifty and nice everybody involved.
However, while it is true that people might have interests beyond the niche, you’re still better of to push for neighbouring niches rather than random ones. Chances are, someone interested in PlayStation3 might also be interested in PlayStation Portable, or someone reading a blog on HDTV might want to read about Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. It’s the logical step.
So how should blog networks push their readers across their board?
I think that the Splashpress solution is a sound one, which probably doesn’t come as such a surprise since I’ve been involved in it. Establishing sub-networks within the big network makes for more branding. If you visit The Blog Herald or 901am, you’ll see that they both are included in the same network of mainly news-focused sites. Another sub-network includes podcasting site Audival, and blogosphere snarky commenter Jack of All Blogs – another sub-network with a slightly different focus. [Read more…]
Originally posted on November 14, 2007 @ 2:34 am