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Promoting and Marketing Your Content: Host or Join A Link Party

Welcome to our series on promoting and marketing your own content. Every other week, we’ll debut a new post designed to help you push your blog content to a wider audience like a marketing rock star, and show you how to build a larger and more engaged community of readers along the way.

So far in this series, we have learned different ways to market your blog like using social media, having guest authors and getting interactive. Today we're introducing a fun way to get your blog and content shown to a new audience. We're talking about "Link Parties" or sometimes called "Blog Hops."

A great example of how a link party works is from Typepad blog "Capture The Moment." They include link parties as part of their "Make It Monday" series:

This image is an example of a Link Party with a handmade craft theme where each thumbnail links to a different blogger's craft blog post.

You can host a Link Party around a theme (ie: Preparing for the Holidays) where everyone who participates shares a blog post on that specific topic.  You don't always need a theme. You can keep the Link Party open for everyone to share their blog links, which is what we're doing here today.  Keep reading!

If you want to host a link party, a good way to get the word out is to ask some of your blog friends to co-host it with you.  It's a great way to cross-promote each other's blogs.  There are a lot of linking tools available but InLinkz is one of the most popular and easy to use at www.inlinkz.com.

With an easy setup, InLinkz gives you a code to stick in your blog post using your HTML editor tab (and also share this code with your co-hosts). Whenever a link is added to the "party," the widget will update on every blog sharing the Link Party code. We suggest adding any HTML from a third-party as a final step before publishing. This prevents issues that might occur when switching between the HTML tab and the Rich Text editor.

If you hear about a blog hosting a Link Party or Blog Hop, check it out and see if you can add your blog to it. Now is a good time to start.  We are looking for our Typepad bloggers to share their links with us (and everyone!) so click on the blue "Add your link" button, add your blog URL and don't forget to check out your fellow Typepad bloggers!

An InLinkz Link-up

You can catch up with the rest of our series and check out our previous Promotion and Marketing tips to keep fresh eyes on your blog content.

Featured Blog: Southern Fried French

NAME: Lynn McBride
BLOG: Southern Fried French
TYPEPAD MEMBER SINCE: 2008
WHY YOU'LL LOVE IT: Lynn McBride is a former South Carolinian (and former magazine editor) and current magazine writer. As the the keeper of the castle at Southern Fried French, she writes eloquently about food and life, offering up delectable recipes and witty anecdotes from a charming chateau in France.

FOLLOW: Typepad | Twitter

Typepad On Pinterest: Elephantine

Did you know Typepad is on Pinterest? It's true! We love pinning and repinning great content from Typepad blogs in every genre, and we're always looking for great, inspirational content. Are you on Pinterest? Drop your link in the comments, and don't forget to follow Typepad right here! If you're not on Pinterest yet, check it out - it's a great way to promote your blog and connect with others!

Want some inspiration? Check out our featured pinner, Elephantine

After quiting her 9 to 5 job, Rachel finds herself busier than ever! She manages a handmade jewelry shop by the same name and a kitchen goods store called "Mignon".  On top of that, she's an aspiring novelist sharing her writings on her blog.

FOLLOW: Blog | Pinterest

Want to promote your pinterest account on your Typepad blog? Just go to Blogs > Content and add the Pinterest Widget to your Sidebar via the center menu. While you're there, make your blog posts "pinable" by adding the Pin It button to your post footers.

Want even more? Learn how to promote your blog on Pinterest and follow Typepad at www.pinterest.com/typepad.

Typepad 101: Creating a Landing or Welcome Page

A lot of folks ask us how they can use Typepad to create a more traditional website. One way is to use the Pages feature to create a welcome or landing page. Readers will see this page first when visiting your site and then they can click around to other content.

An example of a Typepad site with a landing page is recent Typepad Services client Darcy Daniels - she uses a Page to welcome folks to her site and direct them to important content.

Darcy's site uses the new Responsive feature for the Theme Builder

This is a really easy way to give your site the look and feel of a traditional website without a lot of extra work.

To create your landing page, simply click on the down arrow on the Compose button and choose New Page. You'll see an editor that's exactly like what you use when creating blog posts.

You can add in anything you wish from there! Here are some suggestions:

Include a welcome message that greets your readers and tells them a little about the site or you, the author. You can include an image of yourself or your business.

Provide direct links to pages or other sites you want to draw to their attention - that could be your "about" page, contact info, social media profiles, or anything else you think is important.

If your site is for a business, be sure to include contact and location information right on the landing page so it's easy to find. You can include it again on a separate page but folks will appreciate if you make that info easily accessible.

If you're using blog posts as part of the site, you'll want to make sure to include a link to that on the landing page and/or in your Navigation Bar so readers can find your blog easily. The URL for the blog posts landing page always looks like:

http://example.typepad.com/blog-folder/blog_index.html

Or if you're using a domain that's mapped to a specific blog:

http://www.yoursite.com/blog_index.html

After your landing/welcome page is ready for the world, just go to Blogs > Posts > Settings and look for the Front Page section. There you can choose to show your new landing page as the main page of the blog and then click Save at the bottom of that page.

That's it! You should see your new page when you visit your site. For even more tips and ideas, check out our Knowledge Base article on creating a landing page.

Do you use a landing or welcome page on your blog? Tell us about it in the comments for this post. We'd love to hear how you're using the Pages feature!

Featured Blog: Bloesem

NAME: Irene Hoofs
BLOG: Bloesem
TYPEPAD MEMBER SINCE: 2006
WHY YOU'LL LOVE IT: Veteran Typepad blogger Irene Hoofs created Bloesem Living as a space where she garners and shares ideas for design, leisurely pursuits, creating soul-soothing interiors, love of the handmade, vintage appreciation, and for the art of traveling. With Bloesem, she has created an online reference and resource for beauty and imagination, repose and relaxation.

FOLLOW: Typepad | Twitter

Promote and Market Your Content: Get Interactive

Welcome to our series on promoting and marketing your own content. Every other week, we’ll debut a new post designed to help you push your blog content to a wider audience like a marketing rock star, and show you how to build a larger and more engaged community of readers along the way.

Running out of ideas what to write about on your blog? There's a source of content you may not have thought about: your own readers. Engaging your readers in the content creation process not only helps you develop fresh new posts for your blog, but they'll likely help you by promoting the posts through their own networks. Not only that, but when your audience is more invested in your blog, they're more likely to remain loyal readers.

We've already talked about guest authors and inviting your readers to submit guest posts is always a great idea. Perhaps they have an experience they'd like to share related to the topics you post about. They may have cooked a recipe you posted or followed your craft tips to create something for their home. Or perhaps they've visited the place you're writing about or used a product or service that you've reviewed (or even that you provide). If you see someone in your comments with a great story to share, why not invite them to write a post for your blog?

Maybe a full guest post requires more time from your readers than they're able to offer. You could instead invite them to submit photos or videos and combine these into one or more posts. Whether they're showing off something they created inspired by your blog or sharing the views at their favorite place to read it, audience-generated photos or videos can make a big impact.

Another option is to run a survey (don't forget to share the poll with your followers on social media). This gives you two posts - one announcing the survey and one talking about the results. Ask their opinions about a hot topic that's come up recently on the blog or invite their views on what you should write about next. If you're ambitious, you could even do a question of the month or the week and make it a regular feature. Be sure to check out our tips on how to add a survey or poll in a post.

Even if you don't directly solicit content from your readers, you may find that your interactions with them, through the comments or on social media, inspire new topics for you to write about. Perhaps a question comes up a lot and you'd like to put your answer where more people can see it. Maybe somebody presented a controversial opinion that you think deserves a full response. Whatever the inspiration, don't be afraid to pull a conversation up out of your comments and feature it in a blog post.

These are just a few suggestions for engaging your audience in the content creation process. Have you created posts through interaction with your readers? Share your experiences or tips in the comments!

Typepad On Pinterest: The Bitten Word

Did you know Typepad is on Pinterest? It's true! We love pinning and repinning great content from Typepad blogs in every genre, and we're always looking for great, inspirational content. Are you on Pinterest? Drop your link in the comments, and don't forget to follow Typepad right here! If you're not on Pinterest yet, check it out - it's a great way to promote your blog and connect with others!

Want some inspiration? Check out our featured pinner, The Bitten Word

Clay and Zach read alot of food magazines.  They use "The Bitten Word" to share one recipe from each issue every month on their blog leaving you a huge index of recipes to try out and images to drool over.  Who's hungry??

FOLLOW: Blog | Pinterest

Want to promote your pinterest account on your Typepad blog? Just go to Blogs > Content and add the Pinterest Widget to your Sidebar via the center menu. While you're there, make your blog posts "pinable" by adding the Pin It button to your post footers.

Want even more? Learn how to promote your blog on Pinterest and follow Typepad at www.pinterest.com/typepad.

Featured Blog: Veritas

NAME: Alice Kim
BLOG: Veritas
TYPEPAD MEMBER SINCE: 2008
WHY YOU'LL LOVE IT: Alice Kim is a menswear designer and owner of Veritas Image Management, a men's image and wardrobe consultancy in NYC. On her blog, she helps men with practical tips on how to improve their appearance, style, and character so that they can start taking charge of their lives. Here, you'll find useful advice and fresh info on all things related to men's image and style, as well as topics on health, products, services, travel, food & drink, and everything in-between, including dating advice from a female perspective!

FOLLOW: Typepad | Twitter

Typepad 101: Responsive Instagram Widget for Responsive Designs

With more responsive designs being readied for release, we want to help you make the best use of your responsive design by pointing out widgets that help your sidebar content to be fluid as well. In this Typepad 101 article, we'll provide information on how to setup and add the Instagram widget Instansive.

Configure the Widget

Below is the general setup of the widget. The first option available to you is to choose whether you would like to pull in photos from your entire Instagram account, or if you would like to crowdsource Instagram images from a specific hashtag. Use a unique hashtag for certain photos in your account? Even better.

Responsive Instagram widget for your Responsive Design

Additional options available for customizing the widget are:

• Type of widget (select from: grid, seen above; slideshown; and columns)
• number of columns and rows
• fade in or out
• preload the images to help with load time
• show the caption from the shared image
• remove photo padding so the images sit closer together in the widget

There are advanced options, which many won't need to use, but they allow you to choose a different widget setup depending on the size of the window/device in which the widget loads.

You can use the slider, positioned on the right side of the example, which allows you to adjust the widget size so that you can see what it will look like at different widths.

Get the Code

When you've configured the widget, you can click Preview to confirm it appears the way you would like it to display on your blog. If it's looking good, click the Get Code button and copy the code provided.

Copy the generated code

Add the Widget

With the code copied, log into your Typepad account and go to the Content screen at Design > Content. Click to add the Embed Your Own HTML module. You'll want to give it a name/label so you remember what it is when making future changes to the Content screen. Paste the code into the HTML portion of the configuration pop-up, then click OK and place the module where you would like to see it displayed before saving your changes.

If you would prefer the widget have a header above it, then you can use a Notes Typelist in place of the Embed Your Own HTML module.

When you're done, load your blog in your preferred browser, or on your mobile or tablet device, to see the widget in action.

Instagram widget live on blog

Do you know of other services that have responsive-friendly widgets? Leave a comment to let us and others know!

Spotlight On: Autumn

Each month, we scout for great blogs in the Typepad Showcase that fit a particular theme and are guaranteed to inspire. This month, we've hand-picked five great Typepad blog posts featuring the best of autumn, from crafts to foliage. The blogs featured here are guaranteed to captivate, inspire, and help you make the most of the season. Click through the photos below to visit each blog, and see why we think they're fantastic.

A Beautiful Mess is cooking up some gorgeous butternut squash pasta:

The Crafty Crow is featuring a fantastic free Halloween printable:

EAB Designs is offering up some sweet looking acorn treats:

messyla is ushering in fall with great little crochet leaves:

And SouleMama is growing a lovely fall garden:

We hope you enjoyed our roundup of fantastic Typepad blogs! Check out more great Typepad blogs right here. We'd love to see your blog in the Typepad Showcase, so go ahead and submit it today - you might just see yourself in the spotlight!